It is time for Democrats to come home.
It is time to put our principles ahead of personalities.
It is time to return to the ideals and ideas that made the Democratic Party:
- the party of the people, not the party of corporations and the rich,
- the party of building potential and opportunity for all, not status quo for the few,
- the party of peace, diplomacy, and building bridges not burning them,
- the party of defending the civil rights of a minority over the mob of majority,
- the party of assuring the well-being of those at the dawn and those at the twilight of their lives,
- the party of defending the inherent right of access to healthcare for all, and
- the party that stands with it's promises to the people.
Who are we? We are you.
Among us are senior activists, student voters involved in their first political movement, moderates, progressives, reformed Obama evangelists and Deaniacs. We are a motley crew. But then, so is America. We wouldn't have it any other way.
Come on. Come home.
Together, we will raise the promise of America. We will walk the talk.
We will elect Russ Feingold the next President of the United States.
-russforpresident2012.com
Russ at Netroots Nation
Russ on the Patriot Act
Russ on Politics for the People
Russ on Progressives United with Stephen Colbert
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Progressives United - Russ Feingold | ||||
| ||||
Russ on the recent fight for worker's rights in WI
What they think about Russ in WI: An endorsement in his 2010 campaign.
c/o The Cap Times
Re-elect Russ Feingold — our profile in courage
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 5:00 am
When Russ Feingold was presented with the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Caroline Kennedy recalled how the junior senator from Wisconsin had risked his political future in order to stand on principle against the corrosive influence of money in politics and the crude compromises that Washington insiders make to serve their paymasters.
“United in the belief that America’s very democracy is threatened by the flood of money in our electoral system, two men, quite different in personal and political background, came together to propose real change and reform in the financing of this country’s elections. In so doing, they have dedicated themselves to an issue that at first blush appears to have little public reward. Still, they have fought for their position with a determination and vigor that has put their public lives or political ambitions at risk,” explained the daughter of the 35th president. “One man, Senator Russell Feingold, seeking his first re-election to the United States Senate, unilaterally adopted the financial restrictions he had proposed in the Senate -- while his opponent was free to raise and spend money at will. While ultimately successful, a once comfortable race for re-election came as close to the edge of defeat as possible ...”
That praise from an heir to one of the great names in Democratic politics was echoed by one of the great names in Republican politics, Sen. John McCain, Feingold’s co-recipient of the Profile in Courage Award. McCain described the Wisconsinite’s refusal to bow to political pressure as “an inspiring example of civic courage.”
The bipartisan praise for Feingold’s rare combination of boldness and bipartisanship -- a willingness to take on the most difficult battles that is made meaningful by a determination to cross lines of party and ideology in order to win those fights -- came at a point when America was deeply divided. A Republican Congress was attempting to impeach President Bill Clinton and most Democrats were fighting back with a no-holds-barred determination to destroy Republican leaders such as Newt Gingrich.
It was an ugly moment in our civic life. Yet, even then, Feingold put the Constitution, the rule of law and personal principle ahead of partisanship -- casting the only Democratic vote to continue the Senate’s trial of Clinton until all evidence was presented.
Feingold infuriated Democrats that day in 1999, as he did when he voted to confirm John Ashcroft as George Bush’s attorney general, when he voted last year against confirming Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and when he voted this year against “banking reforms” that failed to protect taxpayers from threats posed by too-big-to-fail banks.
On other days Feingold infuriated Republicans, with a call to censure Bush for warrantless wiretapping that trashed the Fourth Amendment, with his call for a timeline to bring the troops home from Iraq, and with his objection to the record deficits run up by a supposedly conservative president.
On still other days Feingold unsettles insiders of both parties, when he casts a vote so courageous that it makes no sense to those who understand only political expediency. That’s what happened when he cast the sole vote against the Patriot Act in 2001. Asked why he voted to defend core constitutional values, even though the vote would be used against him politically, Feingold simply replied: “I read the bill.” That is what makes Feingold different from most senators: He takes his job seriously, so seriously that he is willing to stand alone on matters of conscience and the Constitution.
These stances have earned Feingold the label “maverick.”
That might leave the impression that he has trouble building meaningful bipartisan coalitions.
