Feingold is helping to redefine the political ‘mainstream’

April 5, 2006

I mentioned Peter Beinart’s piece on Russ [tag]Feingold[/tag] a few weeks ago, but it’s relevant again in light of the senator’s comments yesterday on [tag]gay marriage[/tag].

As [tag]Beinart[/tag] explained, Feingold is taking chances by staking out bold positions on controversial public policies, but in the process he’s helping Dems make incremental progress.

The conventional wisdom is that, by making Democrats look radical, Feingold has shot his party in the foot, if not the head. But some radicalism is politically useful, particularly in the long run. Liberal bloggers often make this point, and they’re right: Occasionally you need to stake a position beyond what is mainstream in Washington — and take some hits — in the hope that you eventually redefine what “mainstream” is.

In the example Beinart cited, Feingold’s censure resolution made “a full, tough investigation of the surveillance program now looks sober and reasonable.” Dems could in effect say that Feingold’s move was on the fringe, but their proposal for a serious inquiry about warrantless searches was just common sense. It was, in a sense, a “compromise” between conservative inaction and liberal censure.

In a similar vein, Feingold is making gay civil unions look moderate.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, said yesterday that he thinks bans on same-sex marriages have no place in the nation’s laws.

Feingold said in an interview that he was motivated to state his position on one of the most divisive social issues in the country after being asked at a town hall meeting Sunday about a pending amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution to ban same-sex marriages.

Feingold called the amendment “a mean-spirited attempt” to single out gay men and lesbians for discrimination and said he would vote against it. But he went further, announcing that he favors legalizing same-sex marriages.

Now, I realize that some 2008 positioning is at play, but in referring back to Beinart’s thesis, Feingold’s position helps shift the debate.

The right wants to write bigotry into constitutional stone. The left wants gay people to be able to get married. All of a sudden, Democratic proposals for civil unions is a reasonable middle ground, whereas a few years ago, civil unions were deemed radical by conservatives. The goalposts have been moved away from discrimination.

Civil unions for same-sex couples are legally recognized relationships. Couples in civil unions, though not legally married, enjoy rights to pensions, health insurance, medical leave, bereavement leave, hospital visitation, and survivor benefits, just as married straight couples enjoy. At its core, the difference between the two is practically a semantic one, not a legal one. When the right denounces Feingold for his position, Dems can simlpy offer their “reasonable” alternative.

Beinart said Dems need “some people push the bounds of acceptable opinion while others use the specter of radicalism to make modest, incremental progress.” Sounds like a good idea to me.

Sounds like the Republican strategy in a nutshell. Kudos to the Dems for figuring this strategy out after eight or nine years of getting continuously clobbered with it.

  • The strong guy, all alone, has managed to drag the center of the rope over the line in this ideological tug of war. Now watch as others join in and pull too.

  • Hear, hear for Feingold!

    Poll-wise, if you add up the supporters of same-sex marriage to those who support civil unions, you have a majority of Americans in favor of some kind of legal rights for same-sex couples. The people who want to deny us any and all rights are in a (shrinking) minority.

    I’m thinking (hoping?) that this issue is losing it’s “shock” value and that it won’t be too long before the GOP has to start looking for a new group/issue to scapegoat and use to fearmonger during election years.

  • What Democrats call the “left wing” (eek!) in the country, most civilized nations would consider right-of-center.

    I don’t understand the timidity of the Democratic party and, after a fairly long lifetime of working to get them into office and keeping them in office and returning them to office … I’m beginning to wonder, Why?

  • Ok, where do I go to donate money to Feingold’s 2008 campaign?

    Personally, I used to same-sex-marriage was a bit of a red herring. I didn’t think it was necessary for me to have a piece of paper solemnifying my 30-year partnership with my reason-for-living. Our families love us, our friends treat us as a couple, and I’m protected in my Federal job from discrimination.

    Then my R-F-L was laid off from work, and I couldn’t put him on my Federal employee health insurance plan, so we shelled out bundles of money to keep his health insurance. Laws were passed so that were we to move to Virgnia from DC, all the legal documents we’ve crafted to protect one of us should the other die would be null and void. And, frankly, I’m pissed off at being made a scapegoat for the decline of hetero marriage. I’m mad as hell that despite being “married” longer than Newtie Gringrich was to any of his wives, I’m not able to pass my social security to my partner. If they really want to protect hetero marriage, they’d pass an “Anti Middle Aged Male Trophy Second Wife” amendment.

