Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who served four terms as Wisconsin governor, is securing financial pledges and ramping up his outreach to longtime political aides in preparation for a possible campaign against Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.
Thompson has alerted his Washington-based law firm of his moves and is contacting key clients about the prospect of challenging Feingold, the most tangible signals yet that he's seriously exploring a 2010 campaign.
"The governor has taken additional steps in the past week and will continue to do so over the next several weeks. If the meetings go well, you can expect to see an exploratory committee set up near the end of March," former state commerce secretary and Thompson campaign manager Bill McCoshen told POLITICO.
The thought of losing Feingold is just... scary. In addition to his well known fight against the Patriot Act, and being the first Senator to introduce legislation to withdraw troops from Iraq, Feingold was one of only two members of the Senate to vote against the 1999 financial services deregulation, the Iraq war authorization, and the 2008 bailout (Bernie Sanders was the other, and he voted against the de-regulation act while in the House). Even beyond his votes, he is a public leader for his causes, and manages organize other Senators behind them.
Russ Feingold is worth about five Senators, or more. It might be time to organize some sort of huge, $3 million + money bomb for him to ward off Thompson's entry into the campaign.
Via commenter "the new" in quick hits, we learn (surprise) that long time foe of democracy George Will opposes mandating special elections for senators. Will's column is amusing because he can't constrain his rage against the proponent of this Constitutional amendment, Senator Feingold (D-WI) for his past work on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. Let's take a look at what the brightest light of the conservative intellectual movement has to say this Sunday.
Sen. Feingold's Constitution By George F. Will
Sunday, February 22, 2009; Page
A simple apology would have sufficed. Instead, Sen. Russ Feingold has decided to follow his McCain-Feingold evisceration of the First Amendment with Feingold-McCain, more vandalism against the Constitution.
You'd think a guy who was just proven a liar over his column denying global warming would be shy about demanding that other people apologize for things, but that's the utterly shameless true conservative, George F. Will for you.
