Russ Feingold says: "We're starting a new organization, Progressives United, that will help us fight back."

"We'll work to ensure that our elected officials, both Republicans and Democratic, are held accountable to the people, and not to the lobbyists in Washington. We'll call out the media, when they hide from the real story. And we'll support candidates when they uphold our progressive ideals, even if the Beltway establishment doesn't."

The name — Progressives United — is a play on Citizens United, the case that found a law with Feingold's name on it unconstitutional. Of course, he's not ashamed of having crossed the constitutional boundary. Like President Obama, he's sure the Supreme Court was wrong, but the name Progressives United shows a good attitude about it. The effort to suppress speech failed, and now he's got a new strategy — more speech, speech countering the speech he disagrees with. That's exactly what the First Amendment supports. So: Great!

"Senator Feingold joins Marquette Law School with a substantial academic, legal and legislative background."

"He will draw on all of this in working with students in their analysis of some of the most complex legal issues facing our nation and world today. I look forward to his service on our faculty."

His course: Current Legal Issues: The U.S. Senate.

What current U.S. Senate legal issues would you put in a law school course? Perhaps something about the way the Senate takes account of constitutional values like federalism and individual rights and why that does (or doesn't) deserve deference from the judiciary?

ADDED: In 2005, Feingold gave a lecture at my law school called "Upholding an Oath to the Constitution: A Legislator's Responsibilities." (Coincidentally, we're talking about the congressional oath today on this blog.) In my 2005 post on the lecture, I said:

Russ Feingold spoke about his devotion to the oath he took as a senator to uphold the Constitution and the second oath he took for the Clinton impeachment trial. Feingold was the only Democratic senator to vote against the motion to dismiss the impeachment. He applied a legal standard to the motion and had to vote the way he did because he could not say that there was no chance of proving the charges against the President....

Feingold talked about his campaign finance reform law, which he cared about because he was "tired" of hearing that politics was "about money, not ideas." He reminisced about the court case, challenging the constitutionality of the law, and described sitting through a nine-hour deposition conducted by the great First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. Abrams began his questioning praising Feingold to his face for his reputation for upholding the Constitution. As Feingold put it later in the question session, Abrams spent the nine hours "trying to confuse me." I'd say the praise that he started off with was a deliberate effort to unnerve the senator. Feingold could hold his ground, he thought, because he believed his position was consistent with his oath to protect the Constitution, because "we spent a great deal of time crafting that bill" to avoid constitutional violations....

He spoke about the Patriot Act and his anguish at the speed with which it was pushed through the Senate, beginning with a closed door hearing on October 3, 2001.... Feingold objected to this sort of "legislation on the fly." Many members of Congress admitted to him that they had not read the text of the Patriot Act....

Ahem. Health care. Ahem.

... He ended his speech with the observation that it has been complex to keep his oath to uphold the Constitution and that he has "struggled constantly to get it right."...

I would never have said this out loud, but I couldn't help thinking how interesting it was that Feingold shaped his whole lecture around the sanctity of the oath, when just a few days ago he announced that he was getting a divorce, his second. Was I the only one who thought how strange it was to hear a man piously invoke a passionate fidelity to an oath when he had -- so conspicuously -- gone back on the marriage oath twice?

"To tell you the truth, I'm not 100 percent certain America is made up of states. We might be living in a fiefdom, for all I know."

"Am I spelling that right? 'Wisconsin.' It looks weird written out.... Ladies and gentlemen, isn't it time you elected someone who only learned five minutes ago that there are three branches of government, not 14?... Russ Feingold could point out Washington, D.C. with his eyes closed, and I have never quite grasped the difference between a map and a light-up globe. That is the difference I bring to the race, and that is the kind of leadership we need.... What we don't need is Russ Feingold, who is a Democrat capable of conjugating verbs and composing thoughts in sentence form. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I've been saying here this entire time. What is time? Where am I? Who are you? How do telescopes work, and why am I writing this right now? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Because I am an outsider and Russ Feingold is a man with dark hair. Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi, corporate giveaways, socialism, Nancy Pelosi. Washington, D.C. Voter-people of Wisoncassinn, my name is Rob Jameson, and I want to be your congressman or Parliament or surgeon general or whatever the hell it is I'm running for. Thank you."

