Naderized

Here in Arkansas we elect our circuit judges.  Right or wrong (I say wrong), that’s the way it is.  This year we had one judge (Family Court Judge) retire and one new judgeship given us by the legislature due to a population increase in our district.  In Family Court Judge’s position, two capable attorneys ran and the one with more name recognition won.  That’s great.  He’s a nice man and a good attorney with a lot of Family Court experience — I’m sure he’ll be fine.

The OTHER race, however, was one giant clusterf***.  The first person to announce was Hated Former Prosecutor.  HFP is the worst kind of attorney:  very arrogant and always, ALWAYS right.  No one in the legal community wants him to be judge.  NO. ONE.  So a search was made for him an opponent and Very Nice Attorney stepped up to the plate, backed by a bunch of Little Rock money (HFP has pissed off the LR defense bar something awful) and the support of most of the legal community here.  All was right with the world.

Then Other Attorney stepped in.  OA is the attorney for Child Support Enforcement (strike one).  He’s basically unknown in the district (strike two).  And he’s African-American (strike three.)  Now, I know him and he’s a great guy.  The fact that he’s African-American SHOULDN’T make any difference at all, but let’s be real.  This is Arkansas.  Small-town, rural Arkansas.  He could be the freaking’ black Oliver Wendell Holmes and he still wouldn’t win.  Right or wrong (and I say wrong), that’s the way it is.   He was never going to win, even if he’d run against HFP alone.

I told His Honor when OA entered that race that all he was going to do was take votes away from Very Nice Attorney.  And he did.  HFP and VNA are a scant 120 votes apart (VNA got more votes, so there’s that, I guess) and OA got 1000 votes.  One thousand votes that COULD have gone to VNA and this whole mess would’ve been over with today.  But nooooooo, now we have to wait until November.  Sucks to be Naderized.