GQ: A Senator Without Constituents (Russ Feingold)
A Senator Without Constituents
Remember Russ Feingold? Lone vote against PATRIOT Act? The half of McCain-Feingold that didn't totally buckle? The progressive hero who lost his Senate seat during the Tea Party wave? GQ shared a few drinks with Feingold the Citizen and talked about the presidential race, our new Gilded Age, and his completely startling desire to drop big bombs all over the Middle East
by Mark Byrne
Photograph by Paul D'Amato
February 21, 2012
When his normally docile listening sessions across the state turned into heated, vitriolic affairs, people calling Obama a socialist, calling him a "Washington insider," tea bags hanging from the brims of their hats, the senator from Wisconsin knew he would probably lose. And then he lost. Afterward, he smoked a cigar.
A year and change later, Russ Feingold sits against the banquette of Elsa's in Milwaukee, plucking bacon wrapped chestnuts from a platter between us, making short work of a Brandy Old Fashioned. "I was relieved that it was over," he says now, thinking back on those days immediately after the election went to the other guy. "And I was interested to see what happened next."
What happened next: Well, first, the Packers won the Super Bowl. And then Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made a power grab for the collective bargaining rights of public workers, and thousands of angry Wisconsinites stormed the steps of the Capital. Feingold got a job teaching at Marquette Law School, and wrote a book making the case for a more focused counter-terrorism effort overseas (While America Sleeps, out February 21). But the movement kept moving: Last fall, a few angry people pitched tarps in an anonymous park in downtown New York, and hundreds came to join them. Oakland, Seattle, UC Davis. And then in the op-ed pages, on the talk shows, in the president's State of the Union address, and on stage in GOP debates. A referendum on income inequality in political influence, the Feingold special.
So it should come as no surprise that here, in the restaurant, two separate people have come up to him and told him to run—for what, it's not really important. Governor. Senator, again. Hell, President. Problem is Citizen Feingold is starting to enjoy himself. Another brandy old-fashioned!
Interview at link~
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201202/russ-feingold-interview-politics-presidential-election-2012?currentPage=1