Word: feingold
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Senator Russ Feingold has always been an unpredictable politician. One of the strongest supporters of campaign finance reform, the Wisconsin Democrat lived up to his principles in 1998, blasting ads that national Democrats were running for him in his state that were paid for by "soft money," the sort of campaign donation that Feingold worked successfully to outlaw a few years later. In 2001, he angered Democrats by supporting John Ashcroft?s nomination for attorney general - and then shocked everyone when he was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks...
...Feingold?s call to censure President Bush for his domestic surveillance program, which allows warrantless searches of people living in the United States and suspected of connections to terrorism, wasn?t that surprising, even though it had his normally chatty Democratic colleagues in the Senate ducking reporters to avoid talking about it. But Feingold may not have had his colleagues in mind in advocating censure. Increasingly, with at least 10 senators considering a run at the presidency, the place dubbed the World?s Greatest Deliberative Body often seems like a political laboratory where potential candidates trot out different ideas that...
...Many political observers, aware of Feingold?s quixotic style, said they thought the move wasn?t designed solely to help his presidential aspirations. But for Feingold, a liberal Senator who has been giving speeches in key states like New Hampshire for several months, the censure resolution was a smart tactic. Any Democratic presidential nominee will need to satisfy the Internet bloggers and others who helped energize Howard Dean?s presidential campaign and have made moveon.org a powerful force in fundraising. And those people were thrilled with Feingold's censure proposal. "I think it was a brilliant move," said Markos Moulitsas...
...Feingold isn?t alone in targeting these left-wing activists; Senator John Kerry?s leading a filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito earlier this year was also widely seen as a campaign tactic. Like Feingold?s censure resolution, it annoyed his Democratic colleagues in the Senate and had no chance of success, but it delighted party activists...
...moneymen don't always make the winning bet. Just ask President John Connally or President Phil Gramm. And McCain generates little enthusiasm among much of the G.O.P. rank and file, who fume about his many apostasies, not the least of which is the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance...