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Russ Feingold: I Won't Be Done In By Citizens United Ruling
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.
Not so concerned the about the Citizen United decision for his own political future, the Democratic Senator from Wisconsin thinks corporate spending will have a dramatic impact on the next US Presidential election. 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 [former congressman] 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."
If Feingold was exhibiting a bit of nonchalance about the effect Citizens United could have on his re-election hopes, he did so for a variety of reasons. For starters, his opponent, businessman Ron Johnson, is poised to spend an unprecedented amount (much of it his personal wealth) during the course of the election, making the need for outside help somewhat moot. Secondly, Feingold predicted that the corporate entities that have compelling reasons to dabble in electoral politics may end up holding their fire until 2012 -- at least when it comes to Wisconsin.
"I don't think [Citizens United] will be particularly relevant to my future," Feingold said. "But I think it will be enormously relevant to the presidential race. That's where I think it is going to explode."
44 Comments so far
Show AllWe have a supreme court with the extreme right wing and biased majority, selected by republican presidents for this lifetime position.
This can only lead to damaging decesion such as the cooperate sell out. The senate bears most blame by approving these unsuitable and biased judges.
Obama told us that he selected his recent appointee Elena Kagan because Republicans wouldn't fight him very hard since she has sided with Monsanto and isn't too liberal.
the World's and History's most CORRUPT political entity also likes to call itself "christian" --- it is the United States of America.
imagine that.
Americans would BUY "god himself" if they could.
"But I said I thought people in the state would see what was wrong here."
I hope you're right but that's a bet you should probably never make again.
Now that the Supreme Court, half of whom are millionaires, has opened the floodgates for corporations to engage in the most heinous practice allowed in our governmental system - OUTRIGHT BRIBERY - the average person might just as well throw in the towel!
Our government has now been THOROUGHLY TAKEN OVER BY CORPORATIONS and the ones who were supposed to guard the average citizen against such a disaster have actually promoted it!
An American democracy no longer exists!!
So what? It'll make no real difference. The point is moot. In the end, we'll get one evil party or the other anyway. The basic policies are the same; war & looting. The press will love it since it will stuff their pockets with cash.
Maybe if more progressives rolled up their sleeves and tried to meaningfully influence local and national elections, and/or purge the Democratic Party of all its Blue Dogs and other worthless swine, this point would NOT be moot.
But -- it's so much easier to opine on a blog, and throw up one's hands in despair.
I'm glad the progressives at the beginning of the 20th century didn't do the same. They managed to break up corporate monopolies, institute a progressive income tax, and end many of the Gilded Age privileges enjoyed by the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers. And they did that without access to tools like the Internet or cell phones to organize themselves. They were in large part just farmers and small businessmen who were royally tired of getting screwed.
Ah, if only Americans today weren't already lobotomized by television and Twitter ...
OK. So your proposed solution/strategy is .....?
Seriously, I want to know.
They don't have any so don't expect a reply. What they possess are worn out copies of Mao's Little Red Book. Important reading material, no doubt, but relevant here? For instance, if he knew anything about Progressives he'd of pointed out that the movement started in the 1840's and was largely successful in fighting the railroads and their attempts to blackmail producers by exhorbitant freight rates. Just sayin'.
Even Mao didn't hold his book so tightly he squeezed the life out of whatever nonconforming circumstance or political landscape he found himself in. Pragmatism is unfortunately not a theory but a practise for living. Progressivism, by the word itself, promoted and still does evolution over revolution. We are in dire straits and looking backward is not the answer. Small, meaningful changes keep people alive to fight another day: unemployment insurance, workman's comp,food stamps, shelters,SSI, etc are a few examples of Progressive acheivements. To dismiss use as a group is like asking your neighbors to stay home when your barn is burning because they'll all be driving a gas guzzler to the fire and you find them personally wasteful. Progressives, like the Deaniacs forming in 2002-3, made the Democratic majority a reality: imagine, you couldn't trash us us on CD if we'd not overcome our internal differences and actually won a shxtload of elections in just 4 yrs. Now trash away and you'll get both barrels from the Repugs after this November. I'm not wedded to any party but I do like putting out the idea that winning election first is not " impressively stupid & reactionary " but a necessity. Unless, you're stuck on what Mao said about " the barrel of a gun ". See gun reference above. And you still can't answer the effin'? the gentleman asked you.
