Feingold is highly intelligent, an inventive thinker, and an ardently true believer in democracy. He has always stood out like a sore thumb in a grossly corrupt Congress.

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Russ Feingold was probably the best senator Wisconsin has ever had. His close connection to his constituents was amazing. He actually attended 721 precinct meetings throughout all of Wisconsin during his stay in office! No senator in American history has ever kept so closely in touch with constituents.

Russ Feingold was unquestionably the most principled person in the Senate. When he voted against Patriot Act I, most political observers thought he had committed political suicide. If a constituent traveled to D.C. to personally present a problem, he or she would be given the chance to meet with Feingold face to face.

His integrity was outstanding. The Angels of Death op revealed that almost all congresspersons had illegal offshore bank accounts. It is unthinkable to imagine Feingold being one of those sleazy pols.

Feingold is highly intelligent, an inventive thinker, and an ardently true believer in democracy. He has always stood out like a sore thumb in a grossly corrupt Congress.

So how was it that he lost his seat in Congress? Here's my theory: A millionaire right-wing businessman was bored. He decided he knew exactly how to beat Feingold. First, he would easily win out in the GOP primary because all other Republicans thought Feingold was unbeatable, and they did not want to run against him.

The wealthy Ron Johnson, who had courted the imbecilic Tea Party for support, had a plan. He would produce a host of TV ads that were exceptionally nasty and also false. Each time one of these false charges showed up all over the state, Feingold would have to create a TV counter ad that refuted the false charge. This would cost big bucks.

And that is exactly what happened. This process was kept up with deadly continuity. As fast as Feingold prepared a counter ad to challenge the false charges of a Johnson ad, a new false charge ad appeared in place of the dropped ad.

Feingold's campaign chest ran dry before he could create ads with positive statements of his countless accomplishments as a senator. Once his campaign was broke, he was helpless to deal with the steady flow of false charges in scurrilous TV ads.

Whether or not anything can or will be done about this, I don't know. I suspect Johnson covered his ass one way or another because the Feingold camp has said nothing. It may be they are unable to trace the ads directly back to Johnson. The ads were pulled immediately after Feingold posted ads that refuted the false ads, but making the
refutations and getting them distributed took time.

The ready removal of the scurrilous, false ads when challenged perhaps protects Johnson or those who ran the ads. I really don't know. It may be that the connections with Johnson are not traceable. However this tactic came about, and even if out of state GOP agents ran the whole operation, Johnson was obliged to disown the ads, which he did not do
to the best of my knowledge.

Just as an aside, will Senator Johnson continue his ties with the Tea Party? If so, he certainly is not going to rival Feingold as a truly great senator.

I haven't researched the TV ads matter. I have only observed was going on and based my theory on these observations. What happened seems obvious. A nasty, false ad would appear across the state. Then a Feingold ad would finally appear refuting the false ad. The false ad would then immediately be pulled. And so on. It struck me as obvious what was going on.

The scheme was simple, and it worked. Heck, I'm not surprised. Consider that Wisconsinites still worship the memory of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy. They only recently named a road after him in my area. The county courthouse has a huge entry hall. A huge, black ebony bust of McCarthy towers over the entry area. Joe is buried in a beautiful gravesite high above and overlooking a wide section of the Fox River.

Many years ago, when I used to jog in that general area, I often unwittingly jogged directly across Joe's grave. Of course, that was always purely accidental.

Authors Website: http://www.mythofself-worth.com/

Authors Bio:
Richard Franklin is a retired college teacher who specialized in teaching rational thinking. He also is an experienced rational psychotherapist.

His book, "The Mythology of Self Worth," a guidebook to rational self-counseling, has recently been updated. It teaches people how to replace irrational thoughts with rational thoughts, a process which subdues the anxiety, depression, and anger created by nutty thinking. Fans of the book have included Carl Sagan (a huge plug in his last book!), Albert Ellis (he wrote the intro), and the brilliant British philosopher Antony Flew who virtually created modern analytic philosophy in a form that is understandable for average folks.

Franklin's current hobby is that of striving to apply rational analysis to politics and culture in America.