What better time than now for the "ultimate clean candidate"

[Cocoa]

what better way to leverage the GOP's ethics implosion than by running a candidate who is absolutely impeccable?

http://loper.org/~george/archives/2002/Apr/60.html

<snip>

Feingold’s speech wrapped up UVa’s Center for Governmental Studies’ National Symposium on Wartime Politics. Larry J. Sabato, the director’s center and a UVa government professor, called Feingold a possible presidential candidate in 2004 or 2008.

Sabato, who has known Feingold since they were Rhodes Scholars at Oxford in the late 1970s, heaped praise on the senator, even though Sabato opposes the campaign-finance reform bill named for Feingold and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“Russ is the ultimate clean candidate,” Sabato said. “I mean, he used to shower just obsessively.” (Peter Savodnik, The Daily Progress, April 15, 2002)

[longship]

1. Russ looks very, very good.

I like his politics. I like his energy level. I like his charisma. I don't give a fuck about his religious beliefs or his marital status.

He'd be on any of my short lists for 2008. Gore's there, too. So's Clark. Nobody else right now. (No, not Kerry, yet.) (And No, not Hillary, ever.)

[Cocoa]

2. Clark's on my list too

I'm certain Clark is not affiliated in any way with people that use his name as their DU name.

[longship]

4. I would like to put somebody from the CBC on my list.

But there are so damned many bold, outspoken patriots that I wouldn't be able to stop. I'd have to add them all. Then, it won't be a short list anymore. Let's see (in no particular order)...

Conyers
Lee
McKinney
Jackson-Lee
Waters
...

Ya know what I mean?

[readmylips]

3. Caroline Kennedy is my lady.....

Famous, smart, law degree, squeeky clean.

[safi0]

5. You and I both

Know that no one with the last name of Kennedy will ever be elected President of the United States

[Cocoa]

7. I'm suggesting a diametracally opposite direction for the dems

away from wealth and family connections.

Nothing against Caroline or any other Kennedy, I just don't see them as representing my view of future of the dems.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Jimmy Carter was the ultimate clean candidate

Look how the right wing trashed him when he was President.

Al Gore was as clean as they get, but he was trashed for wearing "earth tones", for being "stiff", and for sighing during a debate when his opponent was obviously just pulling stuff out of his ass and passing it off as fact.

No matter HOW CLEAN the candidate is, s/he'll get trashed by the right wing to the point where half the people of this increasingly brain-challenged country will think voting for him/her would be like voting for the devil himself.

And even if people start to come to their senses, there's always the electronic voting manipulators, er, machines, to deal with.

[Cocoa]

8. neither of them was clean in the same way Feingold is

Carter had absolutely no ethical issues as far as I know, but he was wealthy.

Gore was wealthy as well, and also, he was the son of a powerful Senator.

Neither the wealth nor the family connections makes Gore or Carter "bad" in any way, but they make them very different types of canidates compared to Feingold.

And that difference is exactly what I'm talking about.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer

He wasn't ridiculed as "wealthy" during the campaign. But a lot of people made fun of his humble profession.

[Cocoa]

17. so?

I'm not following how this relates...

[stevebreeze]

9. I disagree it wasn't the right wing we think of today

It was the right wing of the Democratic party that did in Carter. Mostly southern Dem's.

[NYC Liberal]

10. There is no "clean" candidate because

if they have nothing they'll just make shit up. They've done it before (see Swift Liars, see Bush's attacks on McCain, etc. etc. etc.) and they won't care about doing it again.

The important part is getting someone who can RESPOND to the mud-slinging quickly and effectively.

[Cocoa]

12. that's what I'm challenging

the idea that the status quo is inevitable.

I don't believe it's true, I think to the extent people believe there's no hope, that it has to be this way, then the bad guys win.

Feingold's first victory was over a true scumbag, Bob Kasten, that no one thought Russ could beat.

[NYC Liberal]

21. I'm not saying there's no hope..not at all

I am just saying that even if you got a candidate with NOTHING that they could even possibly use, they'd make something up. So what we need, simply, is someone who will refute the garbage (even the 'invented the internet' and the $200 haircut-type crap) quickly and effectively.

THEN we can win!

[Art_from_Ark]

13. Yeah, we need an attack dog

Someone who will use the truth to grab the idiots by the leg and not let go.

[Booster]

23. I still think John Edwards would make a great president, but

he doesn't seem to get any respect here at DU. Why is that? Is there something about him that I'm not getting, besides his being a lawyer? I think what I really want is for his wife to be first lady.

[Southsideirish]

14. Great point and with the exception of clinton's War Room, they just can 't

properly defend themselves. Dukakis, Gore, Kerry - all the same -they tried to "ride out" the lies and trash talking but were all un-done by it in the end.

[Southsideirish]

11. When are people ever going to learn that NO candidate we EVER run will

ever be pristine enough to escape the wrath and hatred of the right wing Rovian echo machine?

You could run Our Lord, Himself, and they would say he was a hippie bum who never worked, sponged off His parents and hung around with trouble making ne'er-do-wells and low lifes.

[LittleClarkie]

16. God bless him, he's my Senator

and I worked on the combined campaign for him and Kerry and Gwen Moore, but see me in a couple of years. Way to damn early.

Funny thing is, Kerry was pretty squeeky too.

[Cocoa]

18. Kerry was the wealthiest Senator

Feingold was the least wealthy.

I love John Kerry, his wealth in absolutely no way makes him "bad."

But on this very important (to me) measure, Feingold and Kerry are very different candidates.

[safi0]

20. Not only that

I believe he was the second least wealthy of all members in congress, behind only Dick Gephardt.

Feingold is in a lot of ways a regular guy: he drives a Buick, he has a mortgage on his house, and his kids are some of the most down to earth people I've ever met

[LittleClarkie]

22. I loved the ads that used Feingold's daughter

I've always loved his ads.

Is Kerry the wealthiest Senator if you subtract Teresa? Just wondering.

[AntiCoup2K4]

19. If only Jimmy Carter wasn't 80 years old.

Nothing against Russ Feingold (except his ridiculous endorsement of Judge Potsie) but Senators simply ain't going to get elected. Not even reasonably good ones.