It was the 1840's in my post. You seem to have a weird fixation with the year 1900. What that the year Mao was born? It's close, to be sure. Anyway, your int'l socialist concept is intriguing: are you recommending Social Security and Progressive(there's that word again) taxation for the world you envision as a way to redistribute wealth and level the playing field, worldwide. Me, too. How about we raise the tax rate to 90% like they did in the 1930's under the progressive Roosevelt Adm? Progressives are trying to start that conversation beginning with a 3% increase in 2011. Looking backwards to when unions represented 30-35% of the labor force is my bad: we'll need a 3rd Party with about 6% of the voters to get that ball rolling instead of CardCheck like the Progressives are going for. Let's throw away 80 years of political legwork by creating a party from scratch. I think worldwide unions would be great if its OK with the int'l socialists. Is it ok? The gun thing was maybe the most remembered quote which came from the good chairman: I think all change implies a threat to the existing order and some are more violent than others. Hence, my remark about evolution over revolution. We foolish Progressives " don't like killin' no matter what the reasons for and we know flag decals won't get us into heaven anymore. " John Prine said that. I like songs by progressive thinkers. Just sayin'.
Mao's little red book? pistachio snot.
Is that tasty? Do you spread it on bread or crackers? Is it refrigerated or only best when served on a communal plate with only one knife for all to seek nourishment from? Most important: Do you squeeze of ring the the snot out of pistachios?
Tell us, Rich M, your posts are usually well worth reading....
i completely agree w/ your analysis; but how do we extricate ourselves from this pathetic situation (militarism - corporate fascism) through the polls, when so many americans are stained with the blood of war ?
"Part of the program would involve nationalizing industries like energy & banking. And part would be dismantling the CIA, & most of the military."
"The problem today pits the common interests of the most powerful corporations against the rest of the population."
is this true ? could one also say that corporations are composed of real people - flesh and bone, and these real immoral characters actually reflect the true nature of the american enterprise.
when those who use war to put food on the table go to the polls - they create a very effective voting block, a huge obstacle to social change. it's a self perpetuating nightmare.
- - - - - - - - - - -
The five pillars of the U.S. military-industrial complex
By Rodrigue Tremblay - Online Journal Guest Writer
Sep 25, 2006, 00:56
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1241.shtml
{In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense employed 2,143,000 people, while it estimates that private defense contractors employ 3,600,000 workers, for a grand total of 5,743,000 defense-related American jobs, or 3.8 percent of the total labor force. In addition, there are close to 25 million veterans in the United States. Therefore, it is safe to say that more than 30 million Americans receive checks which originate directly or indirectly from the U. S. military budget. Assuming conservatively only two voting-age people per household, this translates into a block of some 60 million American voters who have a financial stake in the American military establishment. Thus the clear danger of a militarized society perpetuating itself politically.}
- - - - - - - - - - -
...peace...
RichM,
Well stated.
I agree. Very distressing picture, though. In my district, a really good progressive ran in the primaries against a lukewarm long-time incumbent Democrat .. not officially "a bluedog" .. but very weak on health care, for example; opposed single payer and didn't fight for a public option, and has very heavily voted pro-military, the latest, a vote on behalf of another 55 billion in Afhganistan.
It's a fairly well-educated blue-state district that you'd think was pretty progressive in ways. Hey, they *busted in the caucuses and took over with their progressive community activists and the students*! (Not to mention the P.T.A.) BUT -- here was this man, with a history of involvement in fighting for Medicare for all, wanting to renogotiate NAFTA, opposed to our involvements in Afhganistan and Iraq, supporting social security .. oh, but he wasn't a "pretty boy face" like the incumbent who also boasted of having generations of family in the area, while the challenger was so indecent that he could brag of having lived overseas in France where they have decent health care.
