Feingold for President

You may wonder why I would support anyone this early, particularly someone who is not a declared candidate. But he’s making all those all-but-declared candidate noises, setting up means of collecting contributions and the like.

So why Russ Feingold? For one thing, he seems to make up his mind before consulting a pollster, unlike the 2004 Democratic candidate for President.

He opposed the war in Iraq at a time when doing so was not very popular, and he voted in the Senate against our involvement. When he spoke a few weeks ago on ABC News’ This Week, he spoke forcefully about how the administration’s case for war didn’t make sense. He noted, and I believed it then and now, that the war in Iraq is fomenting terrorism, not stopping it. He’s also been a proponent of finding a way out of Iraq before the recent flurry of “me-too”ism.

He stood alone in his opposition to the vile so-called USA PATRIOT Act. (And for information about the none-too-desirable reauthorization of the bill, which may be voted on as early as TODAY, check here.)

He is the co-author of the McCain-Feingold bill to try to limit campaign spending. If it has not been a complete success, with so-called 527s popping up to get around the bill, it seemed to have curbed some of the abuses.

He appears to be his own person. He broke with most of his fellow Democrats and voted for John Roberts for chief justice. But he hasn’t eliminated the possibility that he will be a part of a filibuster if Sam Alito turns out to be the kind of extremist that the early signs suggest.

If he runs, he’ll have some so-called negatives, among them:

He’s Jewish. That’s not a problem for me, but it may be an issue for some of the leaders of the Democratic party who fear offending some segment of its base.

He’s been divorced, twice. Nelson Rockefeller’s one divorce followed by remarriage really hurt him when he ran for President in the1960s, but Ronald Reagan’s divorce was hardly an issue when he ran in`1976 and beyond. How the situation affects Feingold, I just don’t know.

I came to my decision before I discovered one fact that is personally fascinating; he’s five days older than I am. Same month, same year, same astrological sign.

Of course, if he ultimately chooses not to run, I’ll look elsewhere, but no one else particularly interest me, and I have absolute antipathy for some of the possibles bandied about.