    To me, civil unions are like telling Black folk they can ride at the front of the bus on odd-numbered days. And I’m so over pussilanimous Dems telling me to be a good little f-word and not ask for more because it upsets Ma and Pa Kettle in Toledo.

    GO RUSS!

  • It is incomprehensible that most Democrats (at least those in leadership positions) don’t understand that, in politics, when you go head to head with your opponents, you always wind up somewhere in between the two positions. The attempt to “coopt the center”, simply shifts the center to the right. The process is then repeated, with Democrats shifting the center ever further to the right. What Feingold is doing is not only sensible, to do anything else is to sell out your principles (which assumes of course the people we’re talking about have principles, other than remaining in power).

  • I really object to the characterization of Feingold’s
    positions as extreme, fringe or radical. They are
    core Democratic values. Or at least, they used
    to be. Nothing radical about censuring a president
    who breaks the law or standing up for gays who
    ought to have the same rights as everyone else.

    We have to stop apologizing for being progressive.
    Or doing what’s right. That’s what’s wrong with
    the Democrats – they stopped being Democrats,
    out of cowardice, or out of greed, like the Repigs
    at the trough, or maybe both.

  • You know, I’m shocked that it’s taken the Democrats this long to figure this out. It is Negotiation 101: ask for $1000, when you really only expect to get $500. Let them haggle you down.

    I guess Repugs being the “party of our Corporate Overlords”, they already had a much better grasp on this than we did. But glad to see this changing.

    This is also the perfect way to work the “he said/she said” media. The intellectuall-lazy media, in order to appear “balanced” *must* counter every position with a rebuttal. For years, we’ve been making moderate rebuttals to radical wingnut positions, which has redefined the center as radical wingnut-land.

    So we need to do more of this. Get into a habit of confident, aggressive counter-strikes. The middle ground– which is usually everyone figuring out how to live together in peace– is placed right where it belongs.

  • Feingold is making some major brownie points for a 2008 run. Personal integrity is taking a stand for truth and righteousness just because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of risk, and he’s the only active politician today who’s doing it.

    Feingold/Obama in 2008, anyone?

  • Feingold just became my choice for president in ’08. It’s a move that’s been so overdue for so long in the Democratic Party. It’s hardly extreme or radical. The U.S. government should not be legislating second- or third-class status for any of its citizens.

    For the life of me, I never got the “civil unions are better than gay marriage” argument. It strikes me as being akin to “separate but equal.” The Democrats should be ashamed for even suggesting anything less than full recognition and rights for any committed relationship, gay or straight.

  • Here’s what every Dem should say whenever any Republicrook uses the word “Liberal”:

    Compared to you, the average American is a Liberal. [Insert supporting statistic here] We Democrats call this position “Moderate”, which of course is the exact opposite of your radical position. The fact that you have such low support for your true policies is proof of how radical you really are, and the fact that you try to mislead Americans about your true policies is to be expected from someone who supported Tom Delay and his merry band of criminals.

  • For the life of me, I never got the “civil unions are better than gay marriage” argument. It strikes me as being akin to “separate but equal.”

    For the life of me, I never understood the view of civil unions as being akin to “seperate but equal”. Can someone please clarify this for me? Of course, I must admit that from I’ve seen it would appear that all the rights are the same; if that’s not the case then clarifiying this for me should be easy.

  • Edo,

    Pretty simple really. Why is marriage OK for straight people, but not gays? Why create a separate legal distinction at all? If you’re going to give someone the same rights, why not call it marriage?

    It’s semantics, but I think the message is clear. Marriage is good enough for heterosexual, but not gays and lesbians. That’s a moral judgment on a relationship that the government isn’t qualified to make.

  • Actually, I’ve long thought that letting the straights keep “marriage” as “their own” seemed like a perfect concession. In other words, give “us” everything that practically matters, and let them keep the comfort of a word that IS defined as “between a man and a woman.”

    I’m straight, personally, but think lack of civil unions is abominable. Letting them “keep” marriage creates a middle-position solution, rather than a “demand” that we win everything and they “win” nothing.

  • Here’s why I object to “Civil Unions” as a substitute for “Marriage.”

