So, the last few hours I have been reading a lot of Feingold's statements and watching his ads. From this, I believe I have viewed Feingold with far too rosy a picture the last few years. I remember hearing he cast the vote against the PATRIOT Act. I was stunned then but have come to respect that vote more than any other cast by a senator in my lifetime. Every single American was terrified and we were told this law would make us safer. Only Feingold understood that this was not true, but even more importantly, the PATRIOT Act would get rid of some of the major reasons for fighting in the first place.
From this vote he got called a civil liberties champion. I used to believe this rhetoric but now believe that it was completely untrue. A civil libertarian stands up for the first amendment and Feingold was certainly an enemy of it. McCain-Feingold made it illegal to spend your money campaigning for issues you thought were important. Luckily, the Supreme Court understood how unconstitutional it was, and quickly killed it. Just because a liberty can be abused, does not make it a liberty.
Someone who respects civil liberties would support a limited commerce clause. The commerce clause is where government gets nearly all of it's power and it limits a great deal of freedoms. Feingold not only did not limit the commerce clause but extended it far beyond anything people considered just a few years ago. Through Obamacare, he said that Congress has the right to force individual citizens to purchase a service through a small group of government-approved corporation. This struck him as fine. This law destroys a great deal of basic liberties and Feingold not only didn't seem to mind but went to bat for the law.
While we can all reminisce for the Feingold of the PATRIOT Act, that person faded not long after that vote. He was replaced by a sterotypic liberal who was not concerned with liberties or rights of the people he was sworn to protect.
Feingold lost for three major reasons. More than 60% of voters in the exit polls said government needed to do less, a supermajority were unhappy with Obamacare and a supermajority also said they were worse off than they were two years ago. This matches what we saw across the nation. Feingold constantly stood on the side of big government over small businesses and over individual rights and liberties. I do not care if he is a hero to most or all, after really considering his time in the senate he is no longer a hero of mine.
He talked like a libertarian but acted like the opposite. Eventually, the reality of what he was caught up to him. The average Wisconsin voter saw a stream of votes from their senator that they felt hurt them. This election, more than any other in the nation, was not electing one candidate, it was rejecting the other. No one really knows who Johnson is or what he will do, but they do know that Johnson would not support Obamacare and will attempt to limit the size of government that is currently scaring the daylights out of them.
For that I say kudos Wisconsin.
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