Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
How Far Can Russ Feingold Push Campaign Finance Reform?
Let's hope the former Democratic senator's new job as Obama campaign co-chair means Super Pacs' days are numbered
"The president is wrong." So says one of the newly appointed co-chairs of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.
Russ Feingold in 2010: an outspoken critic of the Citizens United ruling, the former senator has said the president is 'dancing with the devil' by accepting Super Pac support. (Photo: Morry Gash/AP)
Those four words recently headlined the website of the organization Progressives United, founded by former US Senator – and now Obama campaign adviser – Russ Feingold. He is referring to Obama's recent announcement that he will accept Super Pac funds for his re-election campaign. Feingold's statement goes:
"The president is wrong to embrace the corrupt corporate politics of Citizens United through the use of Super Pacs – organizations that raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and the richest individuals, sometimes in total secrecy. It's not just bad policy; it's also dumb strategy."
And, he says, it's "dancing with the devil".
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt said to Congress:
"All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law."
He signed a bill into law banning such contributions in 1907. In 2012, this 100-year history of campaign-finance controls died, thanks to five US supreme court justices who decided, in the 2010 Citizens United case, that corporations can use their money to express free speech, most notably in their efforts to influence federal elections.
After 18 years representing Wisconsin in the US Senate, Feingold lost his re-election to self-funded Republican multimillionaire and Tea Party favorite Ron Johnson. Since then, Feingold has been teaching law, started Progressives United and, while supporting the effort to recall Wisconsin's embattled Republican governor, Scott Walker, has steadfastly refused to run against him or for the US Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Herb Kohl.
Feingold was the sole member of the US Senate to vote against the USA Patriot Act. He was a fierce critic of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Although Obama, as a senator, originally threatened to filibuster any legislation that would grant retroactive immunity to the telecom corporations involved with the wiretapping, he reversed himself on the eve of the Democratic Convention in 2008 and voted for the bill. Feingold remained adamantly opposed.
On the war in Afghanistan, Feingold told me:
"I was the first member of the Senate to call for a timeline to get us out of Afghanistan. Even before Obama was elected, when it was between (John) McCain and Obama, I said, 'Why are we talking about a surge?' … Sending our troops over there, spending billions and billions of dollars in Afghanistan makes no sense. And I think it was a mistake for the president to do the surge, and I think he's beginning to realize we need to get out of there."
Feingold opposed Obama's Wall Street reform bill, saying it was too weak, and supported the state attorneys general, like New York's Eric Schneiderman and another of the new campaign co-chairs, California's Kamala Harris, who, at first, opposed the proposed settlement with the five largest banks over allegations of mortgage-service fraud and "robo-signing". Feingold's reaction to the $25bn settlement that the White House pushed through?
"We were among the few that refused to do a little dance after this announcement … whenever it ends up being Wall Street, somehow there's always a clunker in there."
As I interviewed Feingold, just hours after he was named one of the 35 Obama campaign co-chairs, I asked him if he was an odd choice for the position. Feingold responded:
"How about a co-chair that's proud of him for bringing us healthcare for the first time in 70 years? How about a co-chair who thinks that he has actually done a good thing with the economy and helped with the stimulus package, and we've had 22 months of positive job growth? How about a co-chair for a president that has the best reputation overseas of any president in memory, that has reversed the awful damage of the Bush administration, who in places like Cairo and in India and Indonesia has reached out to the rest of the world.
"Believe me, on balance, there's no question. And finally, how about a co-chair of a president who I believe will help us appoint justices who will overturn Citizens United?"
Until then, as the Obama campaign "dances with the devil" of Super Pacs, perhaps campaign co-chair Russ Feingold will help us follow the money.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
37 Comments so far
Show AllFeingold's loss in his last campaign for Senator must be blamed largely for the silent albratross, President Obama, whose pitiful performance kept Feingold's supporters away from the polls. The fish rots from the head, as the Chinese expression goes.
reallycurious
Apparently, you're not curious enough because you have not only allowwed ignorance to infest your comment but racism as well.
Amy Goodman's essays are fair game for critical analysis for a variety of reasons, but a Zionist she is not.
Indeed, Amy Goodman has made Democracy Now! a welcome forum for Jewish critics of Israel -- like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein and Seymour Hersh and Phyllis Bennis and the British journalist Robert Fisk who is not Jewish -- whose voices you don't often hear in other media venues because they challenge and counter the Israel Lobby/AIPAC consensus.
