This should be interesting.
/understatement

Russ will run rings around the asshat. I just hope enough cheeseheads are paying attention!!

First question is such a plant! Grrr.

Wonder how far out in front, in terms of both poll numbers and fundraising, Whinegold would be if he’d just offered a public option amendment on the Senate floor during the HCR debate?

He sowed (“sowed-out”), now he shall reap.

Happy goodbye you fucking hypocrite louse!

Johnson now says the health care bill made him run. Funny, he said it was Dick Morris on Fox asking millionaires to get into race just a short while ago: http://bit.ly/cahYE5

Just asking:
How many votes against the Patriot Act would Mr. Johnson have cast, do you imagine?

The only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act is a hypocrite louse. OK.

Ms Hamsher (may I call you Jane?). This is a brilliant synopsis of one of the most critical races in the Senate. Thanks so much for your analysis, which shows that despite our unhappiness with the dems on healthcare and other issues, we can bridge the so-called “enthusiasm gap” and get the base back on the big choice: dems vs. retro repubs. Feingold is a principled independent that needs to be re-elected, or we lose a voice for sanity in the Senate.
Go Russ!

Does Ron Johnson think he’s running for head of the Appropriations Committee or something? I don’t think he knows how the Senate works.

Loaded debate. Re-asked the HCR question.

As a big supporter of the public option, I actually don’t know that it would do him any good.

The thing that’s killing him right now is that he’s having to defend his vote on the health care bill that DID pass. It’s an albatross.

Nuclear Johnson!

Republican candidates aren’t supposed to actually know anything; it interferes with their ability to follow their owners’ orders.

On health care he most certainly is.

it interferes with their ability to follow their owners’ orders.

I’ve always hated the “owner” or “master” thing. Isn’t it better said by the term “mutual interests?” ‘Cause that’s what really happens. One hand washes the other -manus manum lavat.

True Dat! being noosed with this pace of crap hurts. Even though it does contain a few crumbs for Joe average!

And so is Kucinich.

But they both stood for unpopular positions at the time.

I don’t claim they’re saints, but I do say they had some nerve in the past. Right now is a different story.

I’m not gonna hate on Feingold or Kucinich for votes that Obama previously orchestrated/neutered them during this term.

So Johnson is going to get away from the debate without addressing the Catholic Church Child Abuse issue. Great.

Lucky Feingold and Kucinich. The only time Obama uses the power of the Presidency to twist arms ends with these guys paying for the arm twisting.

Too bad Obama didn’t have the guts to do that to Blue Dogs. Many of them are in trouble anyway – twisting them for a vote wouldn’t have made it much worse.

It didn’t look like he twisted their arms – it more like folding a cheap suit. I don’t have respect for either of them after that – either they’re corrupt, spineless or both…which none of the possibilities bode well.

While Feingold may be the best of the senators, that’s sadly, for the American people, not saying much. Like all his other so-called liberal cohorts, Feingold didn’t oppose the health care reform bill on ideological grounds, but instead supported this patient killing for profit regime that we’re now all indentured to.

Thanks Jane,

Sorry I missed that you would be live-blogging the debate.

Just sat through it. Rhodes scholar vs. married the plastic mogul, boss’s daughter. Feingold to me came through with no intentions of letting SS disintegrate in any fashion. Johnson’s mumbling about nothing in particular didn’t stick anything understandably negative to Feingold. Feingold scored some points reiterating RoJo’s creative destruction of WI jobs.

Debate format stunk, this was the same lame game used in the WI governors debate last week. It would have been the end of Johnson (debate-wise) had a little tit-for-tat on a few of the questions been allowed.

I didn’t watch the debate, so did this help or hurt Feingold?

I watched the debate and Johnson was just awful. If WI sends this corporate Republican to the Senate instead of Feingold we will all suffer. I’ve donated to Feingold 3 times in the last couple of weeks and I plan on donating again this month. Whatever I can spare I’m donating.

Altering a U.S. senator’s name to ridicule him? My 8-year-old kid can do that better than you, and that territory belongs to 8-year-old kids. Go join them and you can all make fun of each others’ names all day. No need to use profanity here, that just makes you look barbaric and you lose all credibility. What does “Happy goodbye” mean anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say that before, it makes no sense. When you grow up and become an adult, feel free to come back here to post.

