How to Vote for Peace, Against the Patriot Act, and Win Elections

[Kat 333]

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Fast forward to the fall of 2002 and the run-up to Bush's war on Iraq. Democratic senators, including Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, John Edwards and John Kerry all voted to give President Bush the authority to attack Saddam Hussein. Russ Feingold voted against the war. I spoke at the time with a Feingold staff member who worried that these two votes would doom Feingold in his 2004 race for re-election. "We'll be bashed viciously as weak on terror and anti-war, they'll trash us mercilessly and it will cost Russ his race."

Probably just what advisors to Kerry and Edwards were thinking. Indeed, Feingold's 2004 opponent Republican Tim Michels, a millionaire construction company owner and a former US Army Ranger, beat three Republicans to win his party's nomination. Michels dumped over a million dollars of his own money into an aggressive advertising campaign skewering Feingold as weak on terror and not supportive of the troops. However, when the polls closed at 8 PM on November 2nd, with no votes even counted yet, all the major media declared the race over and predicted Feingold's victory based on the exit polls alone.

John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act and the war, and was barely beating George Bush in Wisconsin. Russ Feingold proves that an anti-war, populist Democrat, a maverick campaigning to get big money out of politics, can win and win big. But given a choice between a real Republican and a Democrat such as John Kerry who voted for the war, many voters will choose the Republican.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-25.htm