Feingold in Texas

Any readers out there from Texas? Or within driving distance of Austin?

If you're there, you'd better make sure you see Senator Russ Feingold as he visits your fine state. And I sincerely mean that, too, even if you sent us a certain president.

Besides, no state with its own Feingold for President blog can be a bad state.

From the Progressive Patriots Fund:

Milwaukee, WI – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold announced today that he will travel to Austin, Texas next Tuesday, April 18th, for a series of events with Texas Congressional Candidate John Courage. Courage is running to represent the 21st Congressional District – a district that includes downtown Austin, the University of Texas, and stretches to the northern part of the city of San Antonio. Courage was the first winner of Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund’s “Pick a Progressive Patriot” event held last year.

Feingold and Courage will hold a Listening Session on the campus of the University of Texas at 12:30 PM CT, in the Quadrangle of the University’s Student Union. This event is open to the public. Feingold and Courage will be available to the media following the event.

and

At 7:30 PM CT that evening, Tuesday, April 18th, Feingold will join Courage at Jovita’s, 1619 First St. in Austin, for a large event with Courage supporters.

If you're in Texas, why not tell Senator Feingold in person how great it would be if he were to, I don't know, move to the White House some day.

Equality for Feingold

There's a new blog up, this time covering Senator Feingold's support for equal rights to same-sex couples, called Equality for Feingold. Why do they support Senator Feingold? The same reason everyone else does!

Senator Russ Feingold who represents Wisconsin (along with out Rep. Tammy Baldwin) has continually stood up for our community, on numerous occasions, including occasions when it has been politically inconvenient. He displays an understanding of our issues, and addresses them in many forums and not just on simple votes. As a strong, progressive leader, he deserves our support.

It doesn't matter who you are-- heterosexual or homosexual, conservative or liberal, young or old, black or white, or any other variation on these themes-- you can respect Senator Feingold for his principled stands and willingness to put the people he represents before politics. On issue after issue, he has articulated thoughtful, honest positions while maintaining an openness to change his mind. He should be and will be the next President of the United States.

Back to Work

Suppose for a moment that you had this really great guy from Wisconsin that you really wanted to become the next leader of the free world.

Now, suppose for a moment that you're so impressed by him, that you join a movement to help make this a reality, even going so far as to start a blog for bringing together like-minded people in your state.

Then, suppose you were just starting to put together ideas on how to maybe make this happen, and you had gotten e-mails from people all across the state who were also enthusiastic. But then, BANG, life gets in the way and generally falls apart for a little while. Suppose that you totally lost track of, well, everything.

Then, suppose you woke up one morning and remembered: "Oh, yeah. Feingold!"

That's not exactly how it went. For example, I don't think my exact thoughts were "Oh, yeah. Feingold!" But that's more or less what has kept me from consistently posting on this blog, and has kept me from getting back to the people that have e-mailed me at one time or another. And things still aren't back to normal. But they're slowly getting there.

It's still no excuse, however, for not having been here for Senator Feingold's appearance on The Daily Show (here and here), not mentioning his New York trip, faithfully blogged by NY for Feingold (here and here), not being on the scene for the censure hearings (here), and not congratulating NJ for Feingold on being Politics1.com's Site of the Day.

And I definitely should have mentioned the fact that we were joined by another state-- Pennsylvania. For those of you with scorecards playing along at home, this brings our total up to 15 states represented. In case you're wondering, when (yes, when) Senator Feingold wins all those states in November of 2008, that'll earn him 283 electoral votes. Plus a bunch of other states that don't have blogs yet.

And I'm willing to bet that there's more I've forgotten even now, as I try to make up for everything I've missed. However, it's about time I move on to new stuff, rather than old stuff reported late.

To start off, Senator Feingold came out announcing his support for same-sex marriage. To this, I have a few things to say. First, it's about time! That's not so much directed at Feingold as the Democratic Party in general. Equal rights should be applied, well, equally among all people, and I'm glad that Senator Feingold is taking this position. I'd also like to point out to anyone that thinks the censure effort has been nothing but a coldly calculated political move that if he was that calculating, Feingold would never do this. People need to realize that he does things because he honestly believes in them, not because it's a safe political move.

Then, I'd like to ask all Michigan readers if you're interested in holding an April meetup. I'm not sure how available I'll be, but if you e-mail me, I'll send your name along to the right person.

Lastly, I'd like everyone that's looking to do more to head over to the RussForge. Haus at Ohio for Feingold has been putting this together, and has done an excellent job. In the coming weeks and months, expect lots of useful materials to pop up over there.

Okay, folks. Let's see what we can do.