Just ran across that Onion shredding of Ron Johnson. It's really funny. Especially now. The voters are pretty damn stupid.... ha ha ha.

"This is the old 'bitter clingers' (or 'What's the Matter With Kansas?') argument reduced to utter incoherence."

James Taranto quotes Gov. Ed Rendell...

[P]eople don't always vote on logical reasons. Emotion drives voters particularly when they have reason to be angry and frustrated. If you lost your job or lost your house or lost your 401k, you had every reason to be angry and frustrated and when you are, you have a tendency to blame the people who are in office...

... and — via me — UW polisci professor Charles Franklin:

I'm not endorsing the American voter... They're pretty damn stupid.

Taranto — being much nicer to Franklin than Rush Limbaugh was — includes the self-defense Franklin wrote in the comments to my blog:

... [V]oters embraced Ron Johnson before they knew much about him. . . . The race wasn't about specific details of Johnson vs Feingold, it was a rejection of Democrats more or less regardless of what voters knew about the GOP candidate... [D]espite not knowing the details of Johnson's policy positions, the voters did NOT make a mistake in choosing Johnson as the more conservative candidate and certain to be more favorable to cutting government....

Taranto finds this incoherent: "In other words, the electorate was smart. So why did Franklin call them stupid?"

***

By the way, I love Taranto's Best of the Web. This, from the same link, had me in hysterics:

Such as: What the Heck Is Tomosynthesis?
"Breast Tomosynthesis on Verge of U.S. Approval, but Questions Linger"--headline, DotMed.com, Nov. 24

Byron York, tipped off by a post of mine, takes aim at a UW professor.

"Political reporters often rely on University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin for expertise," says York:

If you read his quotes in mainstream publications, you'll find a series of measured statements on political trends.  Democrats appealing to the youth vote in the run-up to the midterms are "betting long odds, given the very long history of low turnout in midterms among young voters," Franklin told the Washington Post recently.  Final pre-election polls suggested "a Republican wave of genuinely historical proportions," he told USA Today.  Feingold's problems had "more to do with the mood of the country than with Feingold himself," he told the Boston Globe.

It's all pretty unremarkable stuff.  And readers would have no idea what Franklin really thinks about the voters whose opinions he's measuring and commenting on.  But now they do.

Here's the post of mine that York read, and here's the Isthmus article that I drew to his attention to Franklin's opinion of the voters ("They're pretty damn stupid.").

ADDED: Professor Franklin appears in the comments section of yesterday's post and says:

Sigh. Bill's Lueder's quote is exactly accurate. I said exactly what he says I said. Normally I would just let it go at that since once such a quote is out it will spread no matter what. The only complaint I have is that Lueder's subsequent conclusions from that quote are his own and not mine.

The context was the Senate race and the point I was making, which I've made numerous times before, was that voters embraced Ron Johnson before they knew much about him. In a June 26-27 poll by Public Policy Polling, Johnson trailed Feingold by just 2 points, yet in the poll 62% said they had neither a favorable nor an unfavorable opinion of Johnson. I've used that poll frequently to illustrate the fact that voters were ready to embrace a Republican they knew almost nothing about over a three term incumbent Democrat. The race wasn't about specific details of Johnson vs Feingold, it was a rejection of Democrats more or less regardless of what voters knew about the GOP candidate.

That was the context in which I said voters are "pretty damn stupid". Too hyperbolic indeed, but I said it and have no complaint that it was quoted when I knew I was speaking to journalists.

But I wish what I said next had also been quoted. I went on to say that despite not knowing the details of Johnson's policy positions, the voters did NOT make a mistake in choosing Johnson as the more conservative candidate and certain to be more favorable to cutting government. That was indeed the correct connection by an angry electorate, even if the details were quite vague.

