Russ Feingold: I Won't Be Done In By Citizens United Ruling

[kpete]

Russ Feingold: I Won't Be Done In By Citizens United Ruling

First Posted: 08-24-10 10:52 AM | Updated: 08-24-10 12:13 PM


Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) stressed on Monday that in his tight re-election contest, he won't be done in by the unraveling of campaign finance laws that he principally authored.

The Wisconsin Democrat, in a conference call with bloggers and new media reporters, said he did not expect the fallout of the Supreme Court's late January Citizens United ruling to reach his Senate race. The Court's decision took apart a major portion of the 2002 campaign finance law Feingold famously authored with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), prompting widespread Democratic fear that corporations could now spend unlimited amounts of money on "electioneering communications."

"This is not divine torture," he said, responding to a question from the Huffington Post. "This is divine vindication."

"I've been through this before. In 1998 I promised to live by the rules of McCain-Feingold and I refused to take soft money. As a result Mark Neumann outspent me dramatically. He had far more ads than I did because he took soft money, and I had a very close race. It was 51-49. There were a lot of people who were angry with me because I stuck with what I believed to be a right approach. But I said I thought people in the state would see what was wrong here. The congressman who was challenging a senator had far more ads, why was that? Because he was taking advantage of soft money. That's why we ran an ad called the 'high road' which showed that we weren't doing that and we basically took the issue and essentially made their strength a weakness by pointing out that they were trying to buy the election... That's what's going to happen this time."

more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/feingold-i-wont-be-done-i_n_692386.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/24-8

[KingFlorez]

1. He's got the right idea

Russ is no pushover, so I think he'll hold his seat.

[murielm99]

2. Russ is pretty popular up there.

My parents went all conservative as they aged, but they are still Democrats. They vote for him. They live in a red area, but many people there still vote for him.

My daughter lives in Wisconsin, too. She will get the vote out for Russ and others.

[elocs]

3. I live in WI and I know Republicans who vote for Feingold like they did for Proxmire.

Bottom line: they trust him, they believe he is honest. That goes a long way with people here.

[Lifelong Protester]

4. We will work hard to keep Russ.

One of the few sane voices out there. And he makes it personal. He has had 'town hall' meetings at my small school at least three times in the last few years. People feel they know and trust him.

[Scuba]

5. I'll be voting for Russ (again) and so will most Wisconsin voters despite the....

...RW ranters on the JSOnline.com blogs who call him a commie, faggot, unamerican terrorist.

I welcome DU members to join the JSOnline.com blogs and help counter the hate.

And help support Russ too!!