Russ Feingold is not from the real world

Feingold can get away with such goody-goody politics because his base expects no less. If liberals everywhere were as wholesome as their upper Midwestern kin, Republicans couldn't scare anyone with the "L-word." In Madison, which has sent a lesbian to Congress, and in Milwaukee, which has had three socialist mayors, liberals aren't angry, or decadent, or elitist. They form peace groups at the Lutheran church and volunteer at the nature center. Their cars are rusty, and they need new Rockport walking shoes. They donate to public radio. (The upper Midwest is the heartland of public radio, producing two of its most popular programs, "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Whad'Ya Know?") They are, yes, a little hurt that the United States is solving its problems with violence. Wisconsin, after all, abolished the death penalty in 1853. Up north, the rural contingent cherishes its hunting rifles (as does Feingold, a gun-rights supporter), but it also struggles through the winter on unemployment, and carries ancestral memories of labor struggles in logging camps and mines. On a county-by-county map of the 2004 election, the western shores of Lake Superior are one of the broadest patches of blue in the nation.

Wisconsinites are an independent lot. They're notorious ticket splitters. Although Wisconsin hasn't voted Republican for president since Ronald Reagan, the Democrat never wins in a walk. Wisconsin loves a maverick, too. That helps explain why it sent La Follette and McCarthy to the Senate. (The other reason: Germans. They're fans of clean government, but they also fear Russians.)

Immediately after Feingold's reelection, President Clinton was impeached. Once the case reached the Senate, Democrats moved to dismiss it. Feingold was the only member of his party to vote no. Back home, Democratic regulars were livid. But the Madison Capital Times, whose editorial page makes alternative weeklies sound moderate, praised its state's latest party-bucking senator. "Is it reasonable to despise this partisan impeachment process and yet to admire Feingold?" the paper asked. "We think so."

Later, Feingold was just as tough on George W. Bush. And just as lonely. While his Democratic colleagues worried about looking soft on terrorism, he was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act. When the president was caught wiretapping American citizens without court approval, Feingold proposed a censure motion. No one would cosponsor it. (On Sunday, Feingold went on "Meet the Press" and again asked Congress to censure the president, this time for his conduct of the Iraq war.)

When Feingold went looking for allies in his campaign against soft money, however, he found the perfect partner in Sen. John McCain. McCain also models himself after a Progressive-era hero, Theodore Roosevelt. On fiscal issues, they have more in common with each other than with members of their own parties. A hundred years ago, both would have been Bull Moose Republicans.

"McCain's and Feingold's independence distinguished them in the Senate," Horwitt writes. "Neither played the earmark game and the inevitable vote-trading that it required -- and, therefore, they were free from much of the pressure to conform to party leadership."

The pair first introduced their campaign finance reform bill in 1996. The bill finally passed in 2002, after McCain made it a centerpiece of his presidential campaign and Democrats took over the Senate. President Bush signed it, but perhaps he knew, even then, that there was another way to veto McCain-Feingold. "This is the highlight of my professional life," Feingold exulted. "It won't completely end the primacy of money, but it's a big step in the right direction."

McCain-Feingold didn't end the primacy of money at all. The 2004 presidential campaign was the most expensive ever. Over $600 million was spent on advertising, more than three times as much as in 2000. The candidates hit up individual donors harder than ever, while "section 527" groups, such as Moveon.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, appeared to collect cash that once would have flowed into party treasuries.

That same year, Feingold was elected to a third term, racking up the most votes in Wisconsin history. Like La Follette, he'd become a Cheesehead idol. Unlike La Follette, he's finding it tougher to spread Wisconsin values to the rest of the nation -- Hillary Clinton's "real world." Just this year, Bush achieved a belated line-item veto when his two Supreme Court appointees helped strike down a McCain-Feingold provision that banned attack ads in the months before an election.

It's likely that Horwitt set out on this project -- and timed its release -- with the expectation that Feingold would now be a declared candidate for president. Feingold did visit New Hampshire and Iowa, where Democrats treated him as "a heroic figure" for opposing the Patriot Act. He was also "a favorite candidate of liberal, antiwar bloggers." But just after the 2006 midterm elections, Feingold declared himself a noncandidate. He had just split up with his second wife, and advisors warned him that the Democratic establishment, fearful of an independent progressive, would use all its weight to squash his campaign.

"He had discovered that he didn't have the burning desire to run this time," Horwitt writes. "And he had no interest in merely using a presidential campaign as a platform for his ideas, or to increase his stature. He could use the Senate for that, especially now that his party was in the majority."

Maybe Feingold realized that his "last honest man" role is better suited for a senator. La Follette ran for president. He won 17 percent of the popular vote but carried only Wisconsin. The real world will never be like Wisconsin. But let's hope Wisconsin never joins the real world, either. It's nice to know there's a state where the greediest candidate doesn't win every election. What's more, the Senate can always use a pain in the ass. Thanks to Wisconsin, it usually gets one.

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