Voters don’t know Feingold’s Republican challengerRon Johnson very well. In fact, Wisconsinvoters wouldn’t know Johnson if he bit them.
Most of them had never heard of Johnson until a fewmonths ago. Many still have not.
Despite that, state Republicans decided Johnsonwould make a dandy candidate for the U.S. Senate because he’s a millionairewilling to spend lots of money to become a senator.
Most voters need a little more than that to go on,however. And finding out what Johnson thinks about anything is a lot harderthan you might imagine.
Since he’s never held public office, there is norecord of where Johnson stands or what he believes. His entire public careerapparently consists of making a couple of speeches at tea party rallies.
But it gets even more complicated than that. Everytime the Feingold campaign manages to nail down something Johnson has said thatdemonstrates a clear political difference from Feingold, Johnson eitherreverses his previous position or denies he ever believed what he said in thefirst place.
It’s become a pattern.
This first came up on the issue of oil drilling.There are good reasons to wonder where Johnson stands on oil drilling sincehe’s disclosed he owns stock valued between $116,000 and $315,000 in BP, theoil company giant whose blown-out well spewed hundreds of millions of gallonsof oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
(Johnson also has given conflicting accounts as towhether he will or won’t sell his BP stock.)
In an interview with the political websiteWisPolitics, Johnson was asked whether he wanted to open up more of the UnitedStates to oil drilling, specifically either the Great Lakes or Alaska’s ArcticNational Wildlife Refuge.
Johnson’s response: “We have to be realistic … and Ithink we have to get the oil where it is, but we need to do it responsibly.”
After Feingold began running television adsattacking Johnson’s willingness “to hand over the Great Lakes to the oil companies,” Johnson suddenly developed acatastrophic hearing deficiency.
Johnson claimed he didn’t hear the portion of thequestion when the interviewer asked: “Would you support drilling in the Great Lakes, for example, if there was oil found there?”
Now Johnson says he doesn’t support allowing oilcompanies to despoil Lake Michigan, a more conventional position for a Wisconsin politician.
Taking Both SidesAgain
The same pattern of Johnson taking both sides of anissue has arisen around gun rights.
It’s an issue on which Feingold’s core beliefs oftenconflict with those of his most liberal supporters. But no one can accuseFeingold of simply pandering to Wisconsin gunowners for political purposes.
Feingold supported the rights of gun owners beforehe ever had a political career. As a UW-Madison student in the ’70s, at the sametime he was developing his opposition to open-ended foreign wars, Feingoldwrote his senior thesis on the Second Amendment, concluding that theConstitution guaranteed gun ownership as an individual right.
It was the broadest possible interpretation, onethat the Supreme Court itself would not embrace until decades later under thegung-ho pro-gun Roberts court.
Anyone concerned about the proliferation of guns hadto admire Johnson’s political courage in calling for more restrictions on gunsbefore a conservative group in Jefferson County.
Asked what gun restrictions he would support,Johnson said: “You know, like we license cars and stuff… I don’t have a realproblem in minimal licensing and stuff. I mean I don’t.”
Those of us who consider Johnson’s position commonsense were happy to hear a Republican candidate brave enough to express it.
But not so fast. Once again, as soon as Feingoldbegan running ads criticizing Johnson’s position, Johnson completely reversedhimself.
Johnson issued his new, improved position on guns:“I do not, nor will I ever, support licensing or registration of firearms.”Wonder who that guy was who did.
Johnson explained that taking the opposite positionwas just a mistake made by someone who was not “a slick politician” likeFeingold who “twists words for a living.”
It’s the guiding theory of the tea parties thatthere is nothing more weaselly than a career politician. They argue thatanybody off the street would be preferable to a career politician who will sayanything to get elected.
Yet, no one in Wisconsin has ever been confused about whereSen. Russ Feingold has stood on any issue.
It’s the non-politician Ron Johnson who keepsputting out positions on both sides of the issues until he can figure out whichone might attract the most votes.