In fact, as the Profile in Courage Award judges noted, he has displayed a rare ability to forge partnerships that get things done in a city that is increasingly defined by its dysfunction.
Feingold’s challenger in this year’s election campaign, millionaire Ron Johnson, has spent a fortune trying to foster the false impression that the Feingold who was once celebrated as the Senate’s most courageous and distinctive member has somehow evolved into a predictable partisan who is part of the problem in Washington.
But even a multimillion-dollar lie cannot change the fact that, even in this dark moment of hyperpartisanship, Feingold remains the senator who earned that Profile in Courage Award for practicing a politics of principle that earns the respect of even the most conservative senators.
Over the past few years, he has developed a working partnership with arguably the most right-wing member of the Senate, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.
Coburn, a physician, has worked with Feingold, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee’s Africa subcommittee, to address the scourge of AIDS on that continent. When extremists in Uganda began to target homosexuals, Feingold and Coburn took the lead in challenging a human rights abuse that threatened to undermine AIDS prevention and treatment initiatives.
On the domestic front, Feingold and Coburn have emerged as the Senate’s steadiest proponents of fiscal responsibility. They recently introduced a bill to create a single database of all earmark requests. And now the pair has developed legislation to prevent contractors with poor performance records from receiving government contracts.
That’s a classic good-government measure, of the sort Feingold has been proposing and passing since he came to the Senate. Why, at a time when he could grab the glory, and when Democrats overwhelmingly control the Senate, is the Wisconsinite working with one of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans? Because he knows that when you are out to change how Washington does business, you don’t let partisanship or ideology stand in the way.
But there is a deeper reason why Feingold does the right thing.
He is a Wisconsinite, by birth and by nature. He believes, as did Robert M. La Follette, Bill Proxmire and Gaylord Nelson, that he best represents the state by putting its interests and its needs first, and by rejecting petty partisanship. So it was that, when Feingold unveiled the contracting and oversight act, he recalled how Wisconsin firms had been ill-served by lax federal oversight, and explained that, for the sake of job creation and retention in Wisconsin: “We must ensure that these records of poor performance and misconduct are identified before federal contracts are awarded to contractors, not after the damage has already been done.”
This too is classic Feingold. He understands that it is possible to do right by Wisconsin and America while upholding the Constitution and balancing the budget. And he is willing to work with anyone to get the job done. That makes him the Senate’s most valuable member, a Profile-in-Courage legislator who raises the standard of the entire chamber and instills a measure of hope that politics and policymaking can still be about more than big money and partisan self-interest -- that it can be about honor, duty and a commitment to serve a state and a nation that will long endure only if we reacquaint ourselves with the better angels of our nature.
Russ Feingold is Wisconsin’s senator, and he is America’s best hope for building a politics of principle, conscience and service to the great mass of citizens. He has our highest endorsement.
c/o The Green Bay Gazette
Editorial: Russ Feingold is better choice for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin
Politicians and pundits alike have spent much of this election season discussing which party ultimately will gain or retain control of the U.S. Senate.
And whether the upper chamber stays blue or turns red Nov. 2, incumbent Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Middleton, should remain an important legislative voice for Wisconsin and the nation. Feingold's principled independence, knowledge of the issues and tradition of listening to constituents have earned him this newspaper's endorsement to retain the seat he's held for three terms.
This election season has been characterized by an anti-incumbent sentiment and calls for change that, in many cases, are well deserved. In this case, however, we feel the incumbent is the candidate better suited to address the critical needs of our country moving forward. Change often is beneficial, but in an era when so-called "career politicians" are much maligned, this newspaper feels a career made serving the people can remain an honorable one.
Feingold has a solid jobs plan and detailed, specific proposals for controlling spending and reducing the federal deficit. He is a leading proponent of the pay-as-you-go principle that says government should not cut taxes or add entitlement spending without paying for it elsewhere, and he has joined with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, in an effort to reduce pork-barrel spending in Washington.
c/o The Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI)
Editorial
Feingold is a steady, independent voice
They have a senator who possesses a deeper knowledge of the issues, is unafraid on principle to buck his party or a president of any party, has proven he can reach across the aisle, is a harsh foe of legislative pork and excessive spending and has earned the disdain of Washington's deal-maker, corporate lobbyists.
