Citizen Russ

[ProSense]

Citizen Russ

A report from what may be the last campaign of Sen. Russ Feingold.

By David Weigel

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"It's something you have to work hard on," said Feingold. "The fact that 95 percent of the people, working families, got a tax cut is something that has not been adequately stressed. I've been stressing it all year. I think people are beginning to realize, though, as they see projects in their communities, the highway projects, the fact that we have a wonderful new senior center in Plymouth, a new wastewater-treatment plant here in Rhinelander—these things, people are now sort of admitting that it probably did a good job."

If voters are benefiting, then why don't they know it? "The rhetoric of the Republicans here is to pretend that it did absolutely nothing," said Feingold. "I don't think the issue is decisive—I think that in the end, people know we had to do it. It didn't solve the whole problem. They're looking for the belief that things will get better more quickly. The question is who is more likely to get that done."

Feingold has an advantage that some endangered Democrats are lacking: He's genuinely adored by his base. The idea that he could lose is not just shocking but also cosmically unfair. Eighteen years working on campaign finance reform and the Supreme Court unspools his legislation? A lifetime of public service that's kept him poor, and he's being out-man-of-the-peopled by a wealthy industrialist? It doesn't matter that Democrats are actually withstanding the "secret money" onslaught with money of their own—it just doesn't seem fair. In Rhinelander, a local activist named Kay Hoff, who stressed that she's the winner of the "Eleanor Roosevelt award" for political activism, hoisted a sign that read, "I Don't Want My Government Run Like a Plastics Factory."

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And that's a huge part of the Feingold closing message: Johnson's one of them. At his Eau Claire rally, Feingold says that Johnson's "support for shipping Wisconsin jobs to other countries has been a gamechanger," that every major state newspaper is endorsing Feingold because Johnson won't talk about what he'd do if elected, and that voting against Feingold is handing a victory to the moneyed interests that are robbing them.

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[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

1. Johnson defends child molesters

Which by default makes anyone who votes for him guilty of the same.

[Angry Dragon]

2. The only reason johnson is a business owner

is because he sleeps with the owner's daughter

[rurallib]

3. One of the two ways republicans usually get their money

See Raece for the other

[HereSince1628]

4. It's impossible to make a good argument for Johnson

The problem is that many are hurting and afraid of hurting worse. The simpletons see "things are bad so change is needed." Getting rid of Russ is a change. I can't help but agree with them.

Undoubtedly, getting rid of the only senator who seems to have actually read the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, and realized its dangers before voting on it, is going to contribute to change in the Senate.
I can't imagine being represented by a GOP parrot is going to do much for America or Wisconsin.

The current crop of republicans make Tommy Thompson look like a sibling of Herb Kohl.