Voter's often act on little information and can be astonishingly unaware of things one might consider "facts". A post-election Pew poll finds less than half (46%) know the GOP won only the House but not the Senate. And at times voters appear to vote for candidates who are likely to take positions at odds with the voter's interests.

But in the Johnson-Feingold race, I think despite lack of details about Johnson, a majority of Wisconsin voter's picked the guy they wanted, and for basically the right reason. Dems may be astonished at the rejection of a favorite son, but in making this choice I think voter's properly expressed their preferences and matched them to the right candidate.

So I wish I had phrased this differently but that's my bad, no one else's. But I do not agree with the conclusion that voter's were "stupid" to pick Johnson over Feingold. In fact I believe a majority got the Senator they wanted, and that is always good for a republic.

"The last thing Wisconsin needed was another rich guy to serve as fodder for the Feingold political machine. Just who did this thin-faced, white-haired guy think he was?"

Christian Schneider, of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, has a long, juicy article about Ron Johnson:

In early April of 2010, Michelle Litjens, the chairwoman of the Winnebago Republican Party, found some local guy that was thinking of running for the U.S. Senate.   She brought him down to a meeting of a handful of conservative operatives in Madison.  He didn’t even know he was supposed to speak at this meeting, and patched together a few talking points in the car on the way down.

When Litjens introduced businessman Ron Johnson to the group, people rolled their eyes and checked their watches as he ambled through his reasons for running.  There were already a few people thinking about running for senate, and even Wisconsin political legend Tommy Thompson was considering getting in the race.  The last thing Wisconsin needed was another rich guy to serve as fodder for the Feingold political machine.  Just who did this thin-faced, white-haired guy think he was?

Six months later, everyone found out who he was.  He was Ron Johnson, Republican Senator from Wisconsin.

That's the very end of the article. The "thin-faced" business refers back to this:

In his remote cubicle, [36-year old deputy campaign manager Jack] Jablonski is holding court with the other staffers, detailing a study he read that could bode well for RonJon.  Apparently, some political scientists have determined that voters are more likely to support the candidate with the narrower face.  It makes them look more trustworthy, or something.  These researchers actually used Feingold’s 2004 race against construction company owner Tim Michels to prove their point – Feingold’s face was narrower that Michels’ giant meaty head, so study respondents correctly picked Feingold as the winner by overwhelming margins.

“Ron’s face is even narrower than Feingold’s” Jablonski points out.  “Let’s all just go home – it’s a done deal,” he jokes.

I'd forgotten about the hopes that were pinned on Thompson. You may remember that I attended the Tea Party rally at the Capitol where Thompson announced that he wouldn't run. Leaking the news the day before, Firedoglake wrote:

[T]here was really only one Republican lurking out there who would have given Russ Feingold a tough race. In this case it was Tommy Thompson... [His decision not to run] all but assures that Feingold will be able to win re-election; the two candidates currently in the race against him are running well behind....

Ha.

"In this anti-establishment year, Ron Johnson is perhaps the only member of his freshman Republican Senate class who can truly lay claim to the Washington outsider label."

"Wisconsin’s newly elected senator has never served in public office. He didn’t benefit from family political connections, as did Rand Paul of Kentucky or Mike Lee of Utah. He funded most of his campaign with his personal fortune, keeping special interests at bay."

A worthy successor to our much-loved Senator Feingold.

A dubious theme: "Independents Turn on One of Their Own: Feingold."

This — by Katharine Q. Seelye of the NYT — seems a bit off:

The irony was lost on no one. Senator Russ Feingold, a liberal with a fierce streak of independence who crusaded against the influence of money in politics, was toppled Tuesday in a campaign awash in the kind of unregulated cash he had struggled to keep out of the system.

And in a poignant twist, the loss came, in part, because independents flocked to his opponent, despite Mr. Feingold’s record of one maverick vote after another.

It's not the same kind of independence. Feingold's independence was to the left of the Democrats in Congress. The independents who determined the outcome were voters — including me — whose politics lie in between Republicans and Democrats. Feingold made no effort to get in that zone. 

