Russ Feingold: "Progressives must unite to ensure that the President is reelected."

[jefferson_dem]

Russ Feingold: 'I Strongly Disagree With Ralph Nader' On A Primary Challenge To Obama



WASHINGTON -- There has been no shortage of liberal discontent with the path pursued by President Barack Obama during his first few years in office. But when the discontent manifests itself (as it occasionally does) in talk of a primary challenge in 2012, the chatter usually succumbs to political reality. For all the Democratic base's tiffs with Obama, there is little sustained appetite to find or back someone else.

Last week a group of liberal activists and academics, led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader and scholar Cornel West, announced that they were looking for six "recognizable, articulate" candidates to launch a primary bid -- not to rip the nomination from Obama's grasp but to keep him honest on issues like civil rights, consumer protections, labor and foreign policy.

<SNIP>

"I strongly disagree with Ralph Nader. As I've said many times before, I believe that re-electing President Obama is an absolute imperative for our economy, our judicial system, for progressives and for our country," said former Sen. Russ Feingold, who announced recently that he was not running for his old Senate seat. The Wisconsin Democrat added the following:

President Obama took office in a time of historic challenge for the country. He passed the Recovery Act to bring our economy back from the brink, implemented historic health insurance reform to make health care more affordable and accessible, repealed the discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, and rejected the conventional wisdom in Washington to offer a life-saving loan to the auto industry, saving 1.4 million jobs.

Now, facing Republican candidates that are bought-and-sold by corporate money, and who want to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest and attack the rights of working Americans, the President is fighting to create jobs and provide economic security for middle class families. 2012 will be a close and competitive election, and in an environment after the lawless Citizens United decision, where corporate special interests will be out there fighting for Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, progressives must unite to ensure that the President is reelected.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/20/russ-feingold-primary-challenge-ralph-nader_n_972288.html?1316549228

[ClassWarrior]

1. K&R

NGU.

[Scurrilous]

2. Russ Feingold is a very wise man.

K & R :thumbsup:

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. What do you expect from a DINO Blue Dog DLC Neo-Liberal like Feingold?

[DonCoquixote]

45. please tell me

You meant to use the sarcasm flag.

[Freddie Stubbs]

56. That tag is superfluous when the hyperbole is excessively over the top

[flpoljunkie]

4. Yes, we can! Progressives must unite.

Thank you, Senator Feingold!

[jefferson_dem]

9. Aye!

I've changed the subject line to reflect Feingold's call!

[frazzled]

5. "progressives must unite to ensure that the President is reelected"

I was just going to post this myself, but you beat me to it.

Will this put an end to the "primary" goading, however? I seriously doubt it.

[vaberella]

6. Russ supports Obama? I'm sure he'll be thrown under the bus by some lefty's. n/t

[Solomon]

19. Lol. see post #3

[ClassWarrior]

30. LOL. See post #1.

(Learn punctuation and capitalization, please...)

NGU.

[Frustratedlady]

7. Good. I like Feingold and put a lot of weight in his words.

I hate to see him get out of the zoo, but I understand.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[jefferson_dem]

10. Hey there! Welcome (back) to DU!

:hi:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[boxman15]

12. We would be wise to heed Feingold's advice.

Otherwise, prepare for a completely Teabagged Washington for years to come.

He gets it. Feingold 2016?

[Exilednight]

13. We suck less than the other guy is not something that is going to get my vote. Obama has a huge

problem. Roughly 30 percent of self described progressives are upset with Obama, and rightly so. That 30% translates to 7% of the total electorate. Obama beat McCain by roughly 6% of the total vote.

Do the math and Obama might come up short if people like myself who are not happy with Obama decide to skip voting for the top of the ticket all together. And before anyone says that I am throwing away my vote, and I will say this: throwing away your vote is when you vote against what you believe in.

[JNelson6563]

15. Thank you for that.

We know the self-absorbed aren't ever going to be happy with anyone, fucking ever.

But thanks for the confirmation.

Julie

[vaberella]

16. Okay then. I guess America should then be prepared for a President Perry or Bachmann.

Good luck to them.

[great white snark]

17. Except nobody is saying that other than you.

He will be re-elected for what he has accomplished, "better than the other guy" is how people like you rationalize sitting home.

[TheWraith]

18. No, your math is horribly, horribly wrong.

One, Obama's latest approval rating among liberal Democrats is 78%. Disapproval is around 15%. Which is only a little different than it was around the time of the 2008 election, at 88% approval. Ten percent of a group that constitutes 20% of the public = 2% of the electorate, not 7%. More to the point, catering to that 2% versus the tens of millions of Americans NOT represented by the temper tantrum wing of the party is not a winning strategy.

