The Chris Moeller Archives

Our greatest senator

I read an on-line piece this morning on Salon about Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold that I think encapsulates everything that so many Democrats don't understand about the power of the people. The well-meaning author, while attempting to praise the Senator's idealism and moral virtue, winds up marginalizing our greatest champion of reform in the Senate. I think it's especially condescending to American midwestern values, which by the way, would carry more political sway in the west and the south, I'd argue, than those of the nation's northeast, if allowed to push the party's agenda.

The writer, Edward McClellan, seems to believe, like so many, that the so-called pragmatists in the center play the key role in shaping the nation's future, while the contributions of crusaders like Feingold, even as they represent popular ideas of the people, are limited in their broad appeal nationally. McClellan has a skewed since of history, as well, when he opines that, at the turn of the last century, Feingold would have been a Bull Moose Republican, when in fact, he would have led in either Robert La Follette's Progressive Party or in the Socialist movement. They were the real catalysts for positive change during that period.

In the last paragraph, McClellan offers that Feingold's "last honest man" role is better suited to a senator, than to a presidential candidate, but the occasion of this profile-- Feingold's proposals this week to censure the president-- are case in point of why he's wrong. As a senator, Feingold's efforts are deemed to be those of just one voice in a hundred, and his censure proposals can be dismissed, as they have been, with a wave of the hand by the leader of Feingold's party in that chamber.

Feingold's greatest failing, thus far, is that he hasn't taken the plunge in pursuing the nation's highest office, and, by all accounts, the reason he hasn't is that he feels he would have no chance in his party's nominating process. The deck is stacked, he realizes, in favor of the establishment candidate. This is exactly why Ralph Nader has served the American people so admirably by his cyclical re-entry into presidential politics, and why he could never stage that protest, as many have insincerely argued, within the Democratic party structure. If you run as a reformer within the party, you become marginalized by the establishment party and press, and you're finished in February.

McClellan believes that the senate "can always use a pain in the ass," but who's been a bigger pain for establishment Dems than Nader? Now that Feingold has established his independence in the U.S. Senate, and he has scored the greatest electoral count in Wisconsin history (in '04) to back up his political vision, what's keeping him in the Democratic party? It's only holding him back.

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The overhyped story of the week is the YouTube Democratic debate on CNN. The audience's questions for the candidates (via the popular video website) might have been "unpredictable" to those on the podium, but those candidates could still rely on a mainstream cable news network to do the filtering. The only noticable difference I could come up with between the new format, and the old "audience in the town hall meeting" questions is that the YouTube inquisitors were apparently auditioning for "American Idol" or "Last Comic Standing." An exchange of meaningful ideas during a live presidential debate will return only when the duopoly's "Commission on Presidential Debates," led by the former heads of the two dominant parties, begins allowing third party candidates their own podiums on the stages of nationally televised debates.

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Alas, my blogging schedule will continue to be irregular during the next couple weeks, as I'm still in my temporary residence, and have a lot of running around to do each day in closing on my new place. This past weekend, my dad and I installed the ceramic tile in the condominium unit, and my hard work still aches. That's a tough business, physically. All the tile and equipment had to be hauled up three flights of stairs. (I was in charge of the grunt work.) I suggested we install the tiles in unit 4, instead of 6, and save some wear and tear in the climbing, but Dad explained the flaw in my logic. When I'm blogging from the new place after August 6th, you'll read and feel the difference.

posted by CM @ 8:47 PM