page_title: Russ Feingold
section_title: 2008 possible presidential bid
hierarchical_section_title: Russ Feingold / 2008 possible presidential bid
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) speaking at Senator Maria Cantwell's (D-WA) campaign rally, Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, Seattle, Washington.
context_page_description: Russell Dana Feingold is an American lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. A Democrat, Feingold served as one of his state's U.S. Senators from January 3, 1993 to January 3, 2011, and was the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election for the same U.S. Senate seat he had previously occupied. From 1983 to 1993, he was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.
  With John McCain, Feingold received the 1999 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. He and McCain cosponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a major piece of campaign finance reform legislation. He was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act during the first vote on the legislation.
  Feingold was mentioned as a possible candidate in the 2008 presidential election, but in November 2006 announced he would not run. In 2010, Feingold narrowly lost his campaign for reelection to the U.S. Senate to Republican nominee Ron Johnson. On June 18, 2013, he was selected by Secretary of State John Kerry to replace R. Barrie Walkley as a special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa.
  On May 14, 2015, Feingold announced his candidacy for his old Senate seat in 2016.
context_section_description: In late January 2005, Feingold told the Tiger Bay Club of Volusia County, Florida that he intended to travel around the country before deciding whether or not to run in 2008. In