Russ Feingold: Bucking Convention All the Way to the White House?
"Cautious" is not a word that comes to mind when writing about Russ Feingold.
Feingold is tired of what he says is Democrats' softness on issues. "[W]e lost because we were perceived as unable to take the tough stands," he says. (Reuters)The Wisconsin senator was the first member of his party to propose a timeline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq last fall, and when news broke about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping campaign, Feingold introduced a resolution to censure the president for violating U.S. law.
Political suicide, says the Democratic political establishment. Phooey, responds Feingold.
"I've heard these pundits, they are people that are paid by Democrats, many of them were in the Clinton administration, these are paid political pundits and paid political consultants who make their living coming up [to] the Capitol and telling the Democratic leadership this is a loser," Feingold says. "It is bad advice. It is advice we got in 2002 and 2004. And we lost because we were perceived as unable to take the tough stands that are needed to change the course in the fight against terrorism."
That's Russ Feingold at his finest. An anti-politician contemplating a run for the highest political office in the country. (Read the full transcript of The Fix's interview with Feingold; watch the interview video podcast.)
For much of the past year, Feingold has traveled the country, stopping in presidential hotspots like Iowa and New Hampshire to lay the groundwork for a presidential bid. Feingold said he has picked up anecdotal evidence along the way that his views on the war and wiretapping reflect the broad sentiment within the Democratic Party's rank and file.
"There is a deep sense, especially in the base of the party, that we don't have firm principles or that if we have firm principles, we're not stating them firmly," said Feingold. "And it is amazing to hear people, almost as if they've had the same script, saying we are tired of Democrats looking weak."
That kind of anti-Washington rhetoric is already drawing comparisons between Feingold and Howard Dean, whose call for a populist uprising within the Democratic Party catapulted him from little-known former Vermont governor to icon during the 2004 presidential campaign. Dean ultimately lost the nomination fight in dramatic fashion, but the energy he created helped him win the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in early 2005.
While he praises many of Dean's positions on issues -- against the war in Iraq, against the Patriot Act -- Feingold offers an implicit criticism of the way the former governor framed the 2004 debate.
"What people are looking for is a general approach that is not necessarily confrontational but one that shows that we are strong, that we've got bold ideas," said Feingold. "It is saying, 'Look, if we took over Congress or took over the White House we would do a better, more strategic job of fighting terrorism,' for example. So it's not just negative. It's not just raising hell."
Feingold, one could say, is Dean 2.0 -- more substance, less growling.
Feingold's political career began with his 31-vote upset victory over state Sen. Cy Bidwell (R) in 1982. In the legislature, Feingold drew attention for his fight to ban the use of bovine growth hormone. He launched a seemingly quixotic bid for the U.S. Senate in 1992. Defying conventional wisdom with the use of wacky television ads (one featured Elvis Presley offering an endorsement), Feingold won a three-way Democratic primary with 70 percent of the vote and went on to defeat two-term incumbent Bob Kasten.
In the Senate, Feingold focused on the outsized role that money was having on politics, leading him to team with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to try to expand public financing for elections. Years later -- 2002 to be exact -- the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, for short) was enacted, a landmark piece of legislation that banned from federal campaigns so-called "soft" money, or unrestricted contributions to political parties.
In the midst of the fight over campaign finance reform, which many within his party privately opposed for fear that it would hand Republicans a massive fundraising advantage, Feingold cast several other votes that showcased his willingness to take the political road less traveled.
First came his "no" vote against the USA Patriot Act in October 2001, becoming the only senator of either party to stand against the measure. Explaining his decision, Feingold cited concerns about the law's potential impact on Americans' privacy. When the act came up for renewal late last year, Feingold sought to rally his colleagues against it. And even after the Senate won concessions from the White House on the bill's scope early this year, Feingold remained an opponent. The law was renewed, but Feingold believes his opposition was a success, saying that 400 communities in seven states have passed resolutions asking for changes in Patriot Act.