He was the sole senator to oppose the Patriot Act after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He also broke with President Obama on several occasions, opposing the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, the bailing out of financial institutions in 2008 and the regulation of Wall Street this year, saying the restrictions did not go far enough.

See? That's my point.

Most prominently, he battled his colleagues to overhaul the campaign finance system...

A few paragraphs separate that from this:

...Mr. Feingold raised and spent more money than Mr. Johnson...

Mr. Feingold had raised $18.2 million and spent $16.2 million by the middle of last month, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Johnson raised $12.8 million, and spent $10.5 million, pumping in more than $8.2 million of his own money.

Feingold's campaign finance law wasn't a limit on a candidate spending his own money. In any case, Feingold spent much more money than Johnson.

It is not clear what he will do next. In a brief speech Tuesday night, he told the 300 supporters gathered in a hotel here in his hometown, “It’s on to the next fight, it’s on to the next battle, it’s on to 2012 and it is on to our next adventure, forward.”

He then raised his fist in the air and left the stage.

"Forward" is the state motto and the informal name of the 15-foot sculpture on top of the state Capitol building and the official name of another statue at the east entrance to the Capitol. I've watched the video of Feingold's concession speech, and his hand is a little off-screen at this point, but I bet that's not a fist but an outreaching hand meant to invoke the "Forward" statues.

ADDED: Here's a photo of the "Forward" gesture:



AND: Ron Johnson ran a pretty effective ad saying that Feingold is not the "maverick" he claims to be.

Yesterday afternoon, Matt Welch and I tried to talk non-obsoletely about last night's election.

Topics, as framed by Bloggingheads:

Why Ann voted against her old pal Russ Feingold
Just a pendulum swing, or something fundamentally new?
Will the Tea Party take over the GOP, or vice versa?
Matt vs. Ann on Prop 19
Advice for Obama (which he probably won’t take)
The GOP’s possibly futile attempt to stop Sarah Palin

ADDED: Matt Welch is the editor-in-chief of Reason magazine.

TV on! Election night! Liveblog!

1. It begins:



2. "... Rand Paul projected by CNN to win his Senate race in Kentucky and another conservative, Dan Coats, projected to win the Senate race in Indiana."

3. "I'm more comfortable with Fox," say I, after watching CNN for a while and then switching.

4. Oh, CNN is better. Better graphics. Lots of people saying things. Annoying much of the time, but more detail. Mary Matalin enthusing about Portman winning in Ohio, a state Obama won.

5. DeMint already making his victory speech. Kitty Dukakis in trouble for seeming like "a walking billboard."

6. CNN says Coons wins. We won't have Christine O'Donnell to kick around anymore.

7. Rubio! David Gergen enthuses about "a Republican Latino with star power."

8. "Wow, the first time one of the fictional Althouse characters actually had a complete story arc! Bravo!" (Scroll up.)

9. It's so sad for the Democrats. They gave us so many things. Gifts. Expensive gifts. That we didn't want. That they bought with our money.

10. Tim Kaine blabs on and on, making a happy face. Eventually, Wolf Blitzer cuts hims off with "It's going to be a long night for you.

11. CNN's music for tonight is the same (or just close) to what was used in the HBO John Adams series. It's about the Framers, no? As the Tea Party clinches it.

12. Drudge says: "REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, FL, GA, IN, OH, KY, MO, NH, SC... DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD... TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL..." Hey, what happened to California? Earlier he was calling it for Boxer.

13. Manchin. "Huge win" for the Democrats, says Wolf Blitzer, about the hot West Virginia race.

14. The GOP takes the House. It's outside of the margin of error, says NBC. Pelosi is gone. Ding dong. [UPDATE: Now MSNBC is calling that "a mistake." MSNBC is awful.]

15. NBC says Wisconsin is "too close to call," as the polls close.

16. Rand Paul victory speech: "I have a message! A message from the people of Kentucky! A message that is loud and clear and does not mince words! We've come to take our government back!"

17. MSNBC is hilarious. They're near meltdown. Rand Paul will destroy America. The Republicans "salivate at the thought" of worldwide economic collapse.

