Feingold visits Shawano on campaign tour

Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, who hopes to retake his seat in 2016 after losing it to Ron Johnson six years ago, stopped in Shawano on Tuesday on a campaign tour of all 72 counties in the state.

Just over two dozen of his supporters gathered for the visit in the back room at Angie’s Main Cafe.

“I know this is maybe not the most Democratic county in the state,” he said, to a round of laughter, “but I admire you for supporting Democrats up here.”

Feingold represented Wisconsin in the Senate for three consecutive six-year terms before losing to Johnson in an off-year election in 2010 that was marked by a wave of tea party fervor.

“I had a chance to do some other things; work for the president in Africa, teach at Marquette University,” he said. “All this other stuff is great, but the thing I like best is working for the people.”

Feingold said his interest in returning to the political fray was not really about him.

“It’s about the way people have been treated in this state the last few years, which has been rotten,” he said.

“This was never a place where we mocked teachers and public employees, or we pulled the rug out from under hard working union members,” he said.

Feingold said the attacks, including gutting the university system in the state, was part of the Republican strategy of divide and conquer.

“The problem with divide and conquer is, if you keep attacking people after people after people, pretty soon you’ve got a whole bunch of people that are divided and they start coming together,” he said. “And I think that’s what’s happening here.”

Feingold said there has been a national attack on working people, backed by wealthy Republican donors such as the Koch brothers.

“We have to respond with an opposite message, but it has to be a positive one,” he said. “We have to get back to a sense of community in Wisconsin.”

Feingold said the state needs a senator who will represent everyone, not just 51 percent of the electorate.

“Are you going to try and represent everybody in the state or are you going to try to just represent people like yourself, which is basically what (Johnson) has done,” he said.

Feingold, who worked with Republican Sen. John McCain on campaign finance reform, said Republicans need to return to a sense of bipartisanship.

“We need to get Republicans back into thinking that working together as a community is the right thing to do, because it is,” he said.

In an interview after his visit, Feingold said the political circumstances that were in place when he lost his seat have since changed.

“It’s a very different situation than 2010,” he said. “Of course, 2010 was a time when the economic recession was very serious.”

Feingold said he was caught up in that discontent even though he had opposed the policies that led to the economic collapse.

“It was one of those situations where people started thinking, ‘well, let’s try something else,’” he said. “Since then, the health care bill has been shown to have some very positive elements; the stimulus package did help restore the economy.”

He said the 2016 election will be about an entirely different set of issues, both domestically and internationally.

“If anybody thinks people are going to be voting based on how they felt in 2010, I think they’re kidding themselves — 2016 is a whole different kettle of fish,” he said.