Justice Annette Ziegler

It wasn't even close. Annette Ziegler trounced Linda Clifford.

In this expensive election, running dirty didn't pay.

The icy Clifford's ruthlessness turned off voters.

Madison -- Washington County Circuit Judge Annette Ziegler won a seat Tuesday on the state Supreme Court by a wide margin, besting Madison attorney Linda Clifford in the most expensive high-court race in state history.

With 98% of precincts reporting, Ziegler had 58% of the vote to Clifford's 42%, according to unofficial vote tallies.

Ziegler will replace retiring Justice Jon P. Wilcox on Aug. 1.

The race was expected to be much closer. Some pundits predicted Clifford would win.

Wrong.

..."Today, I think the voters made clear that they reject negative campaigns and that those don't work and that instead they want someone who's a judge and who's practiced criminal law," said Ziegler, 43, a former assistant U.S. attorney.

Ziegler campaigned as someone who would practice judicial restraint, and she highlighted that in her comments to a crowd of more than 100 people at the Old Courthouse Museum in West Bend.

"I will work very hard to be a judge, not a legislator," she said.

I don't know what the results reveal about voters' motivations.

The percents don't tell.

I don't know if it was the negative tone set by Clifford that caused voters to reject her.

I don't know if it was Clifford's total lack of experience as a judge.

I don't know if voters just didn't want another liberal on the Court.

I assume that all of those fators played into Ziegler's victory.

I voted for Ziegler because she's a constructionist. In my opinion, the liberal, ACLU lawyer Clifford would have been a disaster on the Supreme Court. She made no secret of the fact that she intended to be an activist.

...Clifford, 58, told supporters at a Madison tavern that she was disappointed not to have been elected to a position for which she was qualified but said she would continue to focus on issues such as judicial independence.

She decried the escalating cost of judicial elections, estimating later she was outspent 3 to 1 by Ziegler and groups backing her.

"I'm especially, though, disappointed in the fact that judicial elections in our state are now so overwhelmed by money that it appears that the candidate with unlimited funds is surely going to be the victor," she said.

Clifford doesn't know how to lose gracefully.

I'm not surprised.

I wouldn't expect someone who would run such a negative campaign to suddenly become a class act in defeat.

Clifford is bitter that she lost by such a large margin so she's looking for excuses.

She blames money.

She should think again.

The negativity that characterized Clifford's campaign didn't deliver a victory.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Congratulations, Justice Ziegler.