“I’m sure a campaign for president would have been a great adventure and helpful in advancing a progressive agenda. At this time, however, I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as a senator with significant seniority in the new Senate serving on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Judiciary and Budget committees.” In a letter posted to his campaign site, Senator and progressive standard-bearer Russ Feingold opts out of the 2008 presidential race.
“[W]hile I’ve certainly enjoyed the repeated comments or buttons saying, ‘Run Russ Run’, or ‘Russ in ’08’, I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I’ve taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations. This is because the hunger for progressive change we feel is obviously not about me but about the desire for a genuinely different Democratic Party that is ready to begin to reverse the 25 years of growing extremism we have endured.” Oof, I find this turn really depressing. But, he has a point, and this is probably for the best (and at least I’ve been freed from tilting at Bradley-esque windmills for the next 18 months.) At any rate, my vote in 2008 is now officially up for grabs. Update: Salon‘s Walter Shapiro and Glenn Greenwald pay respects to Russ.
I respect his decision, and it’s overwhelmingly likely he would have only been a spoiler / agenda setter, but damn, the potential field for ’08 is looking mighty depressing. There’s Hilary and the DLC counter-revolution. Vilsack and his, uh, Vilsackiness? And maybe an undercooked Obama. And of course the usual Biden / Bayh / Whoever suspects. That’s a big load of Meh. Right now I’d tentatively be for a Gore or Clark re-run, but neither seems likely to actually succeed.
Luckily the other side is going to be divided and not have any outstanding candidate that they can all get behind either. I’ll probably sit out the prez campaign as much as I can and concentrate on making Congress even more Progressive next time around.
That’s really too bad. He would have forced the Democratic debate to address his positions. Hillary won’t if she can help it. Hard to say about Obama.
Ditto to your comments. I was pinning my hopes on Russ, and now I find myself pretty depressed at the current offerings.
I respect his decision, and it’s overwhelmingly likely he would have only been a spoiler / agenda setter, but damn, the potential field for ’08 is looking mighty depressing. There’s Hilary and the DLC counter-revolution. Vilsack and his, uh, Vilsackiness? And maybe an undercooked Obama. And of course the usual Biden / Bayh / Whoever suspects. That’s a big load of Meh. Right now I’d tentatively be for a Gore or Clark re-run, but neither seems likely to actually succeed. I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/