Politico: Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson

From Politico: "Senate control hinges on unlikely trio."

A member of that trio is Russ Feingold.

Control of the U.S. Senate increasingly appears to hang on the fate of an unlikely trio of Democratic incumbents who were elected along with Bill Clinton in 1992, hail from liberal-leaning states and have lived mostly charmed political lives.

At the start of the year, few observers thought the Senate was up for grabs, in part because it seemed implausible that Washington’s Patty Murray, California’s Barbara Boxer and Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold were in any serious danger.

All three had won their last elections comfortably. And they were stockpiling the sort of money that flows readily to three-term senators.

But with the political environment turning toxic for Democrats and incumbents, Murray drawing perhaps her toughest possible opponent and Boxer and Feingold facing self-funders, the three Class of 1992 veterans are in the fight of their long political lives as the battle for control of the Senate moves from traditional battlegrounds to blue state venues.

Yes, Feingold is vulnerable.

The Senate majority could rest in their hands since it’s difficult to conjure a scenario where Republicans could pick up the 10 seats they need to reclaim the Senate without knocking off at least two of the three.

None of them will be easy to defeat — each is keenly attuned to the threat and has begun hammering the opposition. Senior Democrats, however, increasingly are worried about the trio — especially Murray and Feingold.

While Feingold has carved out an independent niche in a state with a rich reform tradition, Wisconsin is hardly a left-wing bastion. President George W. Bush narrowly lost there twice and, until recently, Republicans controlled the state Assembly. And two years after he won the state by 14 percent, President Obama’s numbers there are sagging. So the turf is tougher for Feingold than it is for Boxer and Murray.

Feingold has an additional problem: he’s facing business executive Ron Johnson, an opponent who can fund his own campaign and has been on TV continuously since June

Asked in an interview how much he was committed to putting in from his own bank account this fall, Johnson wouldn’t share a number but said: “I’m going to spend what I need to get my message out.”

...The political environment and Johnson’s willingness to dig deep may make this campaign Feingold’s most difficult yet. He had a scare in 1998 when he held off former Rep. Mark Neumann by three percent, but that was in a far better election cycle for Democrats and, unlike Johnson, the wealthy Neumann agreed to a cap on self-funding that year.

Still, there is a reason why Feingold has survived three terms while taking mostly liberal positions in a swing state. He assiduously works Wisconsin — visiting all 72 counties each year — and is not always a predictable vote for the Democrats.

That's right. Feingold holds one-hour NO listening sessions in all Wisconsin counties.

He disses his constituents when talking to Jeff Zeleny, the New York Times Obama hack.

That's what I call working Wisconsin! What a joke!

He’s already touting his opposition to TARP and making clear that he’ll remind voters of where he goes his own way.

“I opposed him on Wall Street regulation and on the war in Afghanistan,” Feingold told POLITICO, referring to President Barack Obama, who he described as having a “mixed” impact on the race.

The senator noted without prompting that Republicans are trying to make him “the fall guy” for stimulus and health care, but quickly added that he stands by those votes without reservation.

Johnson said the two votes indicated that “the maverick label has come off” and that Feingold would pay a price for his tenure in the capital.

“There’s a real anti-incumbent mood and people are rightly placing the blame on politicians like him that that have been there for 18 years,” the Republican said.

But Johnson is a first-time candidate and susceptible to the sort of gaffes that could offer a lifeline to a canny veteran like Feingold.

“There’s a little time for Johnson to make a mistake that sticks,” said University of Wisconsin professor Charles Franklin.

Feingold opposed Obama on TARP and Afghanistan. Whoop dee doo! What a maverick!

When Feingold touts his opposition to Obama on Wall Street regulation, he doesn't mention that he felt it didn't go far enough. Feingold declared himself to be even more Left and even more pro-big government than his Leftist colleagues. Being more to the Left than Obama is not a good thing.

He was a rubber stamp on ObamaCare and the disastrous stimulus. Feingold is on the same page with Obama when it comes to being radically pro-abortion. Feingold is an extremist, like Obama. He's not kidding anyone.

Hoping for Johnson to make a mistake that sticks sounds incredibly desperate.

Is that what Feingold needs to get elected, a Johnson gaffe?

That's pathetic.

For now, the incumbent is painting his rival as beholden to the national conservative agenda and sympathetic only to his fellow millionaires.

“He has endorsed trade policies that led to this [financial] mess, wants to push more tax cuts for the wealthy and opposed the stimulus tax cuts for working people,” Feingold said. “He’s all about this agenda driven by Fox News — a big money, corporate agenda that wants more than anything to drive me out of office.”

Feingold is only firing up the opposition when he says that Johnson has a "FOX News" agenda.

He is very anti-Tea Party movement, a grassroots effort.

As Feingold told Zeleny, "I go to every county every year and hold a town meeting. Within days of the president being sworn in, I had people showing up at my town meeting with hats on, with tea bags coming out, saying this is going to be socialism."

How condescending!

Feingold is out of touch with the people he represents. The alleged maverick doesn't get it.

If current polls hold true, the plutocrats — and other Feingold opponents — may get their wish: public and private surveys all show the incumbent narrowly trailing a rival who was previously a political unknown and only got in the race in May.

“He doesn’t yet seem to get the environment he’s operating in this time,” fretted a top Democratic official of Feingold.

Feingold insisted that his ’98 race was tougher than this contest, but he acknowledged: “We’re on the front lines here.”

The fretting Dem official is right. Feingold doesn't understand what's happening in the country. He doesn't understand what's going on in the state. Probably because FEINGOLD DOESN'T LISTEN.

The guy is not going to win reelection by turning a deaf ear to the concerns of his constituents, the people he mocks.