Senator Feingold made his 2nd visit to Iowa this weekend and I followed him to a couple of the events.
I've never met Senator Feingold in person before but do write over at RussForPresident.com and am a big believer that Senator Feingold should run in 2008. Meeting him today only reinforced that belief. Take a look below to see why.
The Senator discussed a variety of topics from Iraq, Lebanon/Israel to the nature of progressivism, education, and health care. I expected the Senator to be a bit angrier, but sitting there in an Iowa basement I saw a calm, logical man full of common sense. He didn't yell about the Bush administration but simply pointed out their mistakes and presented a positive vision of his own. There were many memorable moments and I hope you'll join me for some of them below.
Senator Feingold was in Dubuque, Iowa yesterday and the event was covered by the
Post
He added: "I don't think the election is going to be just a referendum on the war, but I think people are going to be looking for clear leadership in terms of getting us out of that situation."
Today brought another series of events for the Senator on the Eastern Iowa border. There was an 8:30 am listening session which was impossible for me to make since I had a 3 hr drive from Northern Illinois. So, I showed up a little after 10:00 am at a private residence in Clinton, Iowa for a listening session. I met up there with Pat who writes at Iowa for Feingold and Kyle of a local Iowa blog called Diary of a Political Madman who has been following all the candidates' visits to Iowa.
Image: (Pat and I)
The Senator met with slightly over 20 people on this steamy 95 degree day. He began with a great intro about the importance of the race in IA-1 and the Governor's race in determining the future of American politics. He also talked a lot about no child left behind. He was one of 10 Senators to vote against NCLB because his annual listening sessions in every county showed opposition to a program that would force "teaching to the test" without providing funding to help schools. He pointed to Clinton-era initiatives to provide grants for small classrooms and early childhood education as good Democratic ideas that should be replicated. He called the US invasion of Iraq "stupid" and again explained that troops need to be redeployed from Iraq as quickly as possible within a year (a reasonable time to safely get this done).
One of the most interesting segments was when he defined progressivism and its Wisconsin roots. In the end he talked about a deep sense of community, a belief that government can be used for good, a belief that you shouldn't spend more money than you have, and a skepticism towards using military force unnecessarily.
Following this listening session and a brief chat/photo with the Senator I headed over to his next event in Davenport an hour later. After briefly getting lost, we arrived 2 minutes into Senator Feingold's second listening session of the day. Pat liveblogged the event from the Radisson hotel and has a lot of details.
The crowd consisted of slightly over 40 people including those who knew about the event as well as curious onlookers who wandered over. The most identifiable group consisted of 5-6 women wearing the always recognizable purple SEIU teachers. Remember SEIU endorsed Gov. Dean in 2004 and tends to like progressive candidates. There's a real chance that the grassroots in SEIU will come out strong for Senator Feingold in 2008.
The Senator got a lot of similar questions here as earlier, but primarily people focused on health care and the situation in Israel/Lebanon. He also rightly argued that Republicans become very scared when Democrats actually stand up for what we believe. He argued that Democrats have a lot of great ideas, and we shouldn't be afraid of saying them. But, I think the most exciting quote came on the least expected subject: college education.
It is a "denial of the American dream" when students can't afford to go to college without going into massive debt.
The Senator also announced 2 New Exciting initiatives:
1) Progressive Patriots Fund will be hiring 10-15 staff and sending them out to important districts across the country to help win in 2006. This is how a true Democratic leader should act -rather than hoarding money for an 08 race.
2) Senator Feingold will be introducing legislation in the coming weeks for a trial program for state based universal health care. States will be able to apply for grants to develop healthcare ideas on their own. and 3 will be selected. This way states can be idea laboratories and effective programs can be replicated in other states. This goes along with Senator Feingold's vision of universal health care wherein the government mandates health care and then allows individual states the flexibility to implement their own ideas.
If you like what you've been hearing from and about Senator Feingold, join us at RussForPresident.com. We won't hit you up for donations or spam you with e-mail , but we will send a clear message to Senator Feingold that he has our support to run in 2008.