The Wisconsin grudge match over who will represent the state in the Senate after 2016 has become a full-blown fight over which candidate will keep the country safer.
Until Tuesday, the campaigns of GOP Sen. Ron Johnson and former three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold had not engaged in much back and forth. The Johnson camp was content to let state and national Republicans hit Feingold for his national security record, and Feingold’s side mostly ignored Republican pot shots about his votes.
But after Johnson’s team directly attacked Feingold’s votes against renewing a 2004 intelligence law’s “lone-wolf” provision last week, Feingold’s campaign manager on Tuesday released a critique of Johnson’s national security record in the Senate.
“The people of Wisconsin know that protecting the United States is a cause beyond politics, and they are clearly already rejecting Sen. Johnson’s inaction and name-calling,” said Tom Russell, who is leading Feingold’s bid to win back the seat he lost to Johnson in 2010.
Johnson is one of the most vulnerable senators this cycle, and trails Feingold by 11 points in the latest Marquette University poll. But he’s making the most of unusual circumstances that catapulted the freshman into the top spot on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, at a time when voters are more worried about attacks on the homeland than they have been in years.
Nationally, Republicans are seizing on voter discontent with President Obama’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State in the wake of November’s attacks on Paris and the Islamic State-inspired assault in San Bernardino, Calif., earlier this month.
Those events, plus Feingold’s record on legislation responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Johnson’s position as Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman, are making the Dairy State ground zero for national security debates.
The Johnson campaign acknowledges that Feingold voted for legislation that reorganized the intelligence community, created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and permitted the FBI to wiretap and track suspected terrorists with no national or group ties, or “lone wolves.”
But Johnson’s team maintains that subsequent votes against legislation extending the lone-wolf provision along with controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act — on which Feingold was the only “no” vote in 2001 — were positions that left the U.S. open to San Bernardino-style attacks.
“Sen. Feingold’s willingness to abandon a law meant to protect us from ‘lone-wolf’ attacks is another clear example of how he is the wrong choice on national security,” Johnson campaign spokesman Brian Reisinger stated last week. “Sen. Feingold is so far out to the left he ends up with dangerously weak positions on foreign policy.”
Johnson’s campaign pointed to Obama’s recent discussions about the threat posed by lone wolves as proof that Feingold is out of step with voter sentiment, and even his own president.
In a recent statement, Johnson’s campaign argued that his plan to change the visa waiver program is a real step toward a more secure country. The visa waiver changes, which the Obama administration sought, were included in the catch-all spending bill keeping the government funded through the end of fiscal 2016.
It also said that plan goes far beyond Feingold’s idea of reviving a commission to focus on intelligence gathering. “Ron Johnson is leading the way with real solutions to keep us safe — including legislation … to help stop terrorists from entering the United States,” the campaign said.
Writing in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel earlier this month, Feingold outlined his vision for countering the self-proclaimed Islamic State, including setting up the Foreign Intelligence and Information Commission, which Republicans have ridiculed. Still, Feingold’s camp says Johnson has so far done little from his committee perch.
“Russ Feingold has laid out an aggressive and comprehensive plan to defeat ISIS utilizing our military, financial, intelligence and diplomatic resources,” Russell said. “Incumbent Sen. Johnson has presented no plan, taken several different positions on a massive ground invasion and continues to refuse his responsibility in Congress to pass an authorization for the use of military force.”
Johnson has said policymakers have a responsibility to write a new AUMF specifically tailored for the threat posed by the Islamic State and similar groups. He’s also said they should write a new War Powers Act as well but insists that the Obama administration take the lead.
And his campaign is quick to tout Johnson’s legislative proposals for countering the Islamic State since the Sunni terrorist group first started capturing chunks of Iraq and Syria last summer.
