Washington Free Beacon came out with an article today telling us what we already know: Russ Feingold is trying to run from his 16 year record of partisan politics.
Free Beacon reported:
Feingold’s campaign has instructed supporters not to call him “Senator” in media interviews or refer to his “going back” to Washington, according to Martha Laning, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Laning fears Wisconsinites will learn about Feingold’s record of being a Washington Insider and career politician. After 18 years, Feingold has become out of touch with the Badger State. He’s even been teaching in California while running for Senate in Wisconsin. Laning went on to say:
“They want us to say ‘Russ,’” Laning said, “because the last campaign was all about ‘16 years, 16 years, 16 years, he’s there too long,’ and so they want to say ‘he’s just one of us. We want to go back to Russ being Russ.’”
After his long tenure in the Senate, Feingold became all too familiar with backroom political deals and began putting special interests over Wisconsin’s interests, which is why Laning also said this:
“The second one is we never want to say ‘go back to the Senate,’ we just want to say ‘electing him to the Senate.’ They want to totally get away from all that,” Laning added.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported on the story, adding:
"An insider close to Feingold made it clear that the ex-senator’s team is none too pleased with the video or Laning, who was elected to the top Dem post in June.
"This is no time for on-the-job training," said the source, who asked not to be named because he’s not authorized to speak for the campaign. "I’m pretty certain they don’t want Martha Laning to use the words ‘Russ Feingold’ ever again."
The Laning slip-up has put the state Democratic Party at odds with the Feingold campaign, which is not good this early on in the campaign.
The story got worse yesterday after Feingold said in an interview with the News-Sickle-Arrow:
I’ve lived in Wisconsin all of my life, with only a small portion of that in political office.
Interesting. Feingold believes only a "small portion" of his life has been in spent in politics, yet he has spent 28 years in elected office. Being 62 years old, nearly half of his life has been spent in politics.
To the Feingold camp’s dismay, the Washington Examiner has already reported Ron Johnson will be the outsider in the 2016 election.
"He might be the incumbent, but he’s still the outsider," said Betsy Ankney, Johnson’s campaign manager. "He’s still running against a three-term career politician."
Feingold can run to California, but he can’t hide from his poor record representing Wisconsin in Washington.
You can watch his full list of approved rhetoric below:
[youtube url = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEs4ifwyWJE"]