[Number23]

25. I'm not sure if your math is 100% correct

But it's still a hell of alot better than the poster's that you're responding to.

When you start out wrong (30% of "progressives" disapprove of the president) there's no where to go but be even more wrong.

[Exilednight]

32. I've run the math several times. 1/3 of the Democratic party describes

themselves as liberal. So do the math, if there are 72million registered Democrats, 1/3 of which call themselves liberals, then that's roughly 24million self described liberals in the country.

Not all of them are going to vote, but let's go by voter turnout in 2008, which was 64% of the electorate. Or 15 million voters.

Out of that 15 million, 1/3 are disgruntled, or 5,000,000 - rounded down.

Obama won by somewhere around 9.5 million votes.

I've been more than generous with all these numbers.

Let him go ahead and ignore the minority of the electorate. He might win, he might not. But I'm not throwing away my vote on someone who doesn't share my principles.

[BzaDem]

49. The vast majority of "disgruntled" liberals are going to vote for Obama. In fact, the vast majority

of disgruntled liberals who claim on a message board that they won't vote for Obama will still vote for Obama. In fact, only 1% of liberals voted for someone other than Obama or McCain, even though 17% of liberals did not approve of Obama the week of the inauguration.

Furthermore, looking at all liberals is somewhat of a misleading metric, because it includes liberal Republicans. 10% of self-identified liberals voted for John McCain. A better metric is to look at liberal Democrats (for which everything above applies even more).

So no, the math doesn't work.

[Exilednight]

54. The math does work. You just don't like the numbers. n/t

[jefferson_dem]

24. Whatever.

Get over yourself.

[boxman15]

26. Listen, I'm not going to attack you for being disappointed in President Obama

I'm a little disappointed as well, though I think he's done a good job overall. The problem is that voting for a third-party candidate with no shot at winning or sitting out completely makes a President Perry/Romney more likely. Obama needs to do more to get his liberal base back together, of course, but we need to remember that having Perry have control of the White House, a Republican Congress, and a 7-2 or 6-3 Republican Supreme Court would be completely disastrous for the country. At least Obama has the veto pen to block ridiculous legislation and can possibly make the Supreme Court turn to the left.

At least we can all agree that a more liberal Congress is absolutely necessary. I guarantee Obama will not veto progressive legislation if it gets to his desk, so we need to make sure Congress is blue. Otherwise, it's more of the same. Either dysfunction or Teabagger control.

[BzaDem]

29. What I don't understand is why anyone treats one non-Obama-voter as any different than any other

non-Obama voter, merely because they claim to be progressive.

Obama opponents often like to say that actions matter -- not words. I couldn't agree more. When someone acts to enable a Republican to take the oath of office, their claimed intention is completely irrelevant. Claims don't matter -- actions matter. Does one enable the Republican to be inaugurated ? Or not?

If not, that is just another voter that can't be won. There is no reason for Obama to coddle them -- anyone who wants a President Perry (through their actions that enable him to be inaugurated) couldn't possibly want a President Obama. Any rational political actor would go where the votes are, and that is decidedly not towards people that would contemplate enabling Perry's ideology.

If that means Obama loses, then that just means that a majority of the voters in that particular election have embraced Perry's ideology. After seeing four years of the consequences of that decision, perhaps they will change their mind and support the Democrat the next time around. Or perhaps not -- maybe they like it. But the goal of any Democratic politician in an election is to go to where the available votes are, and articulate why Perry's vision is an anathema to all that they stand for. They should not waste time with people who have already said they embrace Perry's vision by their decision to enable him, his policies, and his justices.

[Exilednight]

34. Progressive doesn't always equal Democratic candidate. n/t

[BzaDem]

42. Not enabling Perry is a necessary condition for being a progressive.

Voters that actually enable Perry's positions/policies/justices in the voting booth are many things. But progressive is not one of them.

[jefferson_dem]

43. "Progressive" doesn't always equal progressive.

A *real* progressive would not be confused as to what they will be doing on November 6, 2012.

Narrow-minded motivations, however principled people think they are, don't matter. Reality is what it is.

[Exilednight]

47. I'm not confused about what I'm doing. It's like going to the doctor and

he tells you that you have a year to live because you have lung cancer, but not to worry because you won't suffer that whole year because you also have bone cancer and it's going to kill you in six months. What's the difference, both are going to kill you and you're going to die a slow and painful death.

