Cross-posted at Daily Kos
The possibility of electing Russ Feingold as the next President of the United States represents an urgent opportunity for the progressive movement. For reasons I will elucidate below, I believe it essential that the progressive movement embrace him as their candidate immediately following the upcoming 2006 mid-term elections. The reasons for this are three:
a) The Hillary Clinton problem–framing Feingold as the true progressive
b) The media problem–framing Feingold as the Democratic base’s choice
c) The McCain problem–framing Feingold as the real maverick
This diary is not directly geared for Democratic partisans as a whole. There are those of us for whom having a member of the powerful elite or the wealthy corporate elite as a Presidential candidate is not a significant concern (I’m talking about Hillary and Warner, among others). If this describes you, I still welcome your comments and criticisms, so make your keyboard heard. However, this diary is directed toward members of the progressive movement, those for whom Russ Feingold represents our best chance of catapulting progressives to real, federal power, bringing our agenda to pass, and beginning an era of transformation in which the United States and the world becomes a more fair, just and peaceful place of opportunity for all people.
The fact of the matter is that we already know he’s our choice. Poll the left-est 1/2 of the readers on this blog, and it will be immediately clear–Feingold is the progressives’ choice (see poll below). There are other ‘good’ candidates, but why be coy and beat around the bush when we’ve already made up our minds: Feingold is our choice. Unless Al Gore runs (which I don’t think he will do if Feingold runs), we’ve already decided. The reasons are already obvious; a partial list includes:
1. He continually, proudly calls himself ‘progressive.’ He will brand progressives more effectively than any other 2008 candidate
2. He has progressive credibility: the only vote against the PATRIOT Act, voted against Iraq, first to propose a withdrawal timeline, comes from the Wisconsin progressive tradition, very lefty Senate voting record, we could go on…
3. No significant challenger is going to run to the left of Russ Feingold. Correct me if I’m wrong–I would love for a major player to run even left-er, but I don’t see it happening.
4. He is not part of the powerful or wealthy elite–he does not come from a powerful family, and despite his 14 years in the Senate, he is not part of the DC establishment. He is consistently referred to as the poorest member of the Senate (easy enough to find when Googling, though I haven’t seen raw data confirming it). His most well-known legislation is of course Campaign Finance Reform, which he would only push much further as POTUS, including public funding of elections. David Sirota, are you getting goosebumps yet? Add to that the fact that that he is very close to his constituents, holding those famous 72 listening sessions in Wisconsin every year.
5. He is strongly against media consolidation, and voted against the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Independent, deconsolidated media is one of the most important issues for progressives, always.
6. He is strongly for paper ballots and the need to fix our voting process. See the recent speech he gave for MoveOn for evidence. He won his first term in the Wisconsin State Senate by only 31 votes, after three weeks of recounts, and after it was found that one of the voting machines used in the election had started on 32 votes for his opponent instead of zero.
These reasons are among those why Feingold is already our choice. That of course doesn’t include his commitment to progressive issues like universal health care and gay rights. And there are all sorts of reasons why he would do well for the Democrats nationally, including Markos’ beloved Western Dems, since he is a very strong supporter of civil liberties (voting against the PATRIOT Act–man, that vote has travel!, introducing censure of GWB over the illegal wiretaps, strongly against Guantanamo and torture, etc.).
So, why write this diary right now, while we’re all talking about Foleygate and pounding the pavement and making calls with MoveOn’s Call For Change for the 2006 election? Shouldn’t we be focused on that?
YES. That is why I am asking that immediately AFTER the 2006 election, we throw our weight behind Feingold. The reasons why are the three from above:
a) The Hillary Clinton problem–framing Russ as the true progressive
To get the media narrative going at all in our direction, Feingold needs to be positioned, framed by us. Hillary is the big dog in the fight, so Feingold needs to be framed as the ‘true progressive‘ alternative to the triangulating, DC establishment Hillary who is not always trustworthy for progressives. Fortunately, Feingold has a record, an already-established media persona, and all of the sound bite credentials to establish this. Hillary was for the war; Feingold was and is not. Hillary is a corporate, elitist, DLC-er; Feingold is a populist. Hillary was for the PATRIOT ACT, Feingold stood against it. Hillary has been duped by the Bush Administration, Feingold has stood up alone, with real progressive conviction, to the Administration. Jeffrey Feldman and Rockridge can handle the details.
I read somewhere (I can’t remember where…was it here at DKos…does anyone have a link?) that Hillary is expected to announce her candidacy before Thanksgiving. No matter when she announces, she will have all the free media airtime in the world, more than any other candidate in recent memory. However, my thesis is that if we immediately position Feingold as the ‘true progressive‘ alternative to Hillary, that frame can catch on from the get-go, and set up a media narrative for him that could push Hillary’s frame to the ‘triangulator,’ ‘DC establishment,’ etc.