Moreover, no one was more critical than Amy Goodman of Israel's vicious attack on Lebanon in 2006, and its brutal 22-day assault on Gaza in 2008-09, and the IDF's violent assault on the Gaza Flotilla in May 2010 -- especially the attack on the MV Mavi Marmara in which nine unarmed and peaceful activists were shot dead at point-blank range, including a 19 year-old young man who held dual U.S. and Turkish citizenship.
Plus, Amy Goodman continues to invite guests of all ethnnicities and religious affiliations on the show who do not express the Israel Lobby consensus, including Israelis like Amira Hass and Uri Avnery who are fiercely critican of Israel's right-wing government and its aggressive actions toward the Palestinians and its neighbors in the region.
Finally, Russ Feingold is a supporter of Israel but he has been critical of the Likud government as well, and that doesn't make him a "Zionist" by any stretch of the imagination.
PS -- Feingold is an Obot, yes, but a Zionist, not so much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zapping that person at his rally who asked a question by the security guards did not help. Feingold didn't even express outrage. That one thing lost him the election. We all saw it.
I watched him on Democracy Now yesterday, and I have to say I respect him much less now. As far as I can see he has become more of being part of the problem, instead of being part of the solution.
After listening to the "How about" lecture, I have lost a lot of respect for Feingold.
" The Obama campaign dances with the devil". Feingold has decided to dance with that devil Obama. He is just another liberal of the fake opposition party.
Look we have two CORPORATIST elite parties. To play in this BIG leagues you need BIG $$ that's the rules. Its called the GOLDEN RULE..Those with the Gold make the rules, honestly has it ever been any other way? Citizens United just ripped away the pretense of this being any kind of democracy. I doubt it has ever really been much of one from day 1. Hell, until the 20th century the friggin Senate wasn't even elected directly , so how much of a democracy was it before that time? Then the whole 2 Senators for DEL.. and RI thing and two for NY and Calif. really what a joke that makes of our so called democracy. The English have a more democratic system then we do and they still have a KING for crying out loud. This country was founded as a Plutocracy from day one with out titles and a King, but the rich still held all the power and so they still do. For a short period of time the Labor Unions had some power within the D party, but that's over now and their share has been bought up by Corps. Game Over for now.
Sad to see that Feingold's been co-opted too. He couldda done some good stuff running for guv of Wisconsin. I guess this year's pre-election theme song is: "...and another one bites the dust."
And he'll be sure to drag in progressives like Goodman.
Good move by OB's crew. Bad move for the rest of us. I wonder which cabinet office he gets if OB wins.
So... Feingold is aware that Obama is dancing with the devil, and sees no problem with dancing with Obama, because taking super pac money is the only major problem with Obama... and Amy Goodman thinks Feingold will help us follow the money. Wow. Just... wow.
Amy Goodman sold out Democracy Now! over 911 a long time ago. Over three thousand of her fellow New Yorkers were murdered in cold blood, and yet any credible information about 911 is an anathema to her. She just turned down Susan Lindauer, a CIA asset that just got out of prison and wrote the book: EXTREME PREJUDICE and offered Democracy Now! her well documented story of the pack of lies about 911. But Amy Goodman still refuses to touch any credible information about 911 ( which there is a plethora of ) with a ten foot pole!
Now there's a CD purist, calling Amy Goodman a sellout!
How far can Feingold push campaign finance reform? Shouldn't the question be, why should we expect him to push it at all? The very fact he's joined the Obama bandwagon pretty much forfeits his legitimacy as a truly progressive voice. The paragraph of his interview with Amy Goodman is full of empty rhetoric, Obama "bringing us healthcare for the first time in 70 years? [Huh? What does that mean?] . . . How about a co-chair for a president that has the best reputation overseas of any president in memory [yeah with all the drone attacks, the support for Israel], that has reversed the awful damage of the Bush administration [a lie, especially concerning his continuation and worsening of Bush policies eroding civil liberties and human rights]. . .
What you and minecritter (5:32pm) said.