18. O'Donnell conceding. Very cheerful. Chirpy. I listened to Marco Rubio's victory speech a few minutes ago, which was, by contrast, very mellow.

19. Scott Walker has, it seems, won the Governorship here in Wisconsin. That's supposed to mean — that must mean — no to the high-speed train boondoggle.  Also in Wisconsin, Russ Feingold is way behind.

20. Feingold has lost, quite decisively. I'm sorry to see him go. He's a good man. But I should admit that I voted against him. I had to vote for the Party of No.

21. Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin appear side-by-side on Fox News, analyzing the elections, denouncing sexism, and then ending on this adorable, ultra-girlie note:



22. Screen shot:



23. I just thought that was amusing, the way YouTube inserted my face into the Fox News. By the way, did you notice, at the end of the clip, when Geraldine said she wanted to go on "Dancing with the Stars," Sarah said "I'll hook you up"?

24. John Boehner tears up talking about American values, which he's chased all his life. Then, talking about his business, he sobs. Keep it together, Boehnsy!

25. That got a little... weird. I hope Boehnsy is ready to lead. Anyway, here in Dane County, Feingold's campaign manager George Aldrich is not giving up: "Russ is down by 80,000 votes, but...up to 1.4 million votes haven’t been counted." None of the Madison votes were in when he said that: "We are confident that this race is going to tighten, it is going to tighten quickly, and we may be in for a long night here."

25. Over at Drudge, it's the 3 Rs:



Rubio, Rand, and Ron.

26. Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: "The Obama agenda is dead." The Democrats have retained the Senate, apparently, but, looking forward to 2012, they will, self-defensively, distance themselves from Obama — says the Kraut.

27. Feingold has conceded. NYT:

Quoting Bob Dylan, he said, "My heart is not weary, it's light and free, and I've got nothing but affection for those who have sailed with me."

It is not clear what he will do next, but Mr. Feingold, 57, told the crowd: "It's on to the next fight, it's on to the next battle, it's on to 2012 and it is on to our next adventure, forward." He raised his fist in the air and left the stage.

The Times misses that "Forward" is the state motto. And maybe that "fist in the air" was posing as the Wisconsin "Forward" statue.

28. Karl Rove exclaims that he's "exhausted." I was just saying he looked tired.

29. Speaking of tired, it's interesting that Harry Reid will be sticking around. There's something so dreary about him. Does his victory cheer Democrats? Or would they have had more fun kicking Sharron Angle around?

30. I'm tired too. See you in the morning.

"Russ Feingold received a suspicious package on his doorstep in Middleton Saturday, which police deemed a prank..."

It turned out to be a board game and a letter signed "Thomas Jefferson."

The Dane County Bomb Squad searched the package...

Although the sender of the package has yet to be found, police traced the return address to a postal office in Illinois. The incident came on the heels of the recent interception of explosives headed for Jewish organizations in Chicago....

So it came in the mail? It was on his doorstep because that's where the postal worker left it? Who is supposed to call the bomb squad when an unsolicited package comes in the mail? (I get packages in the mail from addresses I don't recognize. Should I call the police?)

How is it even a prank? Someone sent him a joke gift. If Feingold shouldn't be getting packages delivered to his house, why does the Post Office deliver them? What does this have to do with "the recent interception of explosives"? It wasn't an inception. It was a delivered package. And there were no explosives. 

Is this a nonstory, the sort of non-"incident" that happens all the time, which we're hearing about because of the election? 

By the way, what board game was it? It was supposed to be funny in combination with Thomas Jefferson.

Dave Weigel went to Wisconsin to see Russ Feingold flailing.

Things you may have missed if you didn't hang out here over the weekend.

1. "Witch! Whore!... Nazi!" How evil is it for a candidate to play the role of a Nazi in war reenactments? How evil is it for a journalist to write about that and bury — in the 13th paragraph — the news that the same man — Rich Iott —  has also done reenactment as a Civil War Union infantryman, a World War I doughboy and a World War II American infantryman and paratrooper?

2. It's sexist to worry about calling Meg Whitman a whore. If women are going to join men in politics, they deserve to be called whores like the rest of them.  

