Wisconsin’s Senators Endorse Obama

Wow.  Wisconsin’s Senators sure do put themselves out on a limb.

Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl endorsed Barack Obama for president Wednesday — a day after the Illinois senator clinched the Democratic presidential nomination over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Feingold campaign field director Paula Zellner also endorsed Obama, wrapping up the three remaining uncommitted Wisconsin superdelegates.

1. I can see why Senator Feingold would wait.  I am sure he has future ambitions and would not want to upset the Clintons, but what about Senator “nobody’s Senator but yours” Kohl?  If I were 73 years old I would just say what I think and not wait for the safety of seeing what everyone else has to say. 

   I don’t get it, am I wrong???

   Posted by on June 04, 2008 at 2118 hrs




2. No big deal. Like many other members of Congress they wanted to let the voters have their say.

   Posted by on June 04, 2008 at 2208 hrs




3. Um Keith...Wisconsin voters had their say in February.

   Reason that one out.  I’m going with the time-honored “The two of them are pansies, and were gonna go with the winner no matter who it was.”

   Tends to work out in the end, and is usually correct.

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 0628 hrs




4. I am amazed Kohl actually did anything on this but I agree with you on the whole they are pansies thing

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 0816 hrs




5. Kohl actually did something? Wow - start the presses. He’s defintely ‘nobody’s senator’ becasue he doesn’t do anything but look like a total joke when you see him in committee meetings.

   Feingold is another waste of oxygen. Which is fine - they both site there and rot until we can find someone who is interested in actually helping Wisconsin.

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 1123 hrs




6. He’s defintely ‘nobody’s senator’ because he doesn’t do anything but look like a total joke when you see him in committee meetings.

   I remember many years back when there was speculation about his viability as a candidate for governor of WI - at the time, my thought was that at least WI would have a free DOT road map distribution system that would be second to none in the whole US of A.  Couldn’t think of anything else he would have brought to the table.

   He looks like a Hobbit or something - am I thinking of Lord of the Rings?

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 1145 hrs




7. Sen. Feingold has a longstanding policy of not interfering w/ primaries.  He seems to view primary endorsements as more divisive than helpful on balance…

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 1154 hrs




8. Oh thanks for reminding us that the GOP NEVER sit on their hands when it comes to endorsements.

   When Wisconsin last had two GOP Senators and the GOP Presidential race was wide open was in 1952.

   Every right-wing kook in the state was wondering about Senator Joseph McCarthy and his support once “Mr. Conservative”, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio dropped his bid.

   McCarthy sat on his hands. I’m not sure what Senator Alexander Wiley did, but then, that went with the territory.

   Finally, on a visit to Milwaukee on October 3, 1952, Eisenhower went ahead and decided to endorse McCarthy.  McCarthy had his picture taken with Ike to imply an endorsement, but that was it.

   Ike was barely in office when Tail Gunner Joe started stabbing him in the back.

   Ike’s choice of right-wing kook Richard Nixon as a running mate wasn’t enough for the fringe element to STFU.

   Where were the swift boater types when America needed them?

   Your friends up in Appleton, the John Birch Society, always felt that Eisenhower was a closet commie.  Maybe that’s why Ike waited for what seemed like forever to endorse McCarthy.

   Of course, this all occurred before you were preborn, or what ever PC term you people use to define yourselves. What is it? Republican, neoRepublican, conservative, libertarian? Whatever.

   All I know is that you and yours likely end up voting a straight ticket GOP.  And GOPers are known for sticking their necks out, just ask your president Cheney and all the other chickenhawks holed away in DC.

   What a waste of taxpayer money.

   But thanks for the memories.

   Posted by on June 05, 2008 at 1411 hrs




9. Owen,

   You have friends up at the John Birch Society?  I thought only Steve Kagen was their buddy…

   Posted by on June 06, 2008 at 0645 hrs




10. Feingold played a typically coy part through all of this, and the local media fell for it.  But on every list of committed super-delegates out there, he has been listed as for Obama since Feingold said, right after the primary, that he had voted for Obama.  Another example of why we can’t count on getting our local news from our local media but have to look elsewhere.  As we increasingly do.

    As for Kohl, he has been so comfortable on the fence about everything in Congress, his waiting game was no surprise at all.  But the question is, will the richest Senator cough up funds for the Democratic Party’s convention?  It’s hurting so bad, with so much funding drawn off by Obama all for himself, that it just canceled dozens of events planned for its convention. 

    But maybe Obama needs the money more.  After having to outspend the opposition by as much as 5 to 1 to win Wisconsin, why did he cut back to only 2 to 1 for the rest of the campaign—so even 2 to 1 still wasn’t enough for him to win much more than Guam (and only by 7 votes!) for the last three months?  And Obama has only a third as much as Clinton had set aside for the general election.  So Obama may need Kohl’s funding to come back and outspend McCain by even more than 5 to 1 to win Wisconsin, as McCain sure could do.

    Posted by on June 07, 2008 at 2042 hrs