Feingold and Financial Reform

Alleged maverick Russ Feingold has resurfaced. He intends to vote against his party and Obama's financial reform bill.

Very mavericky? Not really.

I think it's very telling that he's doing this in an election year.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Wisconsin's Russ Feingold is expected to be the only Senate Democrat voting against the hotly debated financial reforms backed by President Barack Obama when they are put to a final vote in the coming days.

Feingold's stand has made it more difficult for his party to muster the 60 Senate votes it needs to pass what is a huge priority for the White House and frustrated some progressive groups who are his natural allies.

His position on the issue is unique in the 100-member Senate.

All the measure's other opponents in that body are Republicans. Feingold is the only senator opposing the bill from the progressive side of the debate and the only one who is arguing that the new regulations are so timid and easy on Wall Street that passage would do more harm than good.

"It doesn't do the job, and I'm not going to be part of basically defrauding the American people into thinking it does," said Feingold in an interview that underscored his pointed differences with his own party on a reform package intended to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic financial meltdown of 2008.

Heather Booth, director of a huge left-of-center coalition pushing for passage, told a radio talk show June 30 that Feingold was effectively "standing with Wall Street and against Main Street" by voting no.

In the interview, Feingold leveled the same charge against some of the bill's supporters.

"The most progressive elements know this is a bad bill," Feingold said. He described some of the bill's progressive backers as "pseudo-progressives," late-comers to the issue or groups financed by powerful interests who want to "paper over the real problems in order to say they've solved it. They are not trying to get at the core issues."

Essentially, Feingold is declaring himself to be even more Left and even more pro-big government than his Leftist colleagues.

Some of Wisconsin's extremist libs may find his opposition endearing, but others may be ticked off by his unwillingness to help Obama.

That's a gamble given his vulnerability in this upcoming election. Being more to the Left than Obama is not a good thing.

In spite of that risk, I think Feingold knows that hardcore Dems won't abandon him.

He's hoping to appeal to Wisconsin voters by exploiting the opportunity to oppose Obama. He's falling back on his same old reliable maverick ploy.

The maverick act has helped him win elections before. Plus, he's banking on people's anger with Wall Street. He gets to say that he's standing up for the little guy and demanding that more be done to punish those hated Wall Street fat cats.

If he does stand firm in his opposition to the bill and doesn't eventually march in lock-step with his comrades, Feingold gets to remind Wisconsinites that he's fighting for them and not just serving as an Obama hack.

But look at his record. Feingold is an Obama hack. The guy is rarely the maverick he claims to be.

Feingold's line is priceless: "It doesn't do the job, and I'm not going to be part of basically defrauding the American people into thinking it does."

Feingold cannot run away from the fact that he knowingly and actively campaigned to defraud the American people and particularly Wisconsinites in the recent past.

Remember what Feingold said about the stimulus bill, that disastrous and ineffective monstrosity.

In a February 2009 interview with Mike Gousha, while hawking the stimulus, Feingold said:

I believe our new president is a very capable man who has done what he can to talk to every economist and expert he knows. And it's his judgment that we need to do something like this.

And I feel that the American people gave him a mandate to move forward.

This bill has not been jammed through. We are looking at it in a thoughtful way and there are disagreements, but in the end, this is the judgment of our new president that this is what we have to do. And I lean heavily toward supporting him in his judgment that this is the best thing we can do to prevent further disaster and hopefully get the country moving in the right direction.

...[I]t's obvious we have to do something dramatic, something that goes against my very nature to vote for something like this that involves making the deficit so much bigger.

This is the hardest thing to do, but I think it's the responsible thing to do based on what we're being told privately and based on what we all see publicly as well.

Feingold wasn't very mavericky then.

He made a terrible decision by being Obama's rubber stamp on the stimulus.

He made the case that the responsible thing to do was to be irresponsible.

That's Feingold's record.

Furthermore, remember that Feingold signed on to Obama's government-run health care bill even though it was packed with sweetheart deals, turning a deaf ear to his constituents' wishes.

Feingold's spine went missing in action.

I think he hopes that we have short memories.

Bottom line: Feingold is a fraud. Wisconsinites need representation in the Senate that reflects our views. Feingold is in Washington to promote his agenda, not ours.

Vote for change and a better economy. Vote for Ron Johnson.