3. Woeful/wilful metaphor deafness: Some people just don't/won't understand what it means to say "some people are just born to be slaves."

4. "Watch Russ Feingold confidently assert that he represents Tea Party values."

5. The story of a pregnant woman who had to pee invokes an old memory of the time I was persecuted by Episcopalians. 

Russ Feingold and his GOP challenger Ron Johnson answer a question about how close they are to the beliefs of the Tea Party.

Watch Russ Feingold confidently assert that he represents Tea Party values. Marvel at the importance of reading the Constitution at an early age and carrying it around all the time. Consider the question whether we should want a millionaire in the Senate. Feingold says it's good to have a nonmillionaire, like him, in the Senate, because the Senate is so full of millionaires and it provides some balance. On the other hand, a businessman who's made millions, like Johnson, has proven something about his ability and his knowledge of how the world works.

ADDED: You can watch the whole debate here. I thought it was interesting to see how well the new guy, Johnson, was able to look polished and competent alongside Russ Feingold.

AND: Instapundit links, saying:

Gee, it wasn’t long ago that Tea Partiers were a fringe group of astroturf bigots or something. Now it seems like everyone wants to be a Tea Partier! Who on earth could have seen this coming?

The answer, of course, is: Instapundit. I must say, when those tea parties began, I thought they were kind of embarrassing. I didn't get Instapundit promoting them all the time.

The Russ Feingold vs. Ron Johnson Debate.

Are you watching with me?

"After a couple of blah songs by The National, then a long energy-sapping break for canned music (pace, people, pace), singer-guitarist Ben Harper plays a mostly pensive solo set."

"It’s the exact opposite of rousing," writes Dean Robbins about tonight's Obama rally:

But just when you think the rally (and maybe even the Democrats) are doomed, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold bursts onto the podium.

The media had predicted Feingold wouldn’t show up at the event, suggesting he didn’t want to be tied to the increasingly unpopular Obama. You wouldn’t know it from his passionate speech. “I’ll tell you something, Mr. President,” he booms, “you are my friend!”

I wondered if maybe the pace was all off because Feingold decided to come at that last minute. I wasn't buying it when he criticized right-wingers for saying he wouldn't come. Why didn't he announce earlier that he would? Why was Tim Kaine talking about  how it was perfectly normal for Feingold not to come?

... And here [Obama] comes... He’s more handsome in person than on TV, with a thousand-watt smile and more charisma than any one person should be allowed to have. He gets the crowd in the palm of his hand from his opening story of driving to Madison to visit student friends when he lived in Chicago. 

Robbins doesn't mention that the crowd booed Chicago. (The pain of last night's Packers-Bears game was quite fresh and raw.)

“I had some fun times up here in Madison,” he says. Perfectly timed pause, followed by the punchline: “I can’t give you the details....”

Isn't it amazing that we let him play coy about such matters? Why was that ever charming?

Today's Drudgedy... Drudge comedy.

Eyes... bucks... Not sure what Drudge is driving at here. Some strange coded message to Ohio? And why show the front and not the back of the dollar bill?

"Democratic Party Chairman Timothy Kaine says he sees no slight in Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold skipping a campaign rally tonight where President Barack Obama is appearing on his behalf."

I see a slight: To the intelligence of the American people, if Kaine thinks we might believe that.

Russ Feingold distances himself from the Democrats.

In this pretty damned brilliant ad:



At first, I was all Why are they showing him chewing?... but then, the camera pulls back... and Russ is the loneliest Senator of them all.

This ad reaches the part of me that would find it very hard to vote against Russ. I hate to lend support to what the Democrats have been doing over the last 2 years. But Russ... Our Russ...

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene tells the story of the time her mother rubbed Feingold's head and said "Such a nice boy."

"RUSS FEINGOLD IS dodging Obama in Wisconsin."

Instapundit interprets the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's bland report: "A Labor Day schedule released by the staff of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) indicates that while Feingold will be in Milwaukee for a Laborfest pre-parade on Monday morning, he will not be in town when Obama is expected to arrive."