A bad night for the Buchers

Working in tandem, Paul Bucher and Jessica McBride put on a full-court press for Appeals Court candidate Bill Gleisner, a trial lawyer posing as a conservative, whom the Bucher-McBrides seemed to favor mostly because he was running against Lisa Neubauer, who was appointed by Jim Doyle.

May we have the envelope, please?

Results: Neubauer won all 12 counties in the judicial district, and 63 per cent of the vote. Mike Gableman, the conservative's choice for Supreme Court, also won every county and got 62 per cent.

Milwaukee County is not part of the district, but all of the suburban counties are.

Despite saturation rotation of a commercial featuring a Bucher endorsement of Gleisner on right-wing talk radio, and two straight weeks of pro-Gleisner Waukesha Freeman columns by McBride, the dynamic duo couldn't even sell Gleisner in Waukesha County, their home base.

Neubauer won Waukesha County with 54 per cent of the vote while Gableman was carrying the county 2 to 1.

So when everyone's making their "winners and losers" lists, let's not forget this power couple.

McBride Promotes Liberalism

McBride takes up space in Saturday's Waukesha Freeman again, this time in an effort to convince people why they should vote for Bill Gleisner instead of Lisa Neubauer. The gist of her lame argument is that Neubauer is too liberal and has given donations to the people like Jim Doyle and the Clintons.

Unfortunately for McBride, and her hubby, McBride's arguments are a two-edged knife that cuts both ways. In today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Daniel Bice does something McBride hasn't done in a long time, if ever. He does some investigation before writing a column. From Bice's article today:

Not long ago, he was asking Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle to give him the job that went to Neubauer. In the past, Gleisner has given $2,200 to the second-term governor, who is despised by many on the right.

Gleisner has also written checks to two liberal judicial candidates, to the Democratic Party and to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Gleisner has been active in the state and federal associations for trial attorneys, who are supporting his campaign. He has even spoken out in favor of judicial activism.

Now look for his gifts to GOP candidates or conservative political causes. You'll come up empty.

Furthermore, Paul's all-too-frequently-aired commercial plugging for Gleisner points out that Gleisner is pro-life, anti-gun control and pro-voter ID. Now, choice is the law of the land, whether one likes it or not. Likewise, Wisconsin is one of the few states with enough sense not to bow to the NRA. And even U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic has stated that there is no widespread voter fraud, thus no need to disenfranchise and suppress the votes of certain types of citizens.

To promote oneself to stating that these positions are wrong, whether directly or indirectly through Bucher, smacks of judicial activism. That is something that the right is continuously complaining about, or at least they do when the law doesn't favor their wishes.

I'm just glad that McBride isn't backing any of my candidates. I'd hate to have to start second guessing my sanity.

Why The Heck Should Conservatives Vote For Michael Gableman

McBride is truly in prime form. She has created a new post, Election Warp Wisconsin. Apparently, the purpose of this site is to see how many things she can get wrong and how often she can contradict herself.

After writing two posts trying to blow holes in the campaign of Justice Louis Butler, she wrote a post that was supposed to be a skewering of Lisa Neubauer, but does nothing but makes herself look bad. Xoff has already shown some of her factual errors, here and here.

In the same post that Xoff has covered, she has written, in glaring, bright red letters (emphasis mine):

Why in the heck should conservatives vote for Lisa Neubauer? Answer: There's not a single reason to do so. *and that's without counting the fact that Jim Doyle engineered her last-minute appointment after raking in the campaign cash from her over the years

To use that as a rationale for whether to vote for or against any candidate, then I am sure McBride would agree that the same line of reasoning (and I use that term in connection to McBride in the most liberal of terms), would prevent a true conservative from voting for Michael Gableman, who has a cloud of suspicion a mile wide, regarding his methodology of being appointed to the bench.

Don't let the facts get in the way II

Jessica McBride's more than a little challenged when it comes to basic fact checks, as this previous post indicated.

On second reading (I must be a masochist) it turns out there's even another obvious error. McBride, always the teacher, tells her readers:

Note: For those of you who don't remember Lydia Spottswood, she is the liberal who tried to unseat conservative star Paul Ryan.

Actually, when Neubauer was contributing to Spottswood in 1997 and 1998, Ryan was not in Congress. He was a young whippersnapper who, the Journal Sentinel reported, had spent most of his adult life (which wasn't much, at age 28) in DC:

Ryan, 28, comes from an old Janesville family but spent nearly all of his post-college life in Washington, D.C. He worked there as a congressional aide and as a speech writer at Empower America, a think tank founded by Jack Kemp and William Bennett, former cabinet secretaries under President Reagan.

Ryan now works as a part-time marketing consultant for a family excavation business.

So the "conservative star" hadn't quite risen yet, and Spottswood was not "trying to unseat him." The Congressman at the time, "for those of you who don't remember him," was Mark Neumann.

If she were a student in my news writing class, she'd flunk. Or I'd at least make her take a remedial course in how to Google.