Lot of bloggers do not know Financial Reform Bill impact was as important to our daily lives as Health Care Bill. I was watching it closely as Health Care and I have to say only 2 senators i.e. Sen Feingold and Sen Cantwell and one independent Sen. Sanders were batting for Main Street interests and market fairness from Democratic aisle.

Jane, $200,000 in assets for Sen. Feingold after 20 years of public service. Whatever MSM says, this ground reality, this fact is good enough for me even if he did not vote on one bill i.e. HCR bill progressive way because I know it was not influenced by Corporate money but the thought process at the time. This is a true testament to Sen. Feingold on where he stands for Main street interests.

x2

It’s sad: Feingold’s one of the good guys, and he’s much further behind than all the incumbents except for Blanche Lincoln (is she even on the ballot down there still… why even bother waiting for the voters to decide THAT race?)

Still, the Republicans can have Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer if we can just keep Feingold. He’s always seemed like a nice guy who says what he means and means what he says, with good old-fashioned Midwest charm. Not a liberal like Boxer, who’s shrill and partisan. Or Reid (not sure what he believes in), who seems like a blithering accountant. I’d be willing to throw in the bank fraudster from Illinois if it means keeping Feingold.

Can we make a deal?

Jane, from everyone who lives in Wisconsin (with a brain) thanks very much.

I wonder if anyone caught the Blumenthal-McMahon debate? I thought Blumenthal was a slick, experienced lawyer? Not only was McMahon more polished in every way, but Blumenthal’s attacks were silly.

WWE is being audited by the Labor Department? Tell me a business with 15 or more employees that hasn’t been audited? All it takes is a single anonymous complaint and the auditors come swooping in, making themselves at home in your offices. WWE hired lobbyists in D.C.? They’d be fools not to.

Blumenthal only looked comfortable answering the one legal question about where to try foreign terrorists. When the subject switched to ANYTHING else, especially the economy, he was just dreadful. He went into super lame, incoherent talking points mode. And usually he didn’t even read the talking points correctly.

I agree, Obama killed reform at the start, and sent along a hollow label.
Healthcare is on the President and Max Baucus and Harry Reid.

Notice how the Obama passion is back now that he’s conning us again for votes. Too bad he didn’t exhibit some of that passion in the People’s interests, instead allowing the Right to frame every discussion.

I wish Feingold would do more to reach out to the Ron Paul people. He’s probably the only senate candidate in the country who could have progressives *and* libertarians campaigning for him, but he’s completely ignored the most active activists in the state, the WI Campaign for Liberty.

Take a look at the UW Madison YAL chapter crashing the recent Obama rally and handing out fake programs. Why is the Feingold campaign not recruiting these kids? Why isn’t Feingold himself showing up at one of their events? Middleton is within spitting distance of Madison, and these supporters would be more valuable to him for siphoning would-be Johnson votes than anyone on the left. I just don’t get it.

The only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act is a hypocrite louse. OK.

Exactly. This was a Kucinich-style symbolic vote. Sure to endear him to libs and progs but had absolutely no effect on the bill’s passage. But HCR? There his decision not to offer a public option amendment and to vote for the POS bill DID make a difference. Quite possibly it made the difference between having a public option and not having one. And if his sellout causes him to lose his re-election bid, I for one will be celebrating. Gutless pimp gets what’s coming to hime.

Altering a U.S. senator’s name to ridicule him? My 8-year-old kid can do that better than you, and that territory belongs to 8-year-old kids.

I assume the same applies when Jane dubs the deficit commission the Catfood Commission?

When posters here refer to the administration as Obamarahma?
Obama as Obummer, Oilbummer, etc?
Bush as Shrub?
Cheney as Darth Vader?

I’m not gonna hate on Feingold or Kucinich for votes that Obama previously orchestrated/neutered them during this term.

Their votes are not Obama’s fault for pressuring them. They are responsible for their own cave-ins. Period.

The thing that’s killing him right now is that he’s having to defend his vote on the health care bill that DID pass. It’s an albatross.

I agree. I think he’d be better off to just come out and admit that he made a mistake, ask forgiveness, promise not to do it again, etc.