Please review the following excerpt exhumed from an August, 2011 comments thread. It's as much of an epitaph to Feingold's political respectability as if it were chiseled on a granite tombstone hanging around his neck:
---------------
A Message from Russ*
By Russ Feingold · August 19, 2011
"When I said on election night last year that it 'was on to 2012,' I meant it. As I said those words I was especially thinking of the need to re-elect President Obama. I will be working to re-elect him and hope to play a significant role in that effort." [paragraph 6]
---------------
It's not exactly a shock, but in spite of myself I experienced a tingle of disappointment-- perhaps the equivalent of those "ghost" twinges people supposedly get from a missing limb after amputation.
As I've written before, I "like" Feingold and would like to root for him. There's no question that he struggled to maintain a vestige of humanity and integrity within the toxic environment of a partisan political career, and in character is far superior to the average Elected Misrepresentative predator and scavenger. [...]
* http://www.progressivesunited.org/blog/a-message-from-russ
______________
I wrote the above in response to a CD item describing Feingold as "the strongest and coolest contender for governor or the state's open Senate seat".
Back in May, 2009, during a "Democracy Now" appearance, Feingold doggedly defended the congressional Democrats' blatant refusal to even consider single-payer options during the so-called "healthcare legislation" debates. Although he looked palpably uncomfortable, even miserable, as he parried Amy's questions with one lame rationalization and excuse after another, he remained in Party harness and resolutely attempted to convince listeners that the bipartisan sow's ears could turn into silk purses by and by.
As I watched that sorry, if tragic, performance, I realized that Feingold's professional probity had reached a point of diminishing returns.
Feingold had a good run as a "principled maverick", but his brute loyalty to the Democratic Party proved his undoing.
The same thing happened with Kucinich - i used to be a fan until he caved on healthcare - "party over principle" seems to be the mantra.
Obama is a master of co-optation of "mavericks" - Kucinich, Feingold, Warren, Schneiderman, and i am sure folks can add more ....
It's kind of funny - we get all bent out of shape over "organized religion" as usually understood, but seem to overlook that the most "organized religion" of all, and conceivably the one with the most devastating consequences, is political party "religion". Perhaps it has ruined more good men and women than any other ...
i support a candidate - Jill Stein - running on the Green Party line, but, ironically, what is thought to be the greatest weakness of the party, that it isn't "much of a party", is, IMO, it's greatest strength. It's candidates have to rely pretty much on their own merits and hard work - the party has a platform (a pretty damn good one) and local/state "structures" that do groundwork for its candidates, but doesn't have the power, as far as i can tell, to "own" them, as the Dem/Rep parties clearly do. Folks who run on a Green ticket are, I think, rather independent folks who have come to their positions for principled, as opposed to politically pragmatic, reasons ...
Even the vaunted RP doesn't have the chops to run outside the Rep. party - what does that say?
Seems to me we aren't going to get anywhere until we stop following parties and start following principles and the ones who hold them - and consider "inauthentic" those who do otherwise ....
"Aquifer"
Thank you. I very much agree.
Excellent! I was going to post a similar comment but since you said it so well I don't have to. Jill Stein 2012!
Jill Stein/Rocky Anderson 2012. Call it The Green Justice Coalition
~.Jill Stein/Rocky Anderson 2012. Call it The Green Justice Coalition~
must admit i'd not heard of her before this morninig as i read this thread. here a bit i found @ wikimedia foundation
Ideology
The Green Party of the United States of America emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace and nonviolence. Their "Ten Key Values,"[6] which are described as non-authoritative guiding principles, are as follows:
1. Grassroots democracy
2. Social justice and equal opportunity
3. Ecological wisdom
4. Nonviolence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-based economics
7. Feminism and gender equality
8. Respect for diversity
9. Personal and global responsibility
10. Future focus and sustainability
The Green Party does not accept donations from corporations. Thus, the party's platforms and rhetoric critique any corporate influence and control over government, media, and American society at large.
why do people who believe, as i do, that self-government means we work with our neighbors, support ma & pa, dad & son, independent argri-biz.,local franchises and such types that keep cash flowing to sustain local communities feel this can only be accomplished from the oval office? how does a non-hierarchal system begin from the top?
hum,
I get your drift - but nobody is saying this can only be accomplished from "the top". What IS true, however is that "the top" can do a lot to either hinder or facilitate this vision - so far the duopoly has used that "top" position and a bunch of others to do the former, big time. So wouldn't it be a good idea to finally get someone at "the top" who would do the latter?
