Russ Feingold.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: The Progressive Interview

Six days after George W. Bush signed the first major campaign finance bill in a generation, I drove out to the home office of Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. The interview took place in a conference room lined with framed maps of Wisconsin showing Feingold's "listening sessions," which he holds year after year in county after county. His executive assistant, Nancy Mitchell, who has been with him for twenty-three years, greeted me and sat in for the interview.

Feingold entered wearing a gray suit with a white shirt and a gray, black, and white tie that matched his cropped hair. We exchanged pleasantries. He asked about my wife, Jean, a supporter of his who went to school with him at Janesville Craig High School, forty miles south of Madison. Jean's father and Feingold's dad were friends. Both were attorneys. Both were members of the Progressive Party. Both ran, unsuccessfully, for district attorney at one point in their careers.

"My parents violated the traditional rule that you're not supposed to talk about two things at the dinner table, religion and politics," he told me, by way of explaining his childhood interest in politics. "That was sort of my trademark in grade school. I was the guy who knew a lot about politics."

Feingold's father was also an acquaintance of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. "I introduced him in the seventh grade to Marshall Junior High students," Feingold recalled. "A terrifying moment."

He told me he heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1966. "My heroes were Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy," he said. "They were all assassinated by the time I was fifteen." Following his older brother's lead, he opposed the Vietnam War, a position he still adheres to.

Feingold was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after sneaking through as the lesser-known candidate in a tight three-way Democratic primary. In 1998, he barely won reelection after he refused to accept soft money.

I asked him about his Presidential aspirations, as well as campaign finance, the conservative drift of the Democratic Party, and the raging conflict in the Middle East.

A champion high school debater, Feingold seemed to enjoy the give and take.

Q: Are you planning on running for President?

Senator Russ Feingold: I have not said that I would never run. I have not said that I for sure won't run in 2004. But I'm not really likely to do it. I'm not really planning on it. My hope is to probably run for reelection and serve another six years.

Q: But you seem to be putting a toe in with your travels to campuses and to important primary states.

Feingold: That wasn't the reason I did it. I was asked by students from Brown University when I spoke there. They said we really like what you're doing, and we'd like you to run for President, but in any event would you be willing to go to some larger campuses and speak? And I said yes. I find that exciting, because I find that students are very strong on my issues, stronger than anyone: anti-death penalty, anti-racial profiling, campaign finance reform, questioning the anti-terrorism bill. And what I did do was to indicate that I want to see a more progressive Democratic ticket. I'm not happy with the Democratic Leadership Council's dominance of the party. And although I'm unlikely to be the person, I want Wisconsin's progressivism to influence the ticket. And we'll do better as a party if we do. We'll have more energy. We'll have a broader tent.

Q: Why is the DLC dominating?

Feingold: I think it's because the Democratic Party decided that corporatizing was a way to help with fundraising, especially in an era of soft money. It allowed the Democratic Party, in their view, to blunt some of the issues, like trade, that were causing problems with, frankly, the larger moneyed interests. And the ultimate example of that was the coronation of Gore in Los Angeles. That convention was a corporate trade show. It was nothing like the Democratic conventions of the past. So I see the DLC as, to some extent, taking the soul away from the Democratic Party. And I see the DLC as having sold American workers down the river. I oppose GATT, and NAFTA, and all the things Clinton and Gore were for. When we lose our commitment to opposing something as manifestly wrong as the death penalty, I'm very uncomfortable with that.

Q: Can a progressive get the nomination?

Feingold: I think so. What it would require is somebody who had a lot of students and young people involved, traditional progressives, labor people, women. There is a coalition there. I think it can happen. The conventional wisdom...