In a devastating new report, the Wisconsin State Journal joins the chorus of watchdogs and fact-checkers in exposing Mr. Clean’s full flop on his 1992 pledge "for the future" to "rely on Wisconsin citizens, not out-of-staters":
In the fourth quarter, nearly three-fourths of the itemized individual contributions to Feingold’s campaign were from outside Wisconsin…Feingold has collected nearly as much from the liberal bastions of California and New York as he has from Wisconsin.
Back in 1992 – long before eighteen years in Washington, DC eroded his principles, Feingold warned about the very practice he would engage in decades later:
"I don’t think there’s anything wrong with occasional out-of-state campaign contributions. But you better darn well make sure that a majority of what you receive is from the people whom you would represent."
As he "rakes in" out-of-state money, Senator Russ Feingold’s own words raise the question: who exactly is he running to represent in Washington?
In case you missed it, read the latest report on Mr. Clean’s campaign finance hypocrisy:
Feingold rakes in national money
Wisconsin State Journal
By Mark Sommerhauser
March 13, 2016
Russ Feingold’s coast-to-coast profile as a progressive stalwart is paying off.
In his campaign against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, Feingold, D-Middleton, has leveraged his national stature to become the top fundraiser among all Senate candidates challenging an incumbent.
That fundraising bounty has a flip-side, Feingold’s opponents say: the abandonment of his former pledge to collect most of his campaign money from Wisconsinites.
Feingold signaled last year that he would not renew the pledge, and as 2015 wound to a close, his share of out-of-state fundraising increased. In the fourth quarter, nearly three-fourths of the itemized individual contributions to Feingold’s campaign were from outside Wisconsin.
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For a typical candidate, the issue of in-state campaign funding might be marginal, said Mark Graul, a state Republican strategist not affiliated with the Johnson campaign.
But Graul insists that for Feingold, who cultivated an image as a straight arrow who’s unmoored to outside interests, it could be more problematic.
“It’s a double-edged sword in a way that it isn’t for most other candidates,” Graul said. “He really built his image in Wisconsin, over many years, as someone who really was different.
“What we’re seeing now, in his attempt to get his old Senate seat back, is sort of throwing the old Russ Feingold stuff out the window.”
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Of the $6.9 million in individual contributions that went to Feingold in 2015, 38 percent came from in-state contributors.
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The Johnson campaign notes Feingold has collected nearly as much from the liberal bastions of California and New York as he has from Wisconsin.
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Among the 62 active Senate candidates this cycle who got at least $100,000 in itemized contributions, Johnson ranks 28th in the percentage of contributions he received from in-state donors. Feingold ranks 47th, according to figures provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Feingold first made the in-state donor pledge in his initial Senate bid in 1992 and followed in his three subsequent campaigns.
Last year, when Feingold acknowledged he would not adhere to the pledge in this campaign, he said it never was meant to be permanent. The pledge no longer makes sense, Feingold argued, after Citizens United and other court rulings unleashed an era of rampant outside spending in politics.
But Johnson spokesman Brian Reisinger said Feingold’s about-face shows he has jettisoned the principles that once guided him.
“Wisconsinites no longer recognize the man who made a promise ‘for the future’ on his garage door 25 years ago, but elite liberals in California and Massachusetts know him well,” Reisinger said.