Be Still My Heart...

...a true progressive as Democratic presidential nominee? A name to remember for 2008: Russ Feingold.

Edwards? Clinton? Nah, 2008 could be Russ Feingold's year

by Sanford D. Horwitt
Chicago Tribune
March 20, 2005

The race for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination is already being handicapped and, according to one offshore gaming Web site, the front-runners are former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 3-2 and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton at 5-2.

But if I were a betting man, I'd consider putting some dough on a 16-1 shot, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold.

Largely overlooked by national political pundits in the aftermath of the November election was the impressive re-election victory by the John McCain of the Democratic Party. As usual, Feingold campaigned as a straight-talking, risk-taking reformer, and his convincing victory should make him highly appealing to Democrats longing for somebody who not only has a winning track record, but who unabashedly stands for progressive Democratic Party values. This is no wimpy liberal who trims his message to fit supposedly conservative times.

In Wisconsin, while John Kerry barely eked out a win in one of the most hotly contested battleground states, voters were giving Feingold a near-landslide victory, electing him to a third term with 55 percent of the vote. Unlike Kerry, who tried to play it safe from start to finish, Feingold won big after voting against the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts, and having cast the lone vote in the Senate against the Patriot Act.

Feingold carried a mix of rural and small-town counties in the northern deer-hunting country, old Mississippi River communities on the western border and the urban centers of Milwaukee and Madison.

Exit polls also showed Feingold scoring heavily among voters who believed that the most important quality of a candidate was the ability to bring about change.

What Feingold is proving in the politically critical heartland is that there is a market for the old-fashioned politics of reform.

Feingold is something of a throwback within the Democratic Party, according to veteran Washington observer and campaign finance reform guru Fred Wertheimer, who worked with Feingold on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. "There used to be a much more powerful stream in the Democratic Party when members of Congress supported liberal ideas for the common good when they were not constrained by big corporate campaign contributions," Wertheimer said. Feingold, he said, still acts that way.

A few years ago, after Feingold's tough-minded reform politics caught my attention, I followed him periodically around the state during his "listening sessions." He holds one in every county at least once a year, a promise he made in his first run for the Senate in 1992. He has conducted more than 800.

Any political consultant worth his salt would tell you that a U.S. senator is wasting his time driving endlessly around a state the size of Wisconsin to meet with 30 or 40 people in tiny towns such as Spooner, Cashton and Viroqua.

But small-town America is familiar and fond territory for Feingold, 52. He grew up in Janesville, a blue-collar and agriculture enclave in Rock County, a Republican stronghold in southeastern Wisconsin.

"I know how small towns work," Feingold told me one day after a series of listening sessions where he sounded very much like one of the local civic leaders, and not like the Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate that he is.

Some senators--poor John Kerry comes to mind--after years in the Senate speak in a language that only other senators think of as normal. But Feingold, perhaps because he meets with real people so often, is plain-spoken and concise.

In La Crosse regarding terrorism: "It's the top priority. They're trying to kill us and our children."

In Blanchardville on trade and jobs: "Trade policies are selling people down the river."

In Coon Valley on the deficit: "I'm in the lead to stop them from writing out blank checks."

Indeed, Feingold has a long track record as a hawk on deficit spending, a position that sometimes puts him at odds with conventional liberals. Balancing the budget was a cornerstone of his first Senate campaign in 1992, and he's serious about controlling spending. "You establish a base-line credibility with people when you show them that whatever your ideology, you will take care of their dollars in a businesslike way," he said. "I believe that is part of Wisconsin progressivism."

In 2002, Feingold briefly stuck a small toe in presidential waters, speaking at a handful of college campuses, before deciding to run for re-election. "I'm not ready," he said then about a race for the 2004 Democratic nomination.

But he may be ready for 2008 after his big re-election victory. And so, too, may Democratic primary voters be ready, even eager, to embrace a candidate who reminds them why they chose to be Democrats in the first place.

Sanford D. Horwitt, a Wisconsin native, lives in Arlington, Va. He is the author of "Let Them Call Me Rebel," a biography of community organizer Saul Alinsky.

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