Yeah, this is a done deal... no doubt about it now. The man has been one of the best Senators ever. Period. I just hope he can keep the margin respectable (within single digits).
I'm really curious. Why do you (and others not from WI) think Feingold was a great Senator? I'm not sure if you would still hold that opinion if you saw the footage from his town halls in 09, when he would roll his eyes and sigh at his constituents concerns about the upcoming passage of Obamacare. That didn't work for Al Gore and it began the slide of Russ Feingold in the polls. He was arrogant smug to the extreme, an he's paying for it now.
I'm not going to write an essay on the guy right now (although maybe that wouldn't be the worst idea) but he's a solid liberal and has always stood for what he believed in, popular or not. He was the only man to vote against the PATRIOT Act in the Senate and of the few to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. As for that footage, I've seen it and I probably would have reacted in a worse fashion to those right-wingers. His reaction seemed fine to me.
