Well, hopefully you're voting for Feingold. That guy's been one of the best senators of the last 20 years, honest, doesn't take any lobbyist money and a fiscal conservative, too, but he's in danger of losing to a guy who's entire platform is "I'm not a socialist" (Feingold isn't either).
I live in a different state, but I wouldn't be caught dead voting for Feingold. I know none of your local issues, but I know that he's co-author of the McCain-Feingold Incumbency Protection Act, which gags those interested in the issues from educating the rest of the electorate. Apparently Sen. Feingold believes that it's better to have an ill-informed electorate, and that we shouldn't be able to use our 1st Amendment rights to put a voice to our ideas, if it has anything to do with politics.
IMHO, this is precisely what the 1st Amendment was designed to give us, and Feingold's disavowal of it overrides virtually anything else he may or may not have done.
"Apparently Sen. Feingold believes that it's better to have an ill-informed electorate, and that we shouldn't be able to use our 1st Amendment rights to put a voice to our ideas, "
Let me get you on the record here -- you actually think the various "Americans for American Americans" groups are contributing to the debate? You think these groups deserve a voice? Let me re-enact a little play for you in 3 lines:
Lobbyist: I've got 5 million to spend, Senator. I can spend it with you or against you. We need our subsidies.
Senator: I'm going to do the right thing, not the corrupt thing.
Americans for American Americans: "Senator X supports wasteful government spending and death panels"
(Note that the lobbyist who was asking for money is now running ads accusing the senator of spending too much. That's ok, because it works.)
It's a straw man because not only does McCain-Feingold forbid behavior like you illustrate, but also perfectly reasonable advocacy. So the NRA can't say "don't vote for Mr. X because he's against the 2nd Amendment". Pro-choice people can't say "don't vote for Mr. Z because he's voted for blah blah". These are precisely the types of speech that the 1st Amendment was intended (in part) to protect, and McCain-Feingold eviscerates it.
It's a red herring, because it's attacking something that's not wrong anyway (and fails to attack what I believe you thing is wrong).
It fails to address the implied corruption, bribery, and lobbying. McCain-Feingold has nothing to do with that stuff, yet it's the central evil in your little play.
And the last line of your play: Americans for American Americans: "Senator X supports wasteful government spending and death panels" is not wrong. Every person has the right to put up a sign on his front door, or put up a web site, describing his own political views, and advocating for or against specific candidates. Every one of us also has the right to associate with who we wish, and in so doing, pool our funds to make that web site even spiffier, or buy a TV ad. I believe that your objection to this is completely content-based: you dislike the kinds of messages that are being commnunicated; you think they're dangerous, and want to stop them.
But even if I'm wrong, your argument otherwise serves to bolster my original point ("don't vote unless you know the issues"). We all have the responsibility to understand what's going on. We're supposed to be adults with a conscience and the ability to weigh and judge the merits. If you don't do so, you've got no business voting.
As a volunteer in a grass roots campaign in the 2007 primaries, Mr. Feingold's unAmerican anti-free speech law was a major pain in our asses as we tried to fight the more established political interests. I am so happy to see that man go. He should retire or get an honest job.
Campaign finance laws make it so that candidates supported by passionate minorities cannot be heard. If you are not 1) personally rich or 2) a mainstream candidate in a mainstream party you have no opportunity to speak. This is ironic considering such laws are usually passed as a way to fight "entrenched interests", but they do exactly the opposite.
>"Sorry that you've been brainwashhed."
That tone is a little overboard for this website community.
I would love to hear how McCain-Feingold hurt you when it came to "fighting more established political interests".
The inability to throw millions of soft money into the race made it harder to fight the established political interest? Or made it harder to harness established lobbyist interest?
Under McCain-Feingold, candidates can self-fund for any amount, and donations are limited to $2300/head, that's $4600 for married couples. If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. If you can't find 1000 people to support you but have one guy cutting 10 million dollar checks, you DEFINITELY shouldn't be in politics.
You should read John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty". It makes all my arguments for free political speech for me and in a much more elegant manner.
It is self-evident that if you limit the amount of money that people can spend on advertising their political views that niche candidates and less popular ideas will be hurt the most. Unions can compel donations from their millions of members, your Clintons, Obamas, and McCains of the world get the full support and advertising of the major parties. But offbeat candidates will have their speech capped by McCain-Feingold, unless they are personally rich (Ross Perot).
