Russ Feingold's Last Stand

[WilliamPitt]

...this sucks...



Russ Feingold's Last Stand
By Ben Smith
Politico

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Russ Feingold has spent 18 years on the fringes of the Senate Democratic Caucus and one very hard year here in his home state, running the opposite of this year’s standard-issue Democratic campaign.

But Feingold appears on the brink of going down in a national tide that’s blind to distinction. Infuriatingly to the Wisconsin Democrat, he’s been painted not as a leftist — the usual attack against him — but as, of all things, a Washington insider. He’s been forced to defend a claim to independence that he feels is self-evident – “A guy did his doctorate at Princeton on this,” he says indignantly – against an opponent who likes to ask, what kind of a maverick would vote for this year’s health care overhaul?

The irony is biting: While other Democrats ran away from health care, Feingold ran toward it and rallied a progressive base that adores him. But no matter, he’s still losing, down in every public poll and struggling in pretty much the same way embattled Democrats around the country are — as symbols of the status quo and of the unpopular health care legislation. And while Feingold was dragged to the table on health care — he was the last holdout on the public option — he gets some of his loudest applause when he brags that he’s the “only senator in the Senate” who will say that he’s “proud of my vote.”

Feingold calls public opposition to health care legislation the result of “an intentional effort to destroy the Obama presidency,” and he’s convinced it can’t last. The law is “going to look pretty damn good in two years,” Feingold told a sympathetic roundtable of a dozen women Friday morning.

“Some of us have to be the infantrymen on the front line, so that’s my fate,” he said.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44431.html

:(

[Hawkowl]

1. Feingold should take the DSCC $$$

He needs to reach people via TV. Stupid people vote and stupid people get their opinions from TV.

[undeterred]

2. Skinner, thanks for the Hide Thread function.

I need it for all the Debbie Downers around here.

[w4rma]

3. Senator Feingold has been closing the gap in the polls. With a good strong last minute push

I think he's going to win this election in a squeaker. Give him all the help you can give him! And quickly!

[jmondine]

4. Dude... Politico? Really?