According to Charlie Cook, Senator Russell Feingold is in a toss-up election battle with Republican Ron Johnson. Johnson currently has a slim lead over Feingold.
Just three weeks ago, we moved this race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Russ Feingold and businessman Ron Johnson, the presumptive Republican nominee, from the Solid Democratic column to Lean Democratic. After watching the back and forth between the candidates and having met with Johnson, the race is making yet another move to Toss Up.
Russ Feingold is no stranger of close elections. Hopefully, he will pull out another victory.
It bothers me that it is a possibility that Russ Feingold could lose this election against a Republican businessman. Johnson will just be another typical Republican representing the interests of big business over ordinary people.
The United Steelworkers Union, in a strongly worded press release, slammed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson for supporting " job-destroying trade deals" like NAFTA and GATT.
At a WisPolitics luncheon Monday, Johnson said as someone whose company does business on a global scale, he supports the controversial free trade pacts that some argue have contributed to the state's manufacturing decline.
Feingold since he was first elected in the early 90's, visits every county in the state of Wisconsin and has listening sessions. His no-nonsense, down to earth style of politics has helped him win elections with out relying on corporate money. It might be true (as Dick Durbin claimed) that the banks own the Senate, but they do not own Russ Feingold.
Feingold stated in 2002 "I didn't go to Washington to make friends. That's not where my friends are."
Russ Feingold is one Senator that does not bow to the whims of corporate interests. He has routinely stood up against 'free-trade' and unfair trade agreements.
Our trade deficit reaches new heights every year, as we send more and more of our wealth overseas, much of it in the form of factories that provided entire communities with decent, good-paying jobs. I hold listening sessions in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties every year. This is my 15th year (2007) holding those listening sessions, listening to tens of thousands of people from all over Wisconsin. I completed my 1000th of those sessions last fall, and I can tell you that there is nearly universal frustration and anger with the trade policies we have pursued since the late 1980s. Even among those who would have called themselves traditional free-traders, it is increasingly obvious that the so-called NAFTA model of trade has been a tragic failure.
I voted against NAFTA, GATT, and permanent most favored nation status for China, in great part because I felt they were bad deals for Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsin workers.
I want to see Feingold in the Senate for another term. He has my eternal gratitude for voting against the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, opposing the federal death penalty, standing up against unfair trade deals, voting against the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act and lastly for being a progressive that never sold out to his principles.
Feingold needs to win this race.