The regrettable, and one hopes temporary, nationalization and homogenization of politics has scrubbed the local character out of too many states. A trip to Wisconsin, and its outstanding flagship public university at Madison, provided a look at two ways in which the Badger State retains a degree of distinctiveness. One represents a positive exception to a recent national trend, the other a vestige of a long-standing practice now ripe for retirement.

To start on the bright side, it was refreshing to be in a state where elections retain a degree of suspense. This column has lamented the evaporation of genuine competition across most of the country, with a big majority of states utterly dominated by one party or the other.

Wisconsin, with a split Senate delegation (one of just three such states) and a divided state government (a governor and legislature of different parties), stands alone as a member of both categories. Aspirants to lead their fellow Badgers have to consider platforms and modes of campaigning that might appeal to, or at least not repel, voters beyond their party base.

Far less healthy is the state’s system of electing the members of its highest court, a practice shared by some 20 other states. Achieving statehood in 1848 while the Jacksonian anti-elitist spirit........

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