The Lesson of Feingold's Win

[Larkspur]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-23.htm

<SNIP>
There is a lesson in Feingold's victory for Democrats at every level of the struggle to reclaim this country from the forces of reaction.

Feingold campaigned enthusiastically for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, not so much because he agreed with Kerry on every issue but because he disagreed with President Bush on just about every issue.

It is notable that, as Feingold was winning easily, Kerry was struggling to win Wisconsin.

Ultimately, Kerry did take the Badger State. Yet, as election night wore on, it did not appear that he was taking America...
Barring a twist of events involving provisional ballots that might resurrect the Kerry candidacy, the next stage for Democrats will be a painful period of self-assessment.

During that period, Democrats would be wise to study the lesson of Russ Feingold's win. It is still possible for a political leader - and perhaps even a political party - to stand on principle, and to win while doing so.

[htuttle]

1. Feingold wins BECAUSE he stands on principle

Not in spite of it!

[sangh0]

3. I'd like to see him win on principle

in Texas or Idaho

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

5. DO you think Feingold could win in Texas?

.

[Renew Deal]

12. It's a legitimate point.

If this country can elect people like Coburn, DeMint, Bunning and others, then they will ignore any quality candidate (Coburn, Tannenbaum, Magliardo) for their ideology.

[TeacherCreature]

9. Please sangho, give it a rest.

I am devastated by the Kerry loss, but we clearly need to begin to think about some new strategies,

Bashing liberals and progressives is not going to help us win this next time out.

Indeed, if you look at the vote, it was liberals, progressives, leftists and Deaniacs who came out and supported Kerry in droves.

[sangh0]

11. Please be honest

Bashig liberals and progressives is not going to help us win this next time out.

Where did I bash anyone? I didn't even criticize Larkspur, in spite of the personal attack.

We ARE the base..

I disagree. Now tell me how that's "bashing"?

[ClassWarrior]

2. Yes.

Russ is a national treasure. And I'm proud to say he's Wisconsin's. His is one of many lessons to be learned.

NGU.

[Angrillori]

6. Yes, I love Feingold,

Let us not forget, this is the man whose opponent ran ads 24/7 accusing him of aiding and abetting terrorism, as the only senator to vote against the Patriot act, etc. etc. etc.

And Feingold handed Tim Michels his ass on a plate.

The world could use a lot more of him. in fact, to see the first Jewish pres/VP plus the first woman pres/VP in a Feingold/Hillary ticket would make me cry open tears of joy.

From a middle class Wisconsinite perspective, What has Feingold done to win?

#1) He's established himself as a man of the people. Every ad, ever campaign has him in the role of populist. His campaign looks low budget, and always has a focus on him as a man of the people.

#2) He ACTUALLY spends time during the year with the constituents. he has town meetings, listening sessions, all over the place in WI. Anyone who's wanted to meet him has. He's seen all around.

#3) Well, he's an incumbent in WI. Not a single one of ours lost yesterday. Go figure. And all the returns were horrendously lopsided. (Most like 60-70/30-40.) I don't know what this means in specific, but our desire to stick with those we know helped a bit.

#4) MOST IMPORTANTLY
No one dares go after Feingold on the 'principle' or 'integrity' issue. No one. Every single voter in WI, repub or dem alike knows Feingold exudes integrity. From voting against the patriot act, to his family life in Middleton, there's not a single chink in his armor. He's a man passionate about his beliefs, and while those are liberal beliefs, and the repubs don't seem to care what the beliefs are, just how strongly they're held.

That seems to be a key. Repubs don't seem to care what a person believes as long as they believe strongly enough. Weird a bit, but it explains how * gets re-elected...