A year after the Patriot Act was first passed, Feingold was one of 23 senators to vote against the use of force against Iraq resolution; on the other side of the vote that day were a who's who of potential 2008 Democratic candidates: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), John Kerry (Mass.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Joe Biden (Del.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), Tom Daschle (S.D.) and John Edwards (N.C.). It is this vote, more than any other he has cast in his 14 years in the Senate, that gives Feingold a foothold in the presidential race.
Little has changed since that vote. Ask Feingold about the current Democratic positioning on Iraq and the most common response is: "I don't understand." As in, "I just don't understand why Democrats are so meek about basically associating themselves with the number one issue in America, which is to find a way to end our huge military involvement in Iraq."
Feingold believes the lack of a unified position on the war will hurt Democrats at the ballot box in the fall. Party elders, he said, believed the elections in 2000, 2002 and 2004 would see glorious comebacks for Democrats, but found that each time the party was unable to convince the American public to entrust them with the country in a time of war.
A spark of optimism came last fall when 40 senators (38 of whom were Democrats) voted for a resolution expressing the need for a reassessment of the Bush Administration policy in Iraq. Feingold was intimately involved in the crafting of the language of that resolution and believed at the time it was a step in the right direction.
But in the new year, Democrats retreated back into their "foxholes," according to Feingold, cowed by Republicans who cast the minority party's dissent on Iraq as unpatriotic. Feingold dismissed the current Democratic compromise position of making 2006 a year of "significant transition" in Iraq as "milquetoast" -- an attempt by his party to "have their cake and eat it too."
Looking for an analogy to describe Democrats' positioning on Iraq, Feingold reaches back to the early 1990s when then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton began a push for universal health care, a campaign that ultimately collapsed amid attempts at compromise. "It came in with strong language but by the end there were so many compromises," recalls Feingold. "We didn't want anybody mad at us."
Feingold doesn't have that problem -- as evidenced by a recent altercation with Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.) over a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Feingold has also clashed with his own party regularly -- scrapping behind close doors with Sen. Clinton after the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and with campaign strategists during his 1998 reelection race over his refusal to allow soft-money to finance issue ads bashing his Republican opponent.
Despite those clashes, Feingold insists he is not simply a bomb-thrower but rather an experienced legislator who knows when to cut a deal. "I think it's fair to say I am one of the most experienced legislators in the United States right now," Feingold said without even a trace of sarcasm. "I know exactly when to hold them and when to fold them."
As evidence he points to McCain-Feingold -- the result, he said, of an "excruciating eight-year process of compromise." He also included last fall's Iraq timetable resolution, saying it "not was strong as I wanted but I thought it was good move in the right direction."
Questions remain about Feingold's temperament as well his personal life (he has been divorced twice), which some Democrats worry could make it difficult for the Wisconsin senator to speak to so-called "values" voters. (In the wake of Feingold's second divorce, announced in April, University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato pronounced it the "end of his presidential hopes.")
The biggest hurdle for Feingold, however, is his ability to compete financially and organizationally against fundraising titans like Clinton, Kerry and Bayh. Feingold has been extremely active on the money front of late, collecting nearly $600,000 in the first four months of this year for his Progressive Patriots Fund. Since winning reelection in 2004, Feingold has raised a solid $1.9 million for his Senate campaign committee and at the end of March had $1.1 million in the bank. Even so, he has yet to prove he can raise the $25 million-plus he will need to compete in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.
Feingold is well aware that he is not (and never will be) the frontrunner for the nomination, but he said his own political career shows that the conventional wisdom is often wrong. He will not, however, run for president solely to prove a point. "I would have to feel that I could actually win it for Democrats," said Feingold. "I sure don't want to get the nomination and not win."
It's that mix of passion and pragmatism that Feingold hopes will appeal to Democratic voters looking for a fresh-faced truth-teller come 2008. Feingold's career has been defined by his crusader nature, but it's his skills as a conciliator -- with conviction -- that may be most important for his hopes of capturing his party's nomination.
Read The Fix's past Insider Interviews with potential 2008 presidential candidates:
* Sen. George Allen (R-Va.)
* Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana)
* Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.)
* Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.)
* Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa)
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