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| Feingold finding maverick role of scant help against GOP tide |
| 2010-10-11 |
| Russ Feingold seemed as well-positioned as any Senate Democratic incumbent to fend off a Republican challenge this year. The Wisconsinite is pro-gun in a hunting-happy state, has a history of voting against his party - including rejecting the unpopular TARP Wall Street bailout - and has avoided even a hint of personal scandal. Yet the three-term senator who portrays himself as a principled maverick in a state where neither major party dominates trails political newcomer Ron Johnson, an Oshkosh businessman, by a significant margin in the polls. And with just over three weeks to go before the Nov. 2 midterm elections, many political analysts say the race now is the challenger's to lose. "The problem that [Mr. Feingold] is facing this year is that voting against [the Wall Street bailout] and voting for guns is not going to be something that wins conservative voters for him," said Charles H. Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "Guns and TARP really aren't very effective appeals to mute Johnson's appeal to the same set of conservative Republican and moderate voters." The vote against the bailout might help, but Mr. Feingold also supported two key pillars of the Obama agenda the health care overhaul and the $814 billion economic stimulus plan that have not proved to be popular this campaign season. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 nobody's buying your bullshit Russ. "I'm a Tea Party guy too!" Riiigghhttt |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-10-11 19:15 |