Well, Rich M (a former CD poster) was so right! He elegantly explained how there are always a few Left of center Democrats kept as part of the fold to rope in angry or disaffected True Progressives. Their stands on issues keep this group from straying too far. And of course, they keep hope alive. Feingold apparently played that role; otherwise, for Feingold not only to take up the Obama banner, but tell us about all the great things this fraud did is pathetic.
If blood is thicker than water, than the vampire substance that flows inside the veins of politicians must trump both. What a sad sell-out! Yuck.
Amy continues to make it ever more clear that, though she may critique Obama, when push comes to shove, she knows when to stop - and that is at the point where she thinks it might endanger his re-election.
She is into identity politics and she can't get beyond that. It took me a while to figure that out - I watched her for years, but now i don't pay much attention to her anymore ...
You are so right -- you nailed it with the "identity" politics. I said the same thing to a friend less than a month ago. The quality of her guests initially distracted me from recognizing that she is neither very progressive nor a very good journalist. She wrote a post a couple of months ago saying we should try to reform rather than replace Obama.
campaign finance reform is a meaningless non- idea whose time cannot come in the u.s.a. Never. not even some little bit. The corporations that run our so called government are not going to surrender their power. so whatever bill anybody writes cannot pass. Nor can anything good for the people and the world
35 "co-chairs."
What an hilarious article!
Who would have guessed that Amy Goodman and Russ Feingold would be the latest version of Monte Python?
Spam, spam, spam, spam,......
Amy, Amy, Amy
Et tu, Russ?
Russ Feingold -- yet another "progressive" -- neutered and turned into a court eunuch by Obama, Inc.
I listened to Amy Goodman's painful interview with Russ Feingold this morning on Democracy Now! and was relieved to discover, based upon my own personal experience, that the cringe response -- while revolting and sickening to endure at the time -- was not fatal inasmuch as I managed to survive the ordeal intact. But, suffice to say, it was not easy.
Here is the link to the interview on Democracy Now! -- but it's not for the faint of heart:
Sen. Russ Feingold, New Obama Election Co-Chair: "The President is Wrong" to Accept Super PAC Money
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/23/sen_russ_feingold_new_obama_election
Let's hope that former Senator Feingold doesn't miss his testicles too much -- after all, his surrender appears to be a case of voluntary self-castration -- but his once essential integrity and credibility are now well and truly gone.
Poor, hapless, Dennis Kucinich seems to have managed to continue to carry on in a feeble and diminished capacity since sacrificing his testicles on the altar of that ridiculous Rube Goldberg monstrosity known as Obamacare. But only just.
And Bernie Sanders, who also sold out and voted for Obamacare, continues to deliver lots of the yada, yada, yada with very little in the way of tangible results and still continues to support Obama despite being stabbed in the back with deep cuts to LIHEAP and WIC and his now virtually defunct nationwide community health centers and all coupled with the cynical "payrol tax holiday" and the extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionairs.
Alas, here we have yet another compromised "progressive" with feet of clay:
Russ Feingold -- One of the 35 Obama Campaign Co-chairs! -- R.I.P.
Note to Amy Goodman: Regarding your notion that perhaps -- just perhaps! -- Russ Feingold will "help us follow the money" as Obama's Super PAC watchdog, and that his role in the campaign might help to end the use of these odious and secretive and democracy-killing slush funds is nothing short of preposterous.
PS -- Hopeium is a dangerous drug -- but to each his or her own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gr8 PS
Sarah-- come over here and sit by me. ♥
Obedient Servant
You’re too kind, but thanks so much nonetheless.
Upon reflection – I missed Russ Feingold’s appearance on Democracy Now! in May 2009, and decided to look at that interview, especially, the “progressive” Senator’s dissembling on single-payer health care. Amy Goodman was too solicitous and accommodating to burden Feingold with a question on the public option, not to mention the “robust” public option or an otherwise diluted version:
GOODMAN: […] One last question around the issue of healthcare. Do you support single-payer healthcare?
FEINGOLD: I do. I always have. I don’t think there’s any possibility that that will come out of this Congress. And so, for people to simply say, “That’s — it’s this way or nothing,” are looking at something that can’t happen now. But I would love to see it. And I believe the goal here is to create whatever legislation we have in a way that could be developed into something like a single-payer system.
GOODMAN: Why can’t it happen, since polls show most people are for it?