[BzaDem]

48. I don't think he was saying he thought you were confused, though he should correct me if I'm wrong.

Though more generally, I think his point is that one necessary condition of being a progressive is to not enable the appointment of Supreme Court Justices that would rule most any progressive policy unconstitutional for decades (and to not be confused as to whether or not to do such a thing). I don't think that statement is particularly controversial.

[Exilednight]

55. I am dumbfounded by anyone who believes that Clinton's or Obama's appointments to the

supreme court are progressive.

[ClassWarrior]

33. So are you saying you aren't voting for Obama? Because then the mods need to be informed.

I agree with you that there is a severe enthusiasm gap, and that the progressives who fueled the President's election the first time around probably won't volunteer for the campaign like they did, but the vast majority of them are planning to vote for him. See any random poll quoted around here.

So if you're not planning on voting for him, (1) you're wayyy outside the mainstream, and (2) you're in violation of DU rules.

NGU.

[Exilednight]

35. The rule you speak of states:

Do not post support for non-viable or third-party spoiler candidates in any general election.

I'm not advocating for a third party, nor am I telling anyone else to not vote for Obama. Do what you feel is correct, I'm just stating my disappointment. I still have the lower ticket to make change with.

[treestar]

37. It should. Would you rather have someone who sucks more?

You should realize you are never going to be happy - so pick that which sucks less (since everything sucks).

[Exilednight]

38. I'd be happy with a president who loses battles while fighting for the cause rather

than a president who rolls over and plays dead at the first sign of a fight.

Personally, I'm still holding out hope for a primary challenger.

[treestar]

39. Russ isn't going to do it.

The fighting President you describe would be seen as weak for getting nothing through.

[ClassWarrior]

41. Wrong. He'd be framed as weak, but the American people would see through it.

I live in Wisconsin. I've seen it firsthand this year.

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

40. Wouldn't we all?

:shrug:

Sometimes you just gotta play the hand you're dealt.

NGU.

[Exilednight]

57. Yeah. I wanna play poker against Obama, I could retire after one big hand. n/t

[txlibdem]

44. That's why I voted Barack and not Hillary: I thought he would suck a little less than her

I thought she had zero chance to get the Repukes to compromise. How foolish I was. If Hillary were "The Prez" right now she would have a display case for all the nut sacks she kicked sky high to get the politicians (Dems and Pukes) in gear.

Remember that the 60 seat Democratic Senate took all year to do one bill. Nancy Pelosi had completed 400 Progressive bills during that time over in the House. So I think Harry Reid's "pair" would be the first one hanging on a display hook.

[Exilednight]

46. I supported Obama in the primary season due to his ability to recognize Hillary's policies as

Republican Lite. In the long run of things, Obama has managed to push through most of Hillary's agenda. As soon as the primaries were over he dismissed his economic team and took on Hillary's. He pushed through her version of HCR and then appointed her Secretary of State and adopted her foreign policy in dealing with the "axis of evil".

There are many things Obama could have done that didn't require congress to act and still would have been considered progressive. Anyone remember his policy during the campaign season of talking to hostile countries without preconditions? When has he met with the leaders of Iran, NK or any other member of the "axis of evil"?

What happened to freezing out lobbyists during the HCR debate and everyone else's seat at the table? From all reports, the only people who had a seat at the table were lobbyists.

[CakeGrrl]

51. Sit it out and President Obama isn't going to be the one who comes up short.

How do you think your fellow Americans, perhaps even someone you know, will fare because you just couldn't find it within you to cast your vote and keep the GOP out of the WH because that wasn't "enough" of a reason to vote?

President Obama may not get back to the WH, but he won't be suffering like a lot of those people will.

I will do my part and vote a top Dem ticket. Period. If you sit it out with what's at stake, you're part of the problem.

[JNelson6563]

14. K&R

Right again Russ. :toast:

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Bluenorthwest]

22. Great thread. Feingold calls for unity, and the thread is nothing

but catty comments about others. Snark 'n' Remark, but always 'for Obama' of course. Snide comments 'to build unity'. Of course.

[YellowCosmicSun]

28. What have you done to build unity?

[CakeGrrl]

50. Ironic, isn't it? -nt

[YellowCosmicSun]

52. It blinded me, momentarily.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

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[YellowCosmicSun]

27. But, I though Russ was going to defeat Obama in mortal combat, himself? I guess I was misinformed.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

31. smart guy

[treestar]

36. Not a very good primary challenger is he?

:rofl:

[Tarheel_Dem]

53. K & R