He not only lost, but lost overwhelmingly. (I voted for him. It was common sense!)
Needless to say, perhaps, the lukewarm pretty boy face had all the union endorsements (plus, although he supports blowing up people in the Middle East with everyone else's children, he wants to save tree in the National forest, which I'm all for, but let's get our human priorities straight). So, I can't vote for this "Democrat" incumbent anymore. This dude took over a year to respond to people's pleas regarding our disgusting health care system. He stands for everything I'm oppsoed to, insofar as Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned. Our school district has GUIDANCE COUNSELORS LICENSED BY THE STATE TO WORK WITH CHILDREN AND YOUTHS telling kids about career opportunities in the military, probably thanks in part, to his influence. Oh -- are they telling the kids *they love so much* about how many body parts they might lose in IRaq or Afghanistan? For OIL? Not to mention coming back in a BODY BAGS? This is MORAL in a public school? (Oh well, at least they care about trees in the National Forest! They're Democrats! They're with *the Sierra Club* ! They're *pro-choice* ((even though the health bill he, at the very least, read, set women's reproductive rights back even further, and he didn't write back to me about THAT AT ALL!! Not to mention, how the HELL can you be *pro-choice* if you're sending other people's children off to war to die for your oil profits?? If you're sending us trillions into debt to destroy nations?? How the HELL are you so *Sierra Club* NO off-shore oil drilling *friendly* if it's o.k. with you as long as they're killing people in order to drill in the Middle East and destroy THAT environment? )) )
I want more of a future for mine and theirs !
My family has been here for many generations, too, RICK LARSEN. MANY GENERATIONS AS CITIZENS OF PLANET EARTH. Where do YOU really dwell in little old blue blue blue Washington State?
continued in reply to my own post
continuation ...
The *kids* in your district -- RICK LARSEN -- whose education and brains and bodies you profess to care about so much as you voted for another 55 billion and didn't fight for health care for all of them -- are lucky enough to hear about the realities of the kind of state-sponsored government war recruitment you support, not from state licensed *guidance counselors*, but because war veterans stop them coming home from school once a week off school property to tell them not to go !
No thanks to the Democrat incumbent who voted for another 55 billion ! And sits on the Arms Services Committee !
And if any Democrat Party officials are reading here: While you're campaigning for sex education in the public schools -- why don't you campaign for public school *psychologists* or *guidance counselors* -- who get around the rules for parents who OPT THEIR KIDS OUT OF MILITARY RECRUITMENT -- to be required to tell them BY LAW about HOW THEY CAN GET THEIR BALLS BLOWN OFF !! OR LOSE HALF THE BRAIN they hypocritically claim they want to see educated!!
RICK LARSEN YOU DON'T GET MY VOTE FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. AND YOUR FAMILY MAY HAVE LIVED HERE FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS BUT I DON'T THINK THAT MAKES YOU A BETTER CANDIDATE, A BETTER WASHINGTONIAN, A BETTER AMERICAN, GIVES YOU MORE OF A RIGHT TO BE HERE, OR MORE OF A RIGHT TO RUN THIS COUNTRY. I'M SORRY I EVER VOTED FOR YOU AND MORE THAN ONCE. WE'RE NOT BETTER OFF BECAUSE YOU'RE IN OFFICE. I THINK YOU SHOULD BE OUT OF A JOB AND STANDING ON A UNEMPLOYMENT LINE. AND I DON'T CARE IF EVERY UNION IN AMERICA SUPPORTED YOU IF YOU DON'T CARE IF MY KID WENT TO AFGHANISTAN AND GOT HIS BRAINS BLOWN OUT FOR OIL. THEY'RE NOT REAL UNIONS, AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, IF THEY DO.
If there's a Green Party candidate running in the general, I may vote for them, no matter how many Howard Dean's come on to tell us that the Democrats *must retain control of the House and the Senate in order to get anything done*.