Feingold's Republican opponent, Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson, has tapped into a vein of anger in Wisconsin's electorate. It may work very well for him. But there is quite a difference between stoking anger and recognizing how best to relieve that anger - a difference, to paraphrase columnist Thomas L. Friedman, between letting off steam as a "tea kettle" movement and using that steam to power an engine for beneficial change.
Johnson accuses Feingold of being a career politician - a throwaway line that means absolutely nothing. Voters have had the chance three times to reject him as a United States senator. They elected and re-elected him, and they sent him to the state Senate three times before that. It's been his career because a majority of voters have wanted it that way.
It is what's in the career that should be at issue.
And based on Feingold's career, the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board recommends him for a fourth term to represent Wisconsin in the Senate.
Feingold is a maverick. Unlike others who claim to be independent, Feingold actually is. Compared to his peers, the label is deserved, as a Journal Sentinel article revealed recently.
Yes, he most often votes with his party. But he has voted that way less often than other Senate Democrats. He has voted both to the right and to the left of his party (though he remains among the Senate's most liberal members, according to ratings). He has low party unity scores for a Democrat during the Obama administration.
Feingold voted for John Roberts after President George W. Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court. The senator voted against another Bush nominee, Samuel Alito.
In contrast, Johnson says he would have voted against Obama's nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, as well as President Bill Clinton's appointees, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Too liberal for Wisconsin - that is Johnson's charge against Feingold. Voters will deliver their verdict Nov. 2; we urge them to take a nuanced look before they do.
Which candidate has offered more specifics on where to cut federal spending and how to control spending generally? That would be Feingold, who also has proposed temporary tax credits for companies that create jobs. His E4 initiative would provide grants for small business research and target other grants for job-building work on energy, water, transportation and domestic security.
He has proposed measures that get tough on pork-barrel spending and teamed with GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for what amounts to a presidential line-item veto. He voted against the USA Patriot Act because of privacy concerns that both liberals and conservatives might share.
That Johnson might agree with some of these measures only proves the point: Labels do not always tell the story.
We've parted with Feingold on some issues - on free trade, on his opposition to the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, on censuring Bush over Iraq (though the senator has been mostly right on that war and on the one in Afghanistan) and on his opposition to financial system reform and to the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Both candidates, by the way, are wrong on TARP.
In Johnson, we do not see sufficient depth in his professional experience or his stated positions. In him, we fear, the nation will get one more senator who will disdain bipartisanship and compromise at a time when a deeply divided government needs both.
With reason, we fear just another senator whose signature strategy will consist of "no."
Much of Johnson's campaign has been about broad-stroke sound bites - getting government out of the way, for instance - but with way too few specifics.
One of his more memorable quotes of the campaign came during a Sept. 24 appearance at the Milwaukee Press Club. "There's billions of dollars available for cutting," Johnson claimed. "But I'm not going to get in the game here and, you know, start naming specific things to be attacked about, quite honestly."
One might chalk up such a comment to inexperience. But Johnson has been either off base or unwilling to fully explain many of his ideas.
In this time of fiscal peril, voters need honesty. Republicans and Democrats together caused the problems. Republicans and Democrats together will have to solve them. Perhaps there are billions of dollars "available for cutting." But how? How does Johnson propose to reduce the nation's $13.7 trillion of debt?
Aside from vapid talking points about TARP and the stimulus bill, Johnson has no answer.
Johnson has no answer - or the wrong answer - on many topics.
Health care reform is not government health care. Repealing it will roll back, perhaps forever, hard-won and necessary gains for consumers.
Climate change and human contribution to it are borne out by the preponderance of scientific evidence and thought. Statesmanship requires policy based on this, not on the convenience of arguments offered by deniers who are outliers in the scientific community.
It is not undermining the troops to comment publicly on whether a war should be ended. Feingold is right: Democracy demands such public discussion.
And as bad as the economy remains, it would be far worse off had federal stimulus and the bank bailout not occurred. A recession with a slow recovery is preferable to a depression.
This election, like every election, is about comparisons. And we find these overwhelmingly in Feingold's favor - on depth of knowledge and understanding of key issues and in proven experience.
We recommend a vote for Feingold.