[sandnsea]

13. People are uninformed

I'm sorry, but that explains absolutely nothing. I know people who voted for DeFazio who is as liberal or more liberal than Russ, and Republian on every other slot. It's name recognition and people being uninformed. I certainly don't tell them DeFazio is a liberal, I want him to win. Just like I bet people in Wisconsin let their republican friends believe whatever they want about Russ. And John Kerry has as much integrity as Russ Feingold, the Kerry-Wellstone campaign finance bill was more stringent than McCain-Feingold. When you're in a national campaign, you're going to get smeared and it doesn't matter who you are.

[PsN2Wind]

16. Always voted for Pete when I lived

in Junction City and Harrisburg. How can you not love a guy that wouldn't take that huge pay raise the legislators gave themselves a few years back or that you see schlepping around Eugene in a '63 Dodge Dart?

[grannybgood]

7. I live in Wisconsin and trust me you can't use the results in this state

to judge what would happen nationally. This state is schizophrenic.
So much so that they won't test market products in this state because the results mean nothing. Tommy T..............

was practically anointed as king of this state.

[Angrillori]

8. I think that's because

With all the schools here, our people are smart enough to figure out what's in their best interests, BUT, with all the farms here, there's a big chunk of people who don't care.

I think WI is quite a microcosm of the country, IMHO.

Here's why:

We have California=Madison--very liberal and progressive, and proud of it.
East coast and PA/OH=Milwaukee--blue collar with an educated group as well. Lost jobs, and a large urban community.
South and central US--all the crazy farming counties.

We're very split along party lines--look at HOW democratic democratic areas were (Gwen Moore's win!) and HOW repub the repub areas were (Senselessbrenner? Waukesha?).

Heck, we'd have elected a repub CEO again if McCallum hadn't been a joke.

I think WI as a whole is remarkably like the U.S.
Very divided, losing money, losing jobs, losing soldiers lives, yet still willing to vote for a republican (almost).

Are other states as internally divided as we?

[sandnsea]

10. He's an incumbent

I have no idea how Russ deals with cultural issues, but he wins because he's local and people know him. Name recognition as well. And did he have a national smear campaign against him? No. He wouldn't have done any better up against a national campaign than Kerry did. Until we figure out we lose because Republicans run viscious, vile campaigns against ANY candidate, we'll never win a Presidency again.

[Angrillori]

14. But he did have a well financed local smear campaign--

Michels ran dirty and ran hard and paid a lot of $$$.

He tried to portray Feingold as pro-terrorist,
tried to hit him as anti-social security
as anti-health-care.

This guy had $$ and used it. How many ads did you see? And right up until election day, the Journal Sentinel was leaning its reporting for him (the polls were 54-36 and they ran the headline: "Both Senate Candidates Think They're Doing Strongly") (or something--that wasn't an exact quote...)

I think Feingold is an example of how a dem could win. He was teflon. He oozed character, and it showed. Flip flop? His record showed his principles through and through.

BUT, you're right, I do repeat: being an incumbent in WI is a great form of job security.

[andym]

15. He won for two reasons

He is considered independent and a man of integrity in a state that values independence. He is well known in Wisconsin.

While he did well this time 56%, he barely won re-election the previous election, because he stood up to big money in politics and was at a great disadvantage in advertising. So even he was smearable in his home state after his first six years in office.

The biggest problem is that the democratic party has few candidates with broad national recognition, e.g., the Clintons and Gore come to mind, but who else. Even Kerry was still trying to introduce himself to the public at some late campaign stops.
Any candidate who intends to win must establish a strong cultural presence long before the election with everyone (not only his supporters). The Governator is a perfect example. He won CA in spite of a very strong attempt to bring him down, because people believed that they knew who he was (ie the Terminator) and liked what they saw.

All of the primary candidates would have had great difficulties winning because they were relatively unknown. They were all open to smearing. Look what happened to Dean and Clark during the primaries. Dean was done in by negative campaigning just before Iowa. Clark was painted as a flip-flopper by the media in his first week of campaigning and never lived it down. Why did the negative campaigning work? Because even with all the press they had received, they were still unknowns to the general public.