Breaking: Kloppenburg concedes

Hotair ^ | 05/31/2011 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

JoAnn Kloppenburg finally conceded the Wisconsin Supreme Court race this morning, announcing that she had called incumbent Justice David Prosser to congratulate him on his win. She had until today to file a challenge to the recount, which gained her 312 votes but still left her slightly over 7,000 votes behind Prosser in the hotly-contested election:

Candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg has accepted the results of the recount in her state Supreme Court race and conceded to incumbent Justice David Prosser.

Prosser originally won the election by 7,316 votes, out of 1.5 million cast. Kloppenburg requested a statewide recount through, which she picked up 312 votes.

She had until Tuesday to decide whether to challenge the results in court.Prosser’s campaign has said there’s no basis for a challenge and it’s time to move on.

The news conference is still ongoing, although the TMJ4 live stream provided by the Journal-Sentinel has the sound turned off. Stay tuned for more …

Update: Again, I missed her statement, but 620TMJ has a couple of quotes:

Kloppenburg asked for a statewide recount after preliminary figures had her losing to Prosser.

“Wisconsin law makes it clear that even when such a record has been developed in such a recount, the threshold for a court to overturn such an election is appropriately very high,” said Kloppenburg.

“It would serve no purpose to bring a suit with insufficient legal basis.”

Why not? The recount had insufficient common-sense basis, and Kloppenburg didn’t hesitate to spend taxpayer money on a fruitless attempt to reverse a 7316-vote deficit. Maybe it would serve no purpose because Kloppenburg would foot the bill in an election challenge — and because she might want to run for office again in a state that would get pretty angry over a nonsensical challenge to a 7000-vote margin loss.

[bigbob]

her support just sagged...

[Free Vulcan]

I’m as surprised as you. I really thought they’d tie the rope around their neck.

[chris_bdba]

It’s too bad that the voters can’t send her a bill for all she has cost the state in this pointless pursuit.

[DonkeyBonker]

Ding dong, the witch is dead.

[chris_bdba]

She must’ve had an advisor who told her that if she ever wanted to run for any other position again she’d better stop before she burned every bridge she had left....

[fwdude]

...the left has shown time and time again that when they do something that appears "sane", there is something sinister behind it. Always watch what the other hand is doing.

Agreed. WI Republicans should now be scrutinizing every single signature on the recall petitions for legitimacy. THAT is where the Democommies' energies will now be directed.

[so_real]

Simple, she was looking at having to foot the legal bill personally. The union support money is shriveling because they are swatting at fires all over the nation. That's the thing about liberals ... they feel most comfortable spending other's money. Once their own checking account comes into play, their tunes change quickly.

[longtermmemmory]

hmmm the unions must think the lower court decision will stand.

[smoothsailing]

Good news but I’m surprised, thought she would resist until the last dog was dead.

Best guess, the union money dried up.

[Shady]

Good. She made the right decision.

[apillar]

Her “victory” speech the morning after the election when the unofficial tally had her up only 200 votes and no official tally had been released, in which she “gracefully” thanked Prosser for his service and wished him well in his future endeavors, will live in political infamy, way up there with that newspaper that reported “Dewey defeats Truman”

[ComputerGuy]

I’m thinkin’ a certain county judge might be in for a beotch slap.

[Carley]

The need the money to spend in stealing future elections.

[Mygirlsmom]

I saw the headlne on 620wtmj.com, refreshed and BOOM! - gone and replaced by stories of the GAB approving a ton of recall petitions against Republicans.

This must have polled VERY badly for the Dems and they needed to get rid of that problem asap. On to another strategy - retake the State Senate and recall Walker; Kloppenberg who????

Do not be lulled into complacency, fellow Cheeseheads!!!!

[jazusamo]

Best guess, the union money dried up.

I'd bet your guess is dead on the money.

Can you imagine just how ticked the union thug leaders must be after spending big bucks, losing political capital and still coming up short? LOL!

[Emperor Palpatine]

[Outlaw Woman]

*snicker*

[grumpygresh]

This does prevent the nightmare scenario of a delay in Prossor’s seating resulting in an impotent 3-3 supreme court with all the major legislative court challenges being decided in the uber Left Dane Co. appellate court.
Now the supreme court has to take up and uphold the budget repair bill ASAP.

[fwdude]

The need the money to spend in stealing future elections.

Thankfully, a voter I.D. law was passed to further hinder the Democommies' attempts at election fraud.

[Gen-X-Dad]

The Republicans need to learn from the success of this election. When they are up against a Democratic machine that likes to finds ballots at the last moment that just exceed the number they need to win, it is important to be slow in letting them figure out what that number is until the last moment.