Bemoaning low voter turnout is in season, but maybe this season's plague of unused ballots might be the fault of the candidates.

Titillating isn't the first word that comes to mind when folks who actually pay attention to all things politic comment on a state Supreme Court race. And that pretty much holds true with the April 3 contest between Madison attorney Linda Clifford and Washington County Judge Annette Ziegler.

People whose political astuteness comes from the tube, likely know that Ziegler has ethical lapses and that Clifford doesn't look good in black and white while wolves howl in the background. It is a multi-million-dollar contest between conservatives and liberals, but how those ideologies would play out on the court is not something we're hearing from the candidates.

Sure, whiffs of the school choice issue popped into the debate last week but neither candidate is developing a compelling case why voters should put them in the high court for the next ten years. So far there aren't any nuances for the voters to ponder.

We know the Ziegler camp is touting her qualifications for office on the fact that she's a judge in a suburban Milwaukee county. But she has also shown a somewhat devil-may-care regard for the rules of the bench. Last we heard, "gut check" isn't in the judicial ethics code. From the hometown bank to Wal-Mart, the judge failed to disclose she owned and got loans from parties that were appearing in front of her bench.

Then, when Ziegler's office phone records were released without phone numbers, Ziegler hid behind a department bureaucrat for making the decision, instead of offering full disclosure. It appears there may be some personal long-distance dialing by Ziegler (which is against county rules) totaling all of $10.

But the Clifford campaign continues to focus on Ziegler's ethical lapses and not what a court would look like with her on it. In terms of rallying liberals (if that can ever be done), they're still waiting for the pitch to cross the plate.

And the gotcha focus of the media doesn't seem to help.

The two want to replace Jon Wilcox, one of the court's most conservative stalwarts. Wilcox had his own bout of ethical lapses when he ran 10 years ago. His campaign was accused of illegally collaborating with conservative special interest groups, who spent more than $200,000 on his behalf –a big time no-no. He paid $10,000 to help settle the case, his campaign manager paid $15,000 and their co-conspirator paid $30,000-plus.

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Milwaukee ballot highlights are School Board races for a majority of seats. It's liberals versus conservatives here, too, mainly because every union-endorsed candidate is labeled liberal by the media and the non-union candidate is usually sucking off the teat of school voucher and privatization interests.

It's interesting to note that a recent Journal Sentinel endorsement of board incumbents and retreads boasted that they would be the ones to speed up reform. One of their chosen, Jeff Spence, is running for a third term against a weak candidate. If the Journal's idea of speedy reform is from someone who's been in office for eight years and has yet to achieve the illusive reform, they must think the ice age happened over night.

In the race for the citywide School Board seat, Bama Brown-Grice, a Milwaukee Public Schools paraprofessional, is running against Bruce Thompson, a professor at MSOE. Thompson was one of the notorious leaders of the privatization and pro-voucher movement of the board in the late 1990s, but was ousted in 2001 while board president. Perhaps time has vanquished that perception.

Thompson's latest advertising approach stresses that he's against guns and violence in schools, as if his opponent is not. But Brown–Grice is not running what could be termed a stellar campaign. Fundraisers were cancelled without notice and campaign literature sent out with no mention of how to contact the candidate are just some of the gaffes testing her supporters. Hers is a campaign that will demonstrate if the teachers' union can be taken seriously.

The likeliest chance of an incumbent board member losing is in Bay View, where Terry Falk is running for the second time against Joe Dannecker. Falk won a three-way primary against the current School Board president.

The occasional oddball small-town race and school spending referendums are more bait to get voters to the polls. The race for mayor of Cudahy is turning a drive in that burg into a continuous barrage of lawn signs. And voters in Menomonee Falls can recall those halcyon days when the Stars and Bars flew freely while looking at the name of one Jefferson Davis on their ballot–for president. But no betting man is taking odds that the dismal single-digit percentage of voter turnout in the February primary would be toppled by an overwhelming show of bodies this time around.

Candid Cameras: This could bring a whole new reason for the Summerfest smile. In the name of Homeland Security the Summerfest grounds and the Bradley Center area will sport new surveillance cameras. Milwaukee Police are pushing a plan that has the city spending $24,000 and Homeland Security grants pitching in $120,000. If aldermen pony up the cash the cameras "would deter a terrorist attack as well as detect an aggressor who is planning or committing an attack," according the police proposal.
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