Feingold explores possible White House bid Plans progressive push on campuses
By John Nichols September 6, 2001
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold this fall will launch a serious, if nontraditional, exploration of his prospects as a contender for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president...
"I want to get some fire back in the party, get people talking about what it would mean to have a progressive Democrat in the White House," the two-term senator from Wisconsin said in an interview this week...
A progressive maverick who is best known nationally as the Democratic half of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform tag team with U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Feingold is not rushing out to join other prospective Democratic contenders on the fund-raising circuit.
...Rather, the senator is arranging to tour college campuses to ask the question: "Why can't we have a real Democratic Party and a real Democratic candidate for president in 2004?"
The tour will begin Nov. 11 at the University of Michigan. Other possible stops included state universities in Iowa, Texas and North Carolina...
Feingold, who bluntly challenged last year's Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles to reject the dictates of special interest contributors, said he will talk not just about his objections to Bush administration policies but also about his sense that the conservative Democratic Leadership Council is warping his party into a force that many Americans can't differentiate from Republicans...
"I'm worried sick about what's going to happen with Supreme Court nominations, social policy, foreign policy, trade policy, the environment if we get eight years of Bush," Feingold said.
"But I'm also worried about the prospect that we could have four years of Bush and four years of a DLC Democrat, which is just about as bad. I am so furious with the corporatization of the Democratic Party and this constant dumbing down to centrism.
"Centrism, ultimately, just plays into the hands of the corporations because they end up knowing they can do business with either the Republican or the Democratic Party."
Arguing that Democrats have sacrificed the support of tens of millions of disenchanted voters - especially young people - by embracing cautious approaches to major issues, Feingold said he will challenge his audiences to "think big" about what a progressive Democratic president could do for America.
"There's a hunger out there and it's a hunger for a politics that addresses the issues that I really care about," he said.
Those issues include his convictions that free trade as it is currently construed is harming workers and the environment in the United States and around the world; that corporations have too much power; that the death penalty and racial profiling are wrong; that the District of Colombia should be a state; that AIDS in Africa is an issue for Main Street Americans; and that "America really can be a more tolerant, more caring country."...
Feingold's reputation as a bold - some would say reckless - campaigner is well established. He used an Elvis impersonator to help propel him past two better financed Democrats and a Republican incumbent in his 1992 quest for the Senate seat he now holds. Then, to make a point about the need for campaign finance reform, he rejected aid from outside groups for his 1998 re-election campaign - making himself one of the few incumbents in the nation to be outspent by his challenger...
Feingold knows he irked both party regulars and those in the progressive wing with some high-profile departures from Democratic Party orthodoxy: He voted against dismissing perjury and obstruction of justice charges against former President Bill Clinton, even though he ultimately opposed impeachment; and this year he voted to support President Bush's nomination of John Ashcroft to serve as attorney general.
Those votes will require some explaining to the party faithful. But, Feingold said, "I love the challenge."
He is especially interested in discussing the Ashcroft vote in the context of presidential politics. Feingold argues that presidents - even those with whom he personally disagrees - need wide freedom to choose their Cabinets. By voting for Ashcroft, Feingold said, he helped protect the ability of future administrations, particularly future progressive administrations, to pick preferred aides.
"That allows a progressive president to have not just a milquetoast administration, but an administration that can have an impact," he said.
Feingold will also challenge Democratic insiders to rethink their anger toward 2000 Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader, whom many blame for drawing support away from Al Gore.
"I've been troubled by the venom that many Democrats display toward Nader," said Feingold, who backed Gore last year but refused to join in Democratic attacks on Nader.
"I agree with many of the things that Ralph Nader had to say about the Democratic Party. It has become too corporate, too compromised. It is out of touch with our base - especially with young people. On the merits, Nader was right in a lot of what he said. My difference with him is that I think it's impractical to try to launch a third party at this point. I think we need to make the fight inside the Democratic Party. And we need to start fighting now, not in January of 2004." ...
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