Earlier this month, your faithful Peasant commented on the
lamentable defeat Wisconsin conservatives suffered when
conservative judge and former Wisconsin Supreme Court
Justice Dan Kelly was defeated for a seat on this court by
a very left-wing jurist Janet Protasiewicz in an election
which should have been winnable for us. In addition to
a plethora of campaign contributions from out-of-state
wealthy lefties, Judge Kelly not battling Judge Protasiewicz
nearly as hard as he did Judge Jennifer Dorow in the primary
of the state supreme court election, and--- quite frankly ---
not going out of state to wealthy conservative donors for
some campaign cash, or if he did, either Team Kelly didn't
go to very many such political donors or however many
they contacted just didn't have the money to send, at least
not in the amounts Team Kelly needed to effectively combat
Team Protasiewicz and their astronomical donations from
their wealthy political allies from the east and west.
The attacks made on Judge Dorow used up a lot of monetary
capital, so Kelly had even less money in his campaign coffers
for the final round of the election against the vastly better
funded Protasiewicz, putting him in even more dire straits
than he otherwise would have been; it was a bad situation
gone worse. It reminded me of the U.S. Senate race here
in Wisconsin a few years earlier which pitted then-U.S. Rep.
Tammy Baldwin (D) against former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R)
for the U.S. Senate seat which Sen. Herb Kohl was retiring from.
The Republican side of the primary was a veritable battle royal
between Thompson and the other contestants for the GOP nod,
with each candidate and their campaign team trying to outspend
the others in trying to build themselves up by tearing the others
down. When Gov. Thompson won the bitterly fought primary
he went into the general election with a depleted war chest
while Baldwin kept her powder dry, so to speak, just hanging
back to see who would win the GOP laurels while she won
those of her Democrat Party. Come the last leg of campaigning,
she had more than ample cash to advance her candidacy while
poor ol' Tommy (no pun but an apt assessment!) could not
adequately fire back nor market his own record as governor
and how he benefitted Wisconsinites with his programs and
policies. The inevitable happened, and Baldwin won her first term
as a senator from The Badger State. The inevitable made a return
visit in the supreme court race with Judge Protasiewicz winning
handily against Judge Kelly. All because GOP candidates were
too preoccupied with besting their party adversaries and as a
consequently had little left for the Democrat opponent.
Also, who can tell who among fellow conservative voters did not
show up to vote in the general election just because their favorite
lost in the primaries in these elections and/or disliked the nominees
from the Republican Party. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot,
no, in BOTH feet! If we cannot come together to make a unified
stand against the Dem's progressives at election time, then we cannot
save our state from their radical, socialistic plans and schemes.
And they will not have beaten us, for we will have beaten ourselves.
Besides, don't we Republicans and conservatives have more that we
agree on than we have with the Democrats?
Finally, can we agree that while we conservatives must get rid of
abortion, we must get whatever we can for support from the voters,
many of whom are not supporters of abortion but want to keep it
around for unique and extreme circumstances, i.e. rape, incest,
and endangerment to the life of the mother (although each of these
cases are statistically rare). Opinion polls in Wisconsin, as elsewhere,
show a decided opposition to abortion, but with these rare exceptions
among the electorate. Independents are certainly numerous among
them but we will lose them if we come out with an "all or nothing"
approach on the subject. We can only eliminate abortion piecemeal;
we made a big stride in that direction with the help of the Supreme
Court of the United States but let's remember that in eliminating
Roe vs. Wade that the question of the legality of abortion was simply
given back to the states, where it originally was until Roe removed the
states from their ability to decide it individually; it did not get rid of
legalized abortion. And many otherwise pro-life voters do have their
exceptions re: abortion and are not therefore ready to jettison abortion
altogether. The best way to eat a gigantic feast is, rather than try to eat
it all at once, just eat individual helpings --- just a modest amount of
food at a time. Ultimately, you'll have finished the feast.
And let's save our fighting for our Democrat foes in the elections
to come, rather than shoot each other in the circular firing squad that
many Republicans and conservatives all too often engage in!
MEM
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