Remember Matt Luby, former Stranger news intern and author of the famous Slog post, "Why The Stranger Is Wrong About Everything"?

Well, he recently wrote to tell me that The Stranger continues to be wrong about everything, including our take on the results of the Washington State Supreme Court race between Bruce Danielson and Steve Gonzalez. That race was decided in the August 7 primary and saw Danielson getting around 40 percent of the vote statewide, even though he had raised no money, hadn't campaigned, and, according to his own county's bar association, had "zero qualifications to be on the bench."

Luby doesn't agree with my statement that "a serious amount of prejudice in the electorate" is the only way to explain this result. Here, posted with his permission, is Luby's take:

I have to disagree with your coverage of this judicial race... Are there probably a lot of people who picked Danielson because he has a WASPy name? Are there probably a lot of racist idiots in our midst? Yes, I don't dispute that. But that's not to say there aren't extremely compelling reasons for picking Danielson; I did.

One of your main contentions seems to be that Gonzalez is more "qualified." Who defines qualifications? Is it just a matter of which candidate gets more endorsements? Or which candidate has degrees from better schools? I think there is a real argument to be made about qualifications when you have someone like Sarah Palin whose ascendancy was in large part fueled by the fact that every time she was criticized for being an illiterate hayseed, it only increased her appeal for the average Joes who feel like they are called illiterate hayseeds every day by the media. Sarah Palin is a demonstrably stupid person. It's not clear from any of the reporting I've read that Danielson is anything close to Palin, nor would he ever be one botched operation away from the nuclear football.

For me, the qualifications that mattered were the judicial philosophies the candidates described in their profiles. Danielson explicitly mentioned his belief in the Constitution as an unchanging lodestone of jurisprudence numerous times. Gonzalez didn't mention anything, just that he prosecuted some terrorism cases (wonder if there was any entrapment involved?) and then went on this mindless argumentum ad populum binge about all of his endorsements.

Doesn't it make you think Mitt Romney is a hack when he intentionally obscures his beliefs because he knows they are unpopular? By the same token, doesn't it make you wonder what Gonzalez is hiding, too?

If you don't think this kind of thing matters, think back to the John Roberts nomination hearings. Roberts described himself as an "umpire," a guy who would call "balls and strikes." Didn't that end up mattering quite a bit in the ACA ruling where everyone thought he would be a partisan tool?

I'm sure Gonzalez is a great guy. I'm sure there a lot of racist douches in Washington. But those things aren't to say Danielson wasn't worth voting for. And for the record, I am still an anarchist and I only vote for candidates in primaries where I can try to get the less dangerous criminal through to the final ballot.

Cheers,
ML