Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's thoughtful endorsement of Feingold

[Stuart G]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/105567273.html


In Russ Feingold, voters in Wisconsin have a senator who is more nuanced than his challenger paints him to be.

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.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Shocking, really.

But good.

:)

[DCKit]

2. Really sums up Russ. Nicely done. n/t