Wouldn’t it be gratifying to hear George Stephanopoulos say on some Sunday in mid-December, “…Hillary is campaigning …blah-blah-blah…however, many grassroots Democrats are putting their weight behind who they’re calling ‘The True Progressive,’ Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.”?
b) The media problem–framing Feingold as the Democratic base’s choice
Tim Russert and the “Gang of 500” that hasn’t talked to a living, breathing, Democractic grassroots activist in a decade (OK, except for you, Markos) think that Democrats love Hillary. That’s because all of his Democratic cocktail party buddies in DC love Hillary. The grassroots of the party does not love Hillary, as any of our DKos straw polls will tell us. Therefore, it would be even more to our advantage if we threw all of our weight behind Feingold early, setting up the ‘grassroots favorite’ frame from the beginning. With this frame, we would hear Stephanopoulos say, “…Hillary is whatever, blah-blah-blah…however, the grassroots activist base of the Democratic party seems to have already chosen their favorite, whom they’re calling The True Progressive, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.”
Now even I’m getting goosebumps, David Sirota.
c) The McCain problem–framing Russ as the real deal: independent and squeaky clean
This, finally, is actually our biggest hurdle. I recently heard Russ talking with none other than Stephanopoulos, in which he said that he actually thinks that John McCain would beat him were they the party nominees for President in 2008.
This is a problem. And one can easily see why this would be a problem. IF McCain were to make it through the brutal Republican primary, he may likely retain the now very outdated, demonstrably false media narrative of being the ‘maverick.’ This has the potential to be difficult for Feingold in terms of drawing sharp distinctions and setting himself apart, especially if he got started after McCain’s primary memes start coursing through the mainstream media–don’t forget, McCain’s been planning his 2008 run ever since 2000. However, any real examination of both of their careers, especially over the past 5 years, shows who the real independent-minded candidate is: Russ Feingold. McCain caves to Bush on Iraq, caves to the right-wing fundamentalists, caves on illegally wiretapping Americans, and caves on the recent torture bill. Notice that he sets himself up as an ‘independent-minded’ Senator on something like torture by going to the White House about it, he and Graham and Warner hammer out a ‘compromise’ bill which then goes right back to House where they tack on the torture again, get it passed, it then passes the Senate, all while McCain keeps his ‘maverick’ narrative.
McCain needs to be framed correctly as “McCave.” And Feingold needs to be framed as The Real Maverick as someone who cannot be bought. He is famous on Capitol Hill for making sure his staff never accepts a dime from lobbyists. He needs to be framed that way.
To add to the crux of this problem, Feingold personally likes McCave. I’m sure he’s not looking forward to slinging any mud at the guy (however much he may deserve it). And, I think that he might be concerned that McCave may have ‘the maverick’ meme locked up.
This is why we need to throw our weight behind him now. If Feingold gets started with a big launch of grassroots support right away, he can catch the ‘The Real Maverick‘ meme and ride it. This could then give him the environment he needs in which to start running early on, taking on this potential McCave problem ahead of time. This might even alter Republican primary strategies, though personally, I can’t see that many moves ahead. All over the traditional, corporate media, we could hear,
“…Hillary Clinton bought socks today…yadda, yadda, but there is a huge groundswell of support by the Democratic base, particularly by liberal bloggers, who are claiming that the true progressive in this race is the man they’re calling The Real Maverick, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. Senator, thank you for being on the show…”
Now, that, progressive patriots, is a sound we want to hear.
Epilogue
The progressive, activist base of the Democratic Party has already decided by-and-large whom they will support in the 2008 primaries. Am I wrong?–take the poll below. There are other ‘good’ candidates that will do, but if we know whom we really want, why not just say so? It would be nice to have a nostalgic “I’m from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” ride where Howard Dean Jr. rises from obscurity, wakes us from our slumber, and leads us on a ride from Vermont to Iowa to victory. But friends, this isn’t 2003. Just as the liberal blogosphere constantly attempts to remind the DC establishment that we’re no longer in 1968 or 1972, we must remember that we are no longer in 2003. This is 2006, soon to be 2007. We in the progressive movement should realize that we have 1) a Hillary that must be defeated, and 2) a solid, dyed-in-the-wool progressive candidate with a record that begs to be recognized and an agenda that would slingshot progressives to power. Why play games and beat around the bush? Let’s get behind Feingold as soon as the mid-term elections are over, frame it, and fight this one on our own terms.
P.S. No, I do not work for Russ Feingold. (But I would love to, for cheap–available for relocation immediately!) 🙂