    Even if the legal rights/responsibilities are entirely equal, I find “Civil Unions” insulting, condescending, and patronizing. Its sort of like “Some of my best friends are .” Its sort of like “It’s OK to be , but I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one.” Its sort of like “Oh sure, we’ll guarantee your LEGAL rights and equalities if you’re , but we can still feel free to make jokes and keep folks out of the white way of life.”

    Maybe I’m overly sensitive here. But, as someone who has been beaten within an inch of his life while being screamed at for being a Faggot, as someone who has been fired from jobs for being a “Hoe-Mo-Seck-Shool”, and as someone who to this day gets saddled with extra work because co-workers with kids demand “family time” (as if MY family ain’t good enough), don’t patronize me by tolerating my “civil union” with my partner. I’m as much married to him as Dick is to Lynne or Shrub is to Laura. And at least *I* don’t lie about WMD or shoot people with shotguns.

    Apologies for the tirade….. may we all now get back to feeling superior to Wingnuts, Fundies, and DeLay. And I realize I’ll never see the day when I’m fully accepted by all of America. That’s ok… you can’t put new data into Read-Only-Memory.

  • Sorry for the confusion about the last post… I meant to insert “Bracket X bracket” above to indicate “insert your favorite minority group here”, but it didn’t come through in the posting. So, I meant to say “It’s okay to be “X””, but I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one.

  • I have to whole-heartedly agree with all of Eeyore’s points, but this one especiallly resonates (and makes me giggle!)… “If they really want to protect hetero marriage, they’d pass an “Anti Middle Aged Male Trophy Second Wife” amendment.”
    Can I get an AMEN???

  • Eeyore,

    Nicely put. Although childless straight men and women get extra work dumped on them by coworkers with families. And now that I have a kid of my own, I look forward to getting mine. Just kidding.

  • Here’s my wacky idea:

    If a couple, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. wants domestic partnership benefits, they go to city hall and get their “civil union” license/certificate, etc. This provides them all the rights and privileges afforded to what we call “married couples” today.

    However, the term “marriage” would hold no LEGAL stature. It would be religious title and nothing more. If you want the marriage ceremony, have it. But it does not have anything to do with your rights.

    Bottom line: All unions are civil unions. No seperate legal distinctions. Call it marriage if you want, but that has nothing to do with legal view. As some of you have said, it doesn’t really matter anyway, since you and your partner are as much “married” to each other as any heterosexual couple.

    Of course this will NEVER happen, because our culture has the term “marriage” so ingraned that to attempt to redefine it in such a manner is unrealistic. And of course you’d have the religious wackos getting their panties in a wad. Just thought I’d throw that out there for ridicule 😉

    PS. I consider myself lucky to live in WI and be represented by Russ. It’s nice to see someone carrying on the fighting progressive spirit that has always been a trademark of WI. On the other hand, I’m still trying to figure out how we manage to have Russ and an American Nazi like Sensenbrenner in the same state.

  • First of all, nothing is stopping gays from marrying.

    Secondly, gay marriage is not a core democratic value. (At least I hope it never becomes one.) Gay marriage is a West European value adopted by the American Left.

  • Gay marriage is a West European value adopted by the American Left.

    And that’s a bad thing because … ?

  • To be clear, I’m with bluejazz. I don’t understand how marriage is any different than a civil union in *legal* terms. I got married in a church (it was a big deal to my mother-in-law), but we still had to get a marriage license from the county. Thus it would seem that I have a civil union (the government issued marriage license) and had a marriage ceremony. The two are distinct in my mind.

    Hence, my not understanding why this is viewed as the same as “seperate but equal”. Question: if the local governmental bodies only issued “civil union licenses” instead of “marriage licenses” would this resolve the issue for the homosexual community? If not, why not? If the answer is because “people would still hate us because we of our sexual orientation” then I think we are at an impasse. People still hate members of other races, creeds, religions, etc. Sadly we can’t legislate acceptance and love.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think the fact that sexual orientation is used to discriminate against people is just as wrong as using their race, creed, religion, gender, etc. It’s horribly wrong.

  • To Eeyore….I agree with what you say but take offense to your Toledo comment. I am a liberal from Toledo and our city is 3 to 1 Democratic and very, very Union (Jeeps are built here). So you may be better served to pick a city that is much more conservative when you make your comparisons.
    I too am glad Feingold is leading the fight…it’s about time someone does!

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