It looks like the liberal-backed candidate, JoAnne Kloppenberg, appears to have defeated conservative David Prosser in the Wisconsin judicial election that was seen as a gauge of public dissatisfaction with Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Kloppenburg appears to have won by a really, really slim margin of a few hundred votes at best. It's hard to say who the big winner is here -- Kloppenberg was a huge long shot prior to the union protests, but conservatives still made it closer than it should have been given how fired up the left was.
I just want to co-sign Jamelle Bouie's reminder that judicial elections suck. It's impossible to have a truly impartial judiciary, but the appointment process at least insulates judges from future direct political pressure from constituents and from the party that nominated them. Judicial elections force judges to think like legislators instead of judges and to tailor their approach to the law to the people who donate to their campaigns and the voters who keep them in office. The whole "independent judiciary" thing goes from a helpful if unrealistic standard to a punchline.