We had many outside projects (independent advertisements and the like) that couldn't get cash because so many of us had donated our max amount to the campaign (even though few of us were personally rich). There's something weird about being an American and not being allowed to support a candidate because it is against the law. I would much rather have a rough and tumble, wide-open contest in the finest democratic tradition than Democrats and Republicans writing laws about who is allowed to speak.
You seem to want to outlaw outside advertisements because they don't meet your standards for quality. Cool man, cool. I just want you to consider how that position fits within the American liberal tradition.
>" If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. "
That sounds like an incumbent protection act to me.
We had a few hundred thousand supporters, ended up getting a few million votes! Even found a loophole in McCain-Feingold and set up one venture as a for-profit enterprise (you ever see the "Hillary 2008" t-shirts at airports? Same loophole).
We did okay, considering. But man, I just want my freedom back.
I'm about done here but can you really not see any potential conflicts of interest when you allow those who have the most money to flood the zone with hundred-million dollar ad buys? That doesn't offend any small-d democratic principles that you hold?
I want to re-regulate outside advertisements because they are almost always the product of shady dealings. Citizens United happened this year and we're setting records for the amount of money spent, during a frickin midterm. And guys like you complain about corruption in DC. No sense of irony?
As much as I would like to eliminate the biggest political spenders from the public discourse - the public sector unions who spend hundreds of millions of dollars to elect their own bosses - I believe even they deserve the right to speak.
No one has brought up socialism in this campaign at all. Ron Johnson has run a specific, issue oriented campaign. His major focus is stopping the run away spending of the Obama agenda. He entered the race when Obamacare passed, because he felt that was the last straw.
Feingold on the other hand is standing by his vote for Obamacare. I haven't forgotten the disdainful smirk on his face when he addressed his enraged constituents at last years' health care town hall meetings, and I don't think my fellow Wisconsinites have either.
This election is all about consequences for those who ignored the will of the people, and Russ Feingold is chief among them.
Libertarians were loudly protesting. To no effect of course, because Republicans were behind their guy and Democrats were primarily complaining that it wasn't expensive enough.
if beating your domestic enemies is more important to you than improving the country, you are hurting the country.
No, democrats were primarily complaining that it was outrageously expensive, budget busting, and didn't even do any good because all of the money went straight to the drug companies (see my above comments on lobbyists).
RE: Obama, you must be kidding. The man is a born compromiser, the problem is that Republicans haven't been willing to compromise on anything. They voted against their own deficit commission, for crying out loud, after Obama decided to support it.
Blaming the Republicans doesn't make any sense. Democrats have the votes to do whatever they want to do, which is why it's so easy this year to hold incumbents accountable.
No, they don't? The Republicans have used filibuster as a threat at an unprecedented level. The Senate has only nominally been in the Democrats' control.
Until Scott Brown's election last year, the Democrats could have ended any filibuster attempt immediately. Democrats had a free run for a year. For the a year and a half now, the public has been screaming for them to stop. Brown's election was the first shot across the bow, but the Democrats paid no heed.
It's been a traditional courtsey in the Senate for the party in power not to shove through votes often, in respect that in the future they would eventually be the minority party, and occasionally need to filibuster as well. The possibility of removing the ability to filibuster has been discussed, but not undertaken for this reason.
By filibustering so often, the Republicans are showing that this is no longer the custom. Which is fine; I think it's a silly custom, and we'd benefit as a nation if blocking legislation like that were impossible. But it is absolutely a break from common procedure.
I think your memory is fuzzy. For example, under GWB, the Democrat's use of the filibuster was also frequent and controversial. There were judicial appointments that went unfilled for years because the Dem's refused to discuss them.
i've never felt politicians were particularly courageous if they were afraid of the possibility that someone might talk for awhile. if something is so important, at least give it a shot. worst case you have to listen to somebody read his grocery list to you. (and he ends up looking like an idiot on national tv. the news will ensure that.)
This isn't the issue in a filibuster; the cowardice is on the part of the senator who refuses to give up the floor. The whole point is that you talk until the bill expires, and so cannot be voted on.
Filibustering senators are declaring that they are unwilling to allow the issue to be voted on, not that they think their voice hasn't been heard enough.
He didn't ignore my will, and I'm a people and a fellow Wisconsinite. Please don't act like you speak for me, or any more than 50±10% of the Wisconsin public.
Unfortunately Nate Silver puts Feingold at a 3% chance of winning. [1]
That means his only chance of victory is a high turnout...so I hope that parent (kgosser) can take some time to vote today. Feingold is truly one of the most important Senators of the last few decades.
