How a State Supreme Court Election Turned Into a Proxy Battle Against the Forces of Darkness
It was those dark days late last year, shortly after the November election.
I was sitting on the couch, and I just happened to glance toward my phone. There was an incoming call. I didn’t recognize the number.
I answered anyway. It was Susan Crawford.
Yes, it was Susan Crawford calling me, not a robocall but Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford calling little old me.
And yes, the same Susan Crawford who got elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court one month ago in what ended up being the most expensive supreme court election in our nation’s history. Mainly due to the involvement of Elon Musk, our state supreme court election became a huge national story.
I didn’t ask Susan why she was calling me. I figured it was because of campaign donations I made in the last two election cycles as well as the previous SCOWIS election where liberals finally wrested the majority from conservatives.
Mind you, these donations were far from huge though not exactly small.
Still, I was pretty impressed and surprised that a candidate for statewide office was calling me on the phone.
She mainly wanted to introduce herself and talk about why she was running for SCOWIS. We discussed the election and some of the issues. I assume she found me to be well informed. We discussed her opponent, Brad Schimel, and I expressed a not very high opinion of the candidate who I’ve often referred to on social medial as “a crooked small time DA from a corrupt county.”
I told her the story about when he ran for attorney general in 2014 and appeared on a local rightwing talk radio show. He was so badly prepared that the host said, “Surely there will be a primary.” Turns out there wasn’t a primary. Schimel, an obscure DA, got to run unopposed for an open seat, I believe because he kept former Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen out of prison.
She found the story amusing, especially when I told her that I think I may have recorded the interview.
I don’t think Susan actually asked me for a campaign donation. She mainly urged me to get involved with the campaign, stressing the importance of the election, which I knew full well. We fought too hard to flip the SCOWIS to give up after two years.
I replied that I would put in some volunteer time and probably donate some money as well. But I was honest with her. At that time, it was difficult to think about another election, especially one not even six months away.
But the election was on my mind for sure. I made sure to post on social media about it, urging my friends to not sleep on this election.
Susan would call me a second time I think, again urging me to get involved with the campaign. I again said that I would, perhaps this time with a bit more conviction.
I don’t think Brad Schimel was calling small-fry donors like me, not “Knee Pad Brad,” who earned that moniker by talking about strapping on kneepads because of the need to spend a lot of time begging millionaires for money.
As opposed to Susan Crawford who seemingly was building an army of volunteers and small donors.
I made a donation before the end of the year. I made a larger donation six weeks before the election. I pledged to myself that I would phone-bank.
Fast forward a few months. Enter Elon Musk.
Shortly after Tesla filed a lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin over its prohibition of auto manufacturers operating auto dealerships in the state, Musk got personally involved in the election.
First, he Tweeted, “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” The Tweet made reference to SCOWIS overturning a previous ruling that prohibited the use of absentee ballot drop boxes. Oh, the humanity. And by the way, Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are non-partisan.
Then Musk started dumping money into the race. A million. Five million. Ten million. Eventually, Musk poured more than 20 million dollars into a state supreme court election. Not only that, he got personally involved. His PAC hired flunkies for GOTV efforts because the Wisconsin Republic Party doesn’t have much of a ground game, much like many other states due to Giant Baby Man using the RNC as his own personal piggybank.
He literally attempted to buy votes, paying people $100 to sign a petition. And let’s not forget that absurd million dollar raffle, which somehow is always won by party operatives.
Musk was everywhere. On news shows, podcasts, everywhere talking about a state supreme court election as if it was a battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.
He even showed up at rallies here in Wisconsin, looking utterly stupid wearing a Cheesehead hat, an easy target of lampoon for Mike Myers on SNL.
How did a state supreme court election merit attention from SNL?
And of course, Giant Baby Man had to get in the act and endorse Schimel.
Talk about a kiss of death.
When Wisconsin media asked if the election would be a referendum on Musk and Giant Baby Man, my reply was that of Sam Buttrey on Jeopardy!
“Bring it.”
Yes, this was an election about real issues such as a woman’s right to choose, voting rights, gerrymandering. It was an election about maintaining a supreme court that isn’t just a rubber stamp for a rightwing legislature. It was a battle between a partisan hack and a longtime public servant. Susan Crawford absolutely was a strong candidate. Schimel was an awful candidate.
However, Giant Baby Man has done more to flip Wisconsin away from red domination than anyone.
And I don’t think there’s a more hated person in the United States than Musk.
Certainly there’s no one more Backpfeifengesicht.
So, yes, bring it.
In the end, it wasn’t even close, not even with all that money that Musk dumped into the race. I had been worried. I thought it might be close. I thought the money would make a difference though I tried to console myself with knowing that there was plenty of money on both sides.
It was a stomping. Susan won by 10 percentage points. The race was called less than two hours after the polls closed, though I knew it was over a while before that just based on what the early returns looked like.
So what happened?
First, there’s Musk. He’s obnoxious enough as it is. Seeing that mug everywhere didn’t help Schimel. And there was certainly the clear appearance that Musk was looking to buy a supreme court merely for his own self-interest. There’s not just the lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin, but also last November a Tesla struck a tree just outside Madison. The vehicle caught on fire. All five occupants were trapped inside the vehicle and died.
On top of his unpleasant countenance, there’s the issue of Musk and DOGE running a slash and burn operation on our government, attacking institutions that provide invaluable services all over the world. It is clear to regular people that this richest person in the world doesn’t give a crap about anyone other than himself and doesn’t have the slightest concept of the importance of the services that our government provides.
And then Giant Baby Man. A cult of personality only goes so far when one is asked to vote for a candidate favored by the person at the center of the cult. Voting for poor candidates favored by Dear Leader will not be persuasive for a lot of people especially given the fact that eggs have not dropped in price, inflation is rising and these tariffs will only make everything more expensive.
People see what Giant Baby Man is doing, and they don’t like it. Presidential approval ratings generally tend to drop, but his is falling like a stone, falling faster than it did during his first term.
Why was this election so important?
Again, Musk was motivated by self-interest, but I think it went deeper. He saw how he was able to buy the presidential election, so he figured he could buy any election anywhere in the world. Thus, is it was pleasurable to see his arrogance take a hit.
Same with Giant Baby Man. This election shouldn’t mean anything to him, but it did maybe because he sees every election as a referendum on him.
That is why it was such a sweet victory.
It gives us hope.
I know what I was feeling when Susan Crawford called me the first time. I was like, yes, I know this is important, but I just can’t deal with it right now.
But in the end, I donated $1500 to her campaign. More importantly, I phone-banked somewhere around 20 hours. Those last couple weeks, I pretty much was on the phones every weekday after work.
Phone-banking was an amazing experience especially because the phone-bank was always combined with a Zoom room, which allowed interaction and included a post-shift debrief. It was inspiring to see volunteers from all over the country take part in Wisconsin’s fight because they knew it was important.
It’s easy to feel hopeless given all that is going on. They’re slashing our government services, crashing the economy, deporting people who are legally permitted to be here without due process. The courts step in, and Giant Baby Man keeps pulling this crap.
It’s some dark stuff going on, fascist, authoritarian, fundamentally undemocratic.
But we had an election that inspired a nation. We showed that we can fight Giant Baby Man. We can fight Musk and all that money. We can fight, and we can win. Wisconsin is the better for it from a practical standpoint, but the nation is the better for it as well because of the example this election set, for demonstrating that some semblance of democracy still exists.
Susan Crawford called me because in a small way, she believed in me. And in the end, in a very big way, I believed in her.
* * *
I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about how SCOWIS elections have gotten so absurdly expensive.
These elections didn’t used to be this way. They were generally pretty quiet, if not sleepy affairs. That is until the rightwing pro-business lobbying organization Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce got involved in supreme court elections.
WMC bankrolled campaigns in 2006 and 2008. The latter ended up in the defeat of a sitting justice because WMC didn’t like a decision he wrote regarding lead paint. This was the beginning of a long run of victories for conservative candidates who mainly upheld whatever Scott Walker and the rightwing legislature did. In all, conservatives held a majority on the court for around 15 years.
Then came Citizen’s United. After that, the legislature passed laws that significantly increased the maximum campaign donations for individual, removed disclosure requirements for PAC donations and eliminated any ceiling on how much state political parties can donate to individual campaigns.
Finally, the Wisconsin Democratic Party decided to stop bringing knives to gunfights.
It is amusing hearing Republicans whine given that the Dems are playing by the same rules based on laws the Republicans passed.
And yes, George Soros did donate $2 million to the WisDems, which then was donated to Susan Crawford’s campaign.
Ah, but the clutching of pearls by the Republicans over Soros, some even saying they found Soros’s donations more concerning than Musk’s. First, this singling out of Soros is a pretty blatant Anti-Semitic dog whistle. This whataboutism is just typical Republican false moral equivalency.
Besides, if you do a web search for Soros, the word that always pops up is “philanthropist.”
You won’t find that word anywhere if you Google Musk.
Wisconsin does need serious campaign finance reform. And I am certain that Soros would agree.
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