I was surprised to find out that even after Michael Tobman managed to badly bungle a Brooklyn judicial race in 2008 (against a friend of mine, I will note) despite a massive money advantage, someone would hire him for a 2009 campaign. Tobman ran a very well funded, sleazy, Karl Rove style campaign on behalf of Roger Adler for a civil court seat and yet lost. The fact is that had Tobman run a cleaner, more mature campaign, he may well have won. But instead he took the nasty route and lost. I can't tell you how many people on primary day told me how turned off they were by the mailers on Adler's behalf that presumably Tobman approved. Dozens of people pointed out to me that Adler's mailers said nothing positive about Adler, merely smear attacks on Cohen. Bottom line is Tobman flubbed it.  read more »