Bloodless Coup

Sabato: People Vote Marriages, Not Policies

Senator Russ Feingold who has been very publicly testing the waters for a 2008 presidential run is getting divorced. What I find peculiar about this article on that event and its impact on his political future is that always-ready-to-be-quoted University of Virginia political scientist thinks that this will end any shot he has at getting elected in '08. He says that that's not the kind of personal background red staters will approve of. Well, I suppose that's kind of true - but 1) no Democrat is going to be competitive in most of the red states and 2) Feingold's voting record is enough to turn off red-state voters. Opposition researchers can find a host of things there that than can use to attack a Feingold candidacy. There's not much of a need to go into his marital status. The country wasn't going to elect him anyway.