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'Feingold voters' will be critical in Wisconsin

MADISON, Wis. (AP) Something striking happened when Wisconsin voters went to the polls in 2004.

Tens of thousands of them backed President Bush's re-election and on the same ballot voted to send one of his most liberal critics, Sen. Russ Feingold, back to Washington.

These ticket-splitting voters made a huge difference. The Republican president came up just short in this politically divided state, losing to Democrat John Kerry by 11,000 votes. But Feingold — a Democrat who opposed the Iraq War and cast the only vote against the Patriot Act — trounced his GOP challenger by 331,000 votes.

Who these fiercely independent "Feingold voters" back in this year's presidential race could decide whether GOP Sen. John McCain or Democratic Sen. Barack Obama wins Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes. Feingold is endorsing Obama, his fellow Democrat, but has said his friend McCain would be a good president and will be tough to beat here.

Both candidates have a history of working with Feingold to pass major legislation in the Senate: campaign finance reform for McCain and ethics reform for Obama. And they are appealing to Feingold's voters by trying to show they can be independent-minded, promising to fight special interests and stand up for their principles.

These traits help explain Feingold's popularity in the state among this critical bloc of swing voters.

"They are independent voters in Wisconsin that vote more on the person than on the party," said Mike Wittenwyler, a political consultant in Madison who managed Feingold's 1998 re-election campaign. "Whoever wins Wisconsin is going to have to pick up those voters."

These Feingold voters can be found all over. The third-term senator carried 27 counties where Bush also defeated Kerry in 2004 — some by striking margins. In the bellwether area of Racine County, for instance, Feingold won by 10,000 votes while Bush won there by 4,000.

They are people like Betty Wimmer, an 80-year-old retired business manager for a dental clinic in Wausau. She's a Republican who votes for Feingold because "he seems to be upfront and I can take him by his word."

Wimmer said she would vote for McCain because she likes his positions on the economy, the war in Iraq and his support of veterans. Wimmer, who voted for Democrat John F. Kennedy in 1960, said Obama "has things to offer but I don't think that now is the time."

Eric Amundsen of River Falls is another Bush-Feingold voter backing McCain. Amundsen, 38, a property manager, said McCain, like Feingold, is willing to buck his party when he disagrees on principle. "People should stop focusing on party lines and start focusing on who has plans to do what's right," he said.

Feingold has often warned Democrats that McCain will be a strong candidate in Wisconsin, given his biography as a war hero and image as a bipartisan reformer.

Wittenwyler, the consultant, said McCain came into Wisconsin with an advantage because of this "maverick persona." He is skeptical these voters will get behind Obama, partly because of his race and exotic background.

"Obama's problem is that he can never be one of these folks," he said. "McCain can."

Obama's effort to appeal to these voters was on full display at a campaign rally in Green Bay this month. Feingold introduced Obama, recounting their fight to pass ethics reform in the wake of a lobbying scandal that sent some lawmakers to prison.

The bill, signed by President Bush last year, bars lawmakers from accepting gifts or meals from lobbyists, requires them to disclose names of their biggest fundraisers and makes them pay the full cost of using corporate jets. Some members of their own party didn't like to change the way they did business, Feingold said.

"One day Sen. Obama came out of the Capitol and saw me and said, 'Hey, I just got yelled at by a couple of Democrats about these provisions," Feingold recalled. "He said, 'But I stood my ground'. And he did. He was principled, and effective and he passed this bill."

Feingold has given similar compliments to McCain, the Arizona senator. The two worked together for years before succeeding in passing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in 2002, which attempted to limit the influence of special interest money by banning soft money — unregulated donations by corporations, unions and the wealthy.

McCain has not played up his relationship with Feingold on the campaign trail. While that might score him points with independent voters, it would also turn off a conservative base that is already leery of him.

If a recent unscientific poll conducted by Feingold is any indication, Obama's chances to win Wisconsin look good. At the rally in Green Bay, Feingold said he had just stopped at a McDonald's in Beaver Dam to take the "Feingold poll."

"One undecided, one for McCain and three for Barack Obama!" Feingold yelled. The crowd roared in approval.