FEINGOLD: I guarantee you. I know the members of Congress, and it’s not going to pass in this Congress. So, there are certain things that can’t happen right away, and this is one of them. But I do support a single-payer idea.
GOODMAN: Why do they resist it?
FEINGOLD: Well, I think they’re afraid of the criticisms that it’s a big government bureaucracy program. You know, Paul Wellstone, before he died, started talking about having a guaranteed healthcare for all Americans, but having — giving the states flexibility to do it their own way. That’s not a single-payer system, but it achieves many of its same goals. I think that’s another way to get at this, and Paul Wellstone was even talking about it.
GOODMAN: Senator Feingold, thanks so much for joining us.
This interview, as well as the most recent one, exemplifies the reason that I have come to despise the Democrats even more than the GOPers, especially, when he explained why “this Congress” (meaning the Democrats) would never pass single-payer health care.
The money quote: “You know, Paul Wellstone, before he died, started talking about having a guaranteed healthcare for all Americans.”
Suddenly, my inner tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist was aroused and caused me to wonder about the possibility that the Democrats are not really afraid of “criticisms” about a “big government bureaucracy program” – the hapless Democrats have been tarred with that label ever since the Reagan years – but that perhaps instead they’re afraid that if they became really serious about passing single-payer health care they would end up like Wellstone – well and truly dead!
But, seriously, watching the entire May 2009 interview helped to clarify just how muddled Feingold was then and now on the matters of Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan, the use of torture, state secrets, illegal wiretaps, the then nascent and now full-blown drone war in Pakistan, and holding the Bush Crime Family accountable for war crimes – his thesis seems to be: Obama Good! -- Bush Bad!
So, Russ Feingold has joined the ranks of the Obots who are “disappointed” and “concerned” and “troubled” and even “saddened” by Obama’s most egregious transgressions and violations of the rule of law (both U.S. statutes and international conventions) and his sellout of health care to AHIP and PhRMA – not to mention his perpetuation and expansion of the worst of the Bush/Cheney policies.
Still, Feingold and his fellow Obots are nevertheless willing to wear the Obama team sweatshirt, drink from the official coffee mug, keep the bumper sticker on the car and the posters in the windows, and prepare to lead the duplicitous parade for Obama 2012!
In brief: What a pusillanimous wanker!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
oh, rc, give it a rest, I'm no great fan of Amy or Russ for their facilitation of Obama, but as far as zionists, i think Sarah B did a pretty job of debunking that as far as Amy is concerned, anyway ...
"How about a co-chair for a president that has the best reputation overseas of any president in memory, that has reversed the awful damage of the Bush administration, who in places like Cairo and in India and Indonesia has reached out to the rest of the world." If these are Feingold's words I have to revise my opinion of him - since Obama "reaches out" most often with a hit squad, a drone, or worse, policies that impoverish millions.
i also watched the broadcast yesterday and two statements really grabbed me by the ears (ouch)
i paraphrase:
1) [...] 9-11 when al-qaeda declared war on the u.s. [...]
2) [...] and now the economy is better [...]
What more proof does one need to see that there is but one political party in America? And now there is only one constituent in America. That would be the citizen fathered by Wall Street and born from the minds of the Supreme Court. We the people are no longer citizens, we are now consumers who do their worshiping at the malls. Voting is no longer necessary. It's been replaced with buying.
Hoa binh
I came here to express my admiration for Russ but judging by the comments, I may lose my head for doing so.
There's no doubt that the political system cannot be helped, but Russ is far from responsible.
Look at Feingold's praise of Obama and the Dims.
It's not the responders on this website who you refer to that are embracing a party and president that habitually violate the U.S. Constitution, U.S. law, the International Declaration of Human Rights, International laws and the most basic sense of human dignity and rights.
Feingold's full-throated praise of war criminals, polticians who violate their oaths of office and commit crimes against humanity is just a bit ... problematic.
Sinick
I very much doubt that you would lose your head for expressing your opinions here, so don't play the peremptory victim card to intimidate your imagined critics.
No one said that Russ Feingold is "responsible" for the corrupt political system as it currently exists in the USA, but people on this thread have taken issue with his conscious decision to support and perpetuate that system by agreeing to become one of Obama's 35 campaign co-chairs.
Feingold could have said, "Thanks, but no thanks."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~