Democrat Herb Kohl, the four-term US Senator from Wisconsin, has announced that he is not seeking reelection. He is the 6th Democrat and 8th senator overall to announce his retirement ahead of the 2012 election cycle. This complicates things for Democrats' prospects of maintaining their Senate majority: of the 33 seats up for election, Democrats are defending 23 and the Republicans only need to defend 10. With open seats in 6 of the 23 Democrat-head seats, the decks are stacked pretty heavily against them. Republicans only need to pick up 4 seats to regain a majority, or even 3 if they win the presidential election, since the Vice President can cast tie-breaking votes in the event of a 50-50 split.
Some people are already whispering about a battle of titans between Wisconsin political heavyweights Congressman (and RILF) Paul Ryan and progressive hero Russ Feingold. Dreamboat Ryan, whom I recently profiled for his heartless wonkishness and exquisite bubble butt, is best known as the author of the Republican budget to gut Medicare and Medicaid benefits while lowering taxes for corporations and the rich. Russ Feingold was the former three-term US Senator from Wisconsin until his reelection defeat last year at the hands of a tea party imbecile whose name I will not utter here. As a senator, Feingold was most associated with the radical, socialist effort to keep corporate money out of politics.
The capstone of campaign finance reform, the McCain-Feingold Act, was of course ruled unconstitutional in last year's Citizens United case by a supposedly deferential, strict-constructionist Supreme Court. The Court ruled that since corporations are legal persons, they obviously have the right to free speech. And clearly, free speech means spending as much money as you want to influence an election. As such, corporations can spend as much money as they want to influence elections. Since leaving office, Russ Feingold founded an organization called Progressives United whose mission is to overturn the craven idiocy that is Citizens United. I hope they both run and Feingold fucks the shit out of Dreamboat Ryan's little virgin booty all the way to a Senate seat.
-Update-
I just got an email from Howard Dean's Democracy For America with a petition to draft Russ Feingold. Sign it here.
Showing posts with label Russ Feingold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russ Feingold. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Speaker Emerita
I worked as a research analyst for a few months in 2010. On my first day, all the new RA's were introduced to the permanent staff and we played an ice breaker. We each said our names, the school we went to, a wild animal we would domesticate, what we would name it, and why. When came to my turn, I said, "I'd get a cougar and I'd name her Nancy Pelosi."
I said it to break the ice, but I only half intended it as a joke. I have a very complex adulation for Nancy, but she's a complex intersection of some of my favorite things. Maybe it's because I'm a gay guy, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that gay men are attracted to powerful women. Maybe it's that she's a Californian, or that she's the Congresswoman for my beloved gaysian San Francisco. Or maybe it's because Nancy Pelosi is single most effective, unwavering champion for liberal causes in national politics since I became politically conscious.
It's not just that I want to differentiate myself by worshipping at the altar of someone other than the president. I admire President Obama, but when the White House wanted to abandon comprehensive health care reform in favor of a piecemeal approach after RILF Scott Brown's election to the Senate, it was Nancy who famously rejected the White House capitulation and declared, "You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people."
via the Economist
Along with Russ Feingold, Nancy's speakership was the biggest casualty to liberals in the 2010 midterm elections and it's a travesty. I'll never forget that November day when Democrats took back Congress just a few years ago in the 2006 midterms. Bush and the Republicans had been running around unfettered for 6 years - really as long as I knew anything about politics - when Nancy Pelosi appeared on television to declare that "Democrats are ready to lead." It was the first time I remembered a big electoral victory, and the speech was music to my ears. And boy did she give Bush a hard time for the remainder of his presidency. Nowadays, John Boehner calls the shots in the House, but I for one will keep trumpeting the awesomeness of the first woman Speaker of the House until she gets that gavel back!
via the Economist
I said it to break the ice, but I only half intended it as a joke. I have a very complex adulation for Nancy, but she's a complex intersection of some of my favorite things. Maybe it's because I'm a gay guy, and it is a truth universally acknowledged that gay men are attracted to powerful women. Maybe it's that she's a Californian, or that she's the Congresswoman for my beloved gaysian San Francisco. Or maybe it's because Nancy Pelosi is single most effective, unwavering champion for liberal causes in national politics since I became politically conscious.
It's not just that I want to differentiate myself by worshipping at the altar of someone other than the president. I admire President Obama, but when the White House wanted to abandon comprehensive health care reform in favor of a piecemeal approach after RILF Scott Brown's election to the Senate, it was Nancy who famously rejected the White House capitulation and declared, "You go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed for the American people."
Along with Russ Feingold, Nancy's speakership was the biggest casualty to liberals in the 2010 midterm elections and it's a travesty. I'll never forget that November day when Democrats took back Congress just a few years ago in the 2006 midterms. Bush and the Republicans had been running around unfettered for 6 years - really as long as I knew anything about politics - when Nancy Pelosi appeared on television to declare that "Democrats are ready to lead." It was the first time I remembered a big electoral victory, and the speech was music to my ears. And boy did she give Bush a hard time for the remainder of his presidency. Nowadays, John Boehner calls the shots in the House, but I for one will keep trumpeting the awesomeness of the first woman Speaker of the House until she gets that gavel back!
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