Did you see this?
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-25.htm
Published on Wednesday, November 3, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
How to Vote for Peace, Against the Patriot Act, and Win Elections
by John Stauber
Only one U.S. Senator had the courage and the commitment to civil
liberties to vote against the Patriot Act in the weeks after the
terror attacks of 9/11. Pop quiz, quick, name that Senator! If you
said the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, you'd be wrong. Even the feisty
progressive from Minnesota failed to oppose John Ashcroft's attack on
civil liberties sold as essential to fight Bush's war on terror.
The lone opponent of the Patriot Act was Sen. Russ Feingold of
Wisconsin, Wellstone's colleague across the Mississippi River.
Fast forward to the fall of 2002 and the run-up to Bush's war on
Iraq. Democratic senators, including Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle,
John Edwards and John Kerry all voted to give President Bush the
authority to attack Saddam Hussein. Russ Feingold voted against the
war. I spoke at the time with a Feingold staff member who worried
that these two votes would doom Feingold in his 2004 race for
re-election. "We'll be bashed viciously as weak on terror and
anti-war, they'll trash us mercilessly and it will cost Russ his
race."
Probably just what advisors to Kerry and Edwards were thinking.
Indeed, Feingold's 2004 opponent Republican Tim Michels, a
millionaire construction company owner and a former US Army Ranger,
beat three Republicans to win his party's nomination. Michels dumped
over a million dollars of his own money into an aggressive
advertising campaign skewering Feingold as weak on terror and not
supportive of the troops. However, when the polls closed at 8 PM on
November 2nd, with no votes even counted yet, all the major media
declared the race over and predicted Feingold's victory based on the
exit polls alone.
John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act and the war, and was barely
beating George Bush in Wisconsin. Russ Feingold proves that an
anti-war, populist Democrat, a maverick campaigning to get big money
out of politics, can win and win big. But given a choice between a
real Republican and a Democrat such as John Kerry who voted for the
war, many voters will choose the Republican.
How can progressives build a movement for power that wins elections
and changes the current disastrous course of our country? Sheldon
Rampton and I examine the rise of the Right in our somewhat prescient
book Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is Turning America into a
One-Party State. On November 2nd, despite the massive mobilization by
liberal groups and funders, the Right tightened its one-party control
of all branches of the federal government. Russ Feingold, the lone
dissenter against the Patriot Act, the independent midwesterner who
fought and won against the leadership of his own party on campaign
finance reform, the hard core opponent of the war on Iraq and
unflinching supporter of the troops, shows that there is a way to win
with principles, civility, courage and conviction.
John Stauber is the Executive Director of the Center for Media &
Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin. http://www.prwatch.org/ and
co-author with Sheldon Rampton of: Banana Republicans: How the Right
Wing is Turning America Into a One-Party State, Weapons of Mass
Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq, Mad Cow USA:
Could the Nightmare Happen Here?, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
Hello,
what a discouraging event. i feel confident that i did what i could
to retire
our arrogant, cowboy of a President. I'm surprised that none of the
talking heads
are talking about the effect that the Osama video possibly had on the
election. i
think it scared some people into the Bush camp. Because 42% of the
country
claims to be evangelical or born again and they seemed to vote as a clump
for Bush there was not much slack for the Kerry camp. That video which
was
released during the last week of the campaign may have been the clincher.
How upsetting!!!
It appears that the majority of the American people believe the garbage
that the war in Iraq is a legitimate part of an effort against
terrorists.
<snip>
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