Dear Professor Lubet -- I think you were wrong

That's Northwestern University Law Professor Steven Lubet at left.

Professor Lubet commented on this blog's recent project to provide information about Cook County Circuit Court candidates in a January 21, 2008 article in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

Pat Milhizer's article quoted Lubet as saying, "I doubt anybody surfs the Web looking for judicial candidates."

But I think there's evidence to the contrary.

There's no question that, at first, the judicial primary project attracted mostly candidates, their friends and families. Still, traffic had grown to 50 or 60 hits a day by the end of 2007; after an early January mention on The Capitol Fax Blog (and it was just a mention -- one line in a Morning Shorts post), traffic ramped up to almost 200 a day. Now look at this:

Now... some 500,000 voters actually voted in the Cook County judicial primary, so even the thousand or so visitors a day on and just before February 5 aren't that many.

But some people clearly were looking on the Web for information to help them make informed choices on Super Tuesday.

And more would have if the newspapers had broken their vow of silence to inform voters that information about judicial candidates was available here -- and in several other places -- on the Internet.