This is posted to be timely, but before reading any of the three items. The intention is, once posted, to then read each item, for shading of the reporting, if is is there between the three items.
This is very good news.
____________UPDATE_____________
Having read things, the GOP attack dogs are released and going after Russ with their steel-capped teeth. HuffPo:
A Marquette Law School poll released in mid-April found Feingold leading Johnson by 16 points in a hypothetical match-up, and a March poll by Public Policy Polling found Feingold ahead of Johnson by 9 points.
Johnson brushed off the poll results during an interview last month, saying, "I'm not worried about it. I'll leave other people to do the evaluation. I think it's pretty much meaningless at this point in time."
A longtime opponent of special interests in politics, Feingold co-authored the landmark campaign finance law that the [Roberts] Supreme Court gutted in 2010's Citizens United decision.
Feingold was also known for staking out sometimes lonely positions on national security. In 2001, he was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the federal government's surveillance powers. He was also one of the 23 senators who voted against the war in Iraq.
After his Senate loss, Feingold started Progressives United, a group dedicated to combating corporations' influence on the political system. From July 2013 until March 2015, he served as the State Department's special envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Anticipating a tough race, Republicans began attacking Feingold even before he announced he was running. The Wisconsin GOP launched a website called RadicalRussFeingold.com and told reporters that he has a "voting record of supporting one disastrous policy after another."
[italics added --- multiple links omitted, see original for that]
The Hill (without linking elsewhere in the original):
Democrats need a net gain of five seats to win the Senate in 2016, and have the advantage of only having to defend 10 incumbents in the election, compared with 24 for Republicans.
Feingold also enters the race from a position of strength, leading by 9 percentage points, according to a survey from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.
Still, Johnson defeated Feingold by 5 percentage points in 2010, and Republicans expressed confidence he will do so again.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee labeled Feingold a “desperate career politician” whose “ego still can’t grasp that he was soundly defeated” in 2010.
“Wisconsin families rejected Feingold’s broken promises and his liberal record once and they are going to do it again,” NRSC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said in a statement. “Wisconsin voters know a desperate career politician when they see one and that is why they will re-elect their independent leader, Ron Johnson.”
Democrats believe they have the upper hand in the race because Johnson’s defeat of Feingold came in a midterm election wave for Republicans.
Johnson faces more difficult political terrain in 2016, a presidential election year. Wisconsin has gone for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1984, which could boost candidates down the ballot.
Johnson, a businessman from Oshkosh, poured millions of dollars of his own money into the 2010 race, and he has said he won’t self-fund this time around.
[italics added] That last paragraph engraves in stone the message Feingold has, as quoted by HuffPo:
Feingold made his announcement in a video that was provided in advance to The Huffington Post. In it, he cites issues near and dear to his heart, like taking on corporations and big money in politics, as his justification for running.
"People tell me all the time that our politics and Washington are broken. And that multi-millionaires, billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots," Feingold says in the video. "They especially say this about the U.S. Senate, and it’s hard not to agree. But what are we going to do? Get rid of the Senate?
“Actually, no one I’ve listened to says we should throw in the towel and give up -- and I don’t think that either," he adds. "Instead, let’s fight together for change. That means helping to bring back to the U.S. Senate strong independence, bipartisanship and honesty."
[again, italics added] Don't you wish you had millions of your own dollars, extra, to buy yourself a Senate seat? To run posing yourself as a Tea Partier "just one of the people," as did this millionaire politician, Mr. Johnson.
They've seen Johnson over six years, and Feingold, before the Rovian balderdash gets incessant, has a whomping lead in the polls. Johnson likely believes it is early enough that he can again buy the seat precisely as he did last time.
It will be interesting; with elders in the nation likely remembering "Give 'em hell" Harry Truman, where Truman noted all he did was tell the truth; but they thought it was hell.
Russ will tell the truth, have little doubt over that.
The Rovians, well we know what brand they spiel. Evil attack dogs aside, Russ was and again will be a top rate impeccably honest Senator.
NOTE:
The Hill, and HuffPo each embed and feature Feingold's announcement video; while the NBC item is far shorter than those two.