Don't let the facts get in the way, Jessica

I never cease to be amazed, although I guess I should get over it. McBride's so-called election blog:

Why in the heck should conservatives vote for Lisa Neubauer? Answer: There's not a single reason to do so. *and that's without counting the fact that Jim Doyle engineered her last-minute appointment after raking in the campaign cash from her over the years...

The Greater Wisconsin Committee, AKA the Bill Christofferson, liberal hatchet committee front group, is part of a new huge TV buy to benefit Neubauer. Chris Micklos, former PR guy for convicted Democrat Chuck Chvala, is part of it too.

Score another one for Gleisner. Now, there are three reasons to vote Gleisner. Abortion, guns, and GWC. Plus, I'm told he'd be tougher on crime than she is.

"I'm told"? Pillow talk from Paul the Bucher? There is certainly no evidence that Gleisner would be "tougher on crime." He's a plaintiff's trial lawyer, for Pete's sake.

Only trouble with her well-presented, carefully-reasoned argument is that the bogeyman, the Greater Wisconsin Committee, isn't doing anything for Lisa Neubauer.

So I guess that leaves two reasons. Why should conservatives support Neubauer? McBride should take it up with one of the state's top Republicans, Michael Grebe, who had more than two.

UPDATE: Another factual error in the same post.

Dislike of Doyle blinds Bucher in judicial race

As they say in the military, there's always that 2 per cent that doesn't get the word.

Case in point: A number of conservative Republicans find themselves supporting -- horrors! -- one of the hated liberal trial lawyers for a District II Appeals Court judgeship in southeastern Wisconsin, while the GOP establishment lines up on the other side.

Why? Because they looked no further than the fact that the other candidate was appointed to the bench by their arch-nemesis, Gov. Jim Doyle.

Doyle appointed Lisa Neubauer in December to fill a vacancy, but she already has to stand for election this spring if she is to keep the job. She's a longtime Foley and Lardner partner, and she and her husband, Jeff -- a former state legislator, Congressional candidate and Democratic state chairman -- have supported many Dems over the years.

But the fact that she is Doyle's appointee seems to have been enough for some conservatives -- including former Waukesha DA and attorney general candidate Paul Bucher -- to come down on the other side. That despite the fact that Neubauer has the support of a list of prominent Republicans longer than your arm.

The guy on the other side, one Bill Gleisner, isn't exactly a conservative. He's been an officer of the Wisconsin Academy of Trial Lawyers, edited their quarterly magazine, and was their Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2005. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- except that he is a poster boy for what the GOP complains about in the legal system.

Gleisner's biggest campaign donors are trial lawyers like Bob Habush, as Dan Bice points out in a Sunday column.

How, then, to explain Bucher, the conservative's conservative, saying this in a radio spot that's been running on Republican talk radio shows in Milwaukee:

Bill has the qualities we all want in a judge. He will be tough on crime. He will enforce the laws as they are written, not as he wants them written. He won’t be an activist judge who will promote his own agenda like far too many judges do today.

Law enforcement officials across the State respect Bill Gleisner for his skill, his knowledge and experience, especially in criminal law. They know he will be the kind of no-nonsense Judge, law enforcement needs and deserves.

With Bill, what you see is what you get. I strongly support Bill because I know he’s not only competent, but more importantly he has the strong conservative values we all want in a Judge.

Bucher and other Repubs who have strayed into the Gleisner camp were rebuked recently by Michael Grebe, one of the state's top Republican honchos, as Jim Rowen reported several days ago:

Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer has emerged as something of a consensus candidate for election to a full term on the Appeals Court, District II.

Among those supporting her candidacy as these co-chairs:

Governor Jim Doyle, who appointed her to the bench in the first place, US Sen. Herb Kohl, (D), Tommy Thompson's former unofficial Deputy Governor, Jim Klauser, and the biggest catch of all - - Attorney Mike Grebe, the former Republican Party's Wisconsin chairman and arguably, with his national connections to the White House, the state's most important Republican...

Grebe calls attention to campaign donations that Gleisner has received from Wisconsin trial lawyers - - a standard target of GOP politicians and major business lobbies - - and also notes Gleisner's contributions to high-profile Democratic and liberal candidates, including Doyle, former 2004 Presidential candidate and US Sen. John Kerry, (D-MA), and former State Supreme Court candidate Linda Clifford.

Grebe says in his letter, released by the Neubauer campaign, that he is airing Gleisner's history because he "neglects to tell Republicans and conservatives" about it when seeking their support.

Good grief! Bucher's supporting someone who gives money to Jim Doyle and Linda Clifford?

Other Repubs who seem to have climbed aboard the wrong campaign train include a couple of our favorite suburban State Senators, Mary Lazich and Alberta Darling, who apparently didn't ask enough questions, either.

But Bucher's the one farthest out on a limb -- on the radio, bucking the powers that be in his own party in support of what clearly looks like a loser.

Afterthought: What do you suppose McBride thinks about her hubby sleeping with the enemy?