Now that Bobby Orr and Jack Nicklaus have endorsed Trump, I began recalibrating my deliberations, but then I remembered that I voted for Biden around a month ago. The horse is out of the barn! If Jay Cutler says he's for Trump, I'll have to look into recalling my ballot.
Seriously, though, having marked a ballot, I’ve got a voting tip for you if, like me, you're a Minnesotan, perhaps especially if you reside in Hennepin County. The whole back side of my ballot was judicial races, mostly for the Hennepin County District Court—lots of them, and if memory serves, not a single one was contested. I can imagine people, after voting on the front side in every race they know about, turning the ballot over, scanning all the unfamiliar names in one-person judicial "races," and deciding that instead of filling in a lot of ovals they'll just turn their ballot in and get the hell out of the crowded polling place. Fine. But there's one race back there that is contested, it's for the State Supreme Court, and it's between the incumbent, Paul Thissen, and a crackpot named Michelle MacDonald. I wrote about MacDonald the last time she was on the ballot. Or maybe it wasn't the last time. She's a perennial candidate: all you need is a law license and the candidate filing fee and you can run for the State Supreme Court.
I highlighted MacDonald's own brushes with Minnesota's criminal statutes and the bizarre scene at our State Fair one year when she was forcibly removed from the Republican party's tent despite being the party's endorsed candidate. How crazy do you have to be for Republicans to notice, though too late, that you're crazy? But I could as well have discussed some of her antics, as a family law attorney, that have attracted the attention of the bar association's Office of Professional Responsibility. You can bone up on her "various acts of professional misconduct" here.
Meanwhile, Thissen, the incumbent, is sober and smart, a mensch in possession of all the recommended qualifications, has the overwhelming support of law groups, and, besides, is a near neighbor of mine: our kids go to the same schools—back when kids went to school—and we have even enriched the same orthodontist. You should vote for him, because he's great and his opponent is a nut.
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