Shakes here, doing the salon thing with a follow-up to Neil’s post on Why Hillary Will Lose. I agree whole-heartedly with Neil’s assessment of Hillary, and his conclusions. Americans on the Left and the Right, any who aren’t blind ideologues, have a natural distaste for disingenuous rhetoric clearly designed to appeal to a crowd they haven’t previously; it’s the worst kind of artificial politicking, that which helps no one but (ostensibly) the person who’s doing it. If you need any evidence, try to find anyone who enthusiastically supported Hillary’s devolution into culture vulturism to take on the makers of Grand Theft Auto.
That said, I'm not sure that Russ Feingold's liberalism will have as limited appeal as it might seem at first blush. It's true that Feingold is now ranked the most liberal Senator (tied with Boxer) in the Senate, which would likely be, under typical circumstances, a liability. But with the opportunity having presented itself to hold accountable not just the Bush administration, but the conservative agenda, for many of the massive government failures we’ve seen lately, the game has changed a bit. Whether the Dems will exploit that opportunity in the same way the Lefty blogosphere managed to do quite effectively is, of course, a another story altogether, but if they can, the time for being brave enough to juxtapose the conservative agenda with a clear liberal alternative might have come.
