RUSS FEINGOLD'S PROGRESSIVE PATRIOT LIST INCLUDES SOME REACTIONARY PATRIOTS THIS TIME AROUND-- BE CAREFUL

Russ Feingold's third "Pick A Progressive Patriot" contest is underway. If you weren't notified by Russ's PAC or by one of the candidates yet, you can vote at that link above. But be careful. These are the Democratic candidates on the list:

Mark Begich - Alaska
Vivian Davis Figures - Alabama
Erik Fleming - Missisippi
Al Franken - Minnesota
Kay Hagan - North Carolina
Scott Kleeb - Nebraska
Larry LaRocco - Idaho
Bruce Lunsford - Kentucky
Jeff Merkley - Oregon

Before you vote for one, what do you know about them? Well, Blue America has vetted Jeff Merkley and Mark Begich and we can vouch for their strong, solid progressive credentials. We're felling good about Larry LaRocco, Al Franken and Scott Kleeb as well. As for Bruce Lunsford, he may be more progressive than Mitch McConnell but in the same way that Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman are more progressive than... James Inhofe or Benito Mussolini. Lunsford has a long and disgraceful anti-progressive record and if he's elected it may be nice to bid adieu to McConnell but in his place we will be stuck with an arch-conservative, highly corrupt senator for 6 years, inside the already lily-livered Democratic caucus always pulling it to the right and always undermining progressive values and principles.

I'd like to see the end of Mitch McConnell's career too, but not this way, not with someone who is sure to be the worst Democrat in the Senate. And the idea of picking this flunky over hard fighting progressives like Merkley, Begich, Franken, LaRocco or Kleeb is just bizarre. The $5,000 Feingold has gotten from donors would be far better used to promote the issues important to one of the best senators in the country if it went to a candidate who supports those same issues-- not to Hagan and not to Lunsford.

If you'd like to make a contribution to the election of actual progressives, the Blue America ActBlue page only includes genuine progressives-- no reactionaries who are just a bit better than the Republican opponent (like Lunsford and Hagan). The Senate candidates endorsed by Blue America so far this year are:

Rick Noriega, Texas
Andrew Rice, Oklahoma
Mark Begich, Alaska
Tom Allen, Maine
Jeff Merkley, Oregon (next month)