Get WHAT done?
The health care bill they just passed?
Another war in the middle east?
Dismantling social security?
Passing another obscene military budget?
More *reaching across the aisles* to Republicans?
My biggest beef with the Green Party, however, is that they do not actively support publicly counted paper ballots. They have their *fashion* issue of run-off elections, which they feel they cannot sell to the ignorant public in any other way except by discounting the computerized voting machine issue and euphemistically saying, *well, uh, we don't really think computerized voting HAS to be a problem* ...
??
(thank you for listening)
Howard Dean is yet another Dem asshole.
"Maybe if more progressives rolled up their sleeves and tried to meaningfully influece local and national elections and/or purge the Democratic Party of all it's Blue Dogs and other worthless swine, this point would NOT be moot."
I'm with you when it comes to getting involved to influence local/national elections(Indies/Greens)--but if you think by ridding the Democratic Party of "Blue Dogs and other worthless swine" will make for a decent party--PLEASE-- there would be no party left as the entire Democratic Party IS worthless swine.
One just needs to be reminded of how the so-called most "progressive" Rep.Kucinich caved on health care reform and signed up for Obama's deform instead.
Fuck the Democratic Party-- each and every one of them--you can't fix these crooks.
Today is Primary Day in AZ. I was an early voter. Voter 14 and the first Green to vote in my precint on a Green Ballot. We have three great candidates running and I wanted to make sure they got my vote counted. If all the Greens voted even though it may seem like a waste of time, it would show the Dems and Repubs, that there are people in this country who feel both the corporate parties sold the American People down the river. The more we make our voice heard as Greens and Progressives I believe the more influcence we will have in the 2012 election. Both Dems and Repubs LIE. WE NEED TO LET THEM KNOW THAT WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL NOT TOLERATE PEOPLE IN POLITICAL OFFICE WHO LIE.
I love elections. Always have enjoyed working on campaigns and talking to people about political issues. I believe the Green Party has a future to play in saving this country and bringing good old common sense to government. My dream is for a Green Candidate to be elected to the Congress. The Green Party is the best hope for this nation.
I hope my fellow Greens in AZ will vote today and show the nation that the Green Party has a future as we got to vote in the Primary on the GREEN BALLOT. That is history my friends. I was the first Green in Sun Lakes to vote on a Green Ballot. Of course I might be the only Green in Sun Lakes, lol.
I guess I don't understand your euphoria. That the Green Party is the best hope for this nation is very depressing to me. I will also vote Green in Arizona, with great sadness knowing that our future congress people will be chosen from among the pathetic selection of xenophobic bozos whose TV commercials compete for who will be best able to protect us from narco terrorists disguised as fruit pickers and Mexican cleaning ladies. Backbiting and paranoia prevail across the ideologically shriveled political spectrum here.
I don't know that a vast block of cud-chewing swing voters being told how to vote by a blitz of corporate election commercials is any scarier than the same bewildered demographic being left to its own best (20 watt) lights. In one scenario we are in lock step with the beast, and in the other we are merely adrift in a sea of dumbness.
Well, hell, voxclamantis-- can't you at least Clap Harder or whistle or something to preserve a false but therapeutic sense of optimism and political effectiveness?
Look around! You could have used far fewer words building straw men to gratuitously backhand a depressing and malevolent chronic nay-sayer!
It's a thankless job, but somebody's gotta do it.
chrisy58,
please understand there are posters on this site who would like to refeel the possibility of hope.... but have lost the knack...I'm with you!
My opinion is that John Roberts was so P.O.'d that Billary managed to block her unflattering video, while Bush's movie was distributed according to settled law, that he retaliated on Citizens United. Maybe this was merely a "gotcha back" moment, since he had the votes. Why not? Justice Blackbutt reached out and made abortion his wicked activist business, defying states rights, and the fact that abortion falls under "family law" provisions. I don't think a corporation is a person, and the American people are being made to suffer again over the perversity of a few. But at least I do understand why he did it. And I love him for it.
The businessman's coup is almost complete.
People talk of the increasing corruption of oligharchic US polity is such apocalyptic terms. But it isn't any different than how any of a number of governments are run right in this hemisphere - in central America, plus Colombia and maybe Peru or Mexico.
Then, there are most African countries, plus Russia,
Belarus and most of the former Soviet 'stans. Capitalist oligharchies all!
The US is simply destined to become a oversized Honduras or Guatamala, that's all!
Whether corporate money will "explode" in 2012 depends on what you mean by "explode" and what happens in the 2010 elections and what "lessons" campaigners and corporations take from those results. There is a website devoted to the proposition that, as Feingold suggests may have happened with his overly well-heeled opponent, voter reaction against the reigning corporatocracy may "de-value" money to the extent it becomes a liability rather than a campaign asset. At that point, money will begin to "explode in the faces" of the heavily endowed and, following market principles, money will be taken out of the market. All over this country candidates are running "against the money" and some in early elections are already starting to prevail. Let's see if that holds up in November, a prospect that the website, Campaign Corner, is busily promoting. See: http://sunstateactivist.org/campaigncorner/
Highest rate of return comes from rigging the voting machines.
Most of the other campaign expenditures are just to create a plausible victory "story line" that will deflect scrutiny from these rigged machines.
Russ Feingold, in our opinion, is the only senator we can still trust.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/5/senator_russ_feingold_on_obamas_escalation
For me, this was the point of diminishing returns. YMMV.
Big corporations are going to be careful after the initial response to the donation Target made.
The response maybe so negative from consumers that some companies will not consider the political pay off to be worth the potential damage to their reputation or to possible boycotts.
In the end citizens may rebel with their wallets, offsetting gains from the "Citizens United" case.
I'm sure the Retailers have learned their lesson. Beyond that, I wouldn't get my hopes up.
One way the US won't become an oversized Honduras or GuatEmala, where I am from, would be to partition the country into eight or 10 smaller countries, i.e., dismembering, balkanizing "The Republic". An overwhelming majority of Americans would oppose this measure because they're already addicted to size and power, making an overwhelming majority of Americans Republicans at heart. Another, easier way to head back towards democracy would be to impeach Supreme Court justices Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Scalia, bring the corporate- spending question again before the court, and have an Obama -appointed court perhaps repeal it. A democrat gotta be good for this, right?
I look forward to seeing Russ Feingold win.
Well, seeing as how Congress has done almost nothing in response to the Supreme Court decision, I'd say they have little room to gripe. It's the people that have the gripes of course, not our wonderful Washington "servants" ... ..
Vote Poor.
I posted a note at Feingold's .gov website a few days ago immediately after the Republicans began talking about fixing the 14th amendment over their illegal alien gambit in Arizona. The 14th amendment was used as a tool to create corporate personhood and it is the ultimate root of the total corporate control of congress. The McCain-Feingold figleaf is merely the standard and expected failure to accomplish anything at all, which is congress's current mandate from their owners in industry and banking.
In the post I suggested that such a "fix" on the 14th amendment could actually DEFINE what a person is, and the Republicans would then be offered the choice to get on the side of people or corporations. Ultimately it would be a choice between racism against aliens or being owned by the corporations they openly kowtow to. They could pursue their racist agenda and swallow the corporate "de-personing" or they could dump Arizona racists and bow to their corporate masters.
Of course I also pointed out that taking up such a subject would immediately make him persona non grata to the corporate media, but the internet would love him.
The perfunctory answer was what I expected and the post certainly did not make it past his handlers, who would prefer that he stay low key and hang in there. However, if the guy had any sense he wouldn't want to be part of the District of Corruption "in crowd" for much longer.
Those people could do something if they were actually interested in accomplishing something that helped people not corporations. At the very least they could discuss things that actually meant something like "Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad" and the way it led to the destruction of the republic. But you have never heard about it from them and never will.
No, I will not be voting for Feingold this fall even though I could. He takes too much pride in being the "lone voice of reason" without getting out there and raising hell - like he should.