Reader responses to NYTimes on Russ Feingold's defeat reveals reason why he lost:

[brentspeak]

Dumb people are cropping up in the good state of Wisconsin, possibly outnumbering the normal ones. Sympathies to the sane, intelligent 40% of Wisconsin voters who pulled the lever for Feingold.

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/politics/05feingold.html?sort=oldest&offset=2

Bill
WI
November 4th, 2010
1:53 pm
Mr. Feingold told us he was a maverick, but his voting record said something much different.

(:banghead: This despite the article clearly explaining that Feingold was

the sole senator to oppose the USA Patriot Act after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He also broke with President Obama on several occasions, opposing the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, the bailing out of financial institutions in 2008 and the regulation of Wall Street this year, saying the restrictions did not go far enough

WiscReality
Stevens Point
November 4th, 2010
1:53 pm
Maybe not irony as much as it resembles hypocrisy. Mr. "Campaign Reform" out-raised and outspent his opponent.

(:wow: Feingold has made it clear a thousand times over the past 18 years his opposition to vast amounts of wealthy corporate money sources deciding our elections, not to non-corporate and individual contributions made out to candidates. Incredibly, "WiscReality", despite presumably being a Wisconsin resident, somehow doesn't know any of this. And Johnson ultimately was the one who "out-raised and outspent" his opponent in the final month of the campaign -- by a large margin.)

[glitch]

1. Wouldn't call them "readers" -- they just know how to game the comments on major news sites.

That last one conveniently ignores all the anonymous money flooding into Wisconsin against Feingold, which his opponent very conveniently didn't have to claim. Weasel words.