Great New Link

Hey folks, I'm posting from my hometown library with a small but important update: the draftruss.org website is up! Check it out!

Thanks to Chuck and Eric from draftruss.org for mentioning it to me, and for linking to me in their blog section! All this momentum is really exciting!

Happy Holidays Open Thread

I'm going to be out of town until early January, and I'm staying with my Mom who doesn't have an internet connection, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again. But if there is any Feingold news feel free to post about it on the comments thread here, and I'll post it when I have the opportunity.

Happy Holidays, everybody, and thanks for coming here, I really appreciate it!

Links to Check Out

I added some more links. Thanks to Ben Masel for pointing me to the Feingold videos. The other new links are to some political news sites I visit regularly, including that of my friend The Kentucky Democrat.

Everyone interested in a Draft Feingold in 2008 campaign should join the Yahoo group, if you haven't already.

Also, check out the Draft Russ store at Cafe Press, which features some Draft Russ T-shirts and buttons. You can even get a Draft Russ T-shirt for your dog! (Note: the DraftRuss.com website on the merchandise does not currently have any content, although it is registered. But your dog won't mind.)

Some Small Changes and Updates

Just a couple of little things.

First, John Nichols' article about the Feingold presidential buzz was reprinted in the Madison Capital Times and posted at CommonDreams.org. And both those versions of the article still mention and link to this blog! I hope it gets me some new visitors!

Thanks to the anonymous commenters who mentioned these reprints of the article to me. And speaking of comments, I've added the Haloscan comment system to the site so non-blogger members can comment more easily.

Finally, I added some links to Feingold sites in the sidebar, check them out. I'll be adding some general political links soon-but let me know if there are any other Feingold sites I should add.

We're Making News!

I got a nice surprise today: one of my favorite journalists, John Nichols of The Nation, posted a blog entry about the Feingold for President buzz...and he mentions this blog!

Writes Nichols: "The interest in a Feingold candidacy has even sparked the development of a "Russ Feingold for President" Internet forum at www.russfeingold.blogspot.com, where writers positively gush about Feingold's "courage, intelligence and integrity" and his electability."

Check out his whole post here!

But this raises a disturbing question: has my blog peaked too soon? Seriously, I've had it for half a week, there aren't any links yet, and it's already being quoted on The Nation's website! I'm amazed!

EDIT: Well, now the blog's address and the quotes from my post are no longer in the article. And after I had told my mom and sister about it too!

Feingold '08 speculation in Hotline

Chris Bowers at myDD.com posted some comments from Hotline regarding the possibility of Senator Feingold making a presidential run.

The Hotline comments include a source stating that Feingold has "every intention of continuing to use his voice to build the party, to speak out on important issues and to advance a progressive reform agenda that not only has a lot of support" in WI "but across the country."

Bowers calls Feingold "an intriguing possibility" and notes that "Even though he has won three terms in the US Senate, he actually is still known as a "reformer" and an "outsider"... "

I urge you all to read the whole post, and show your support for a Feingold candidacy in the comments section. It's great to see that Feingold's name is already being discussed around the web!

Thanks to my anonymous commenter on the previous post who pointed this article out to me. Please email me any good Feingold articles you find, and I'll acknowledge you when I post them.

Why Feingold for President?

Russ Feingold is probably as close as I come to having an ideological soulmate in the United States Senate. He's strong on the environment. He believes in corporate responsibility and limiting the influence of special interests in politics. He believes in fair trade deals which would ensure that everyone, everywhere benefits from globalization, not just those who are already wealthy.

But the issues aren't the main reason I believe he should be the Democrats 2008 presidential nominee. The main reason is, of all the people on the national political stage, I believe he would make the best president-and that's what really matters. He has courage, intelligence, and integrity-characteristics that are pretty rare in politicians these days, but characteristics that are always needed in a president.

You might be asking, "But...Is he electable? After all, he isn't a moderate southern governor?" Well, that's true, he's not a moderate southern governor. But he has been elected to the Senate three times from the battleground state of Wisconsin. In his reelection bid this year his margin of victory was over 10%-his highest ever and much higher than John Kerry's margin of victory in the Badger State. And he got that victory after being the only senator to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act-not to mention opposing the Iraq War. Why'd he win? In large part because voters in WI see and respect his integrity-and I think that's a quality that's admired by voters throughout this great country, no matter if their states were red or blue this year.

I don't know if Russ Feingold will run for president in 2008, and if he does, I can't say he'll win. But I believe he could win-and I believe that no matter what a Feingold campaign would raise the level of debate in the Democratic Party and in the country as a whole. So, I hope you'll join me in this effort to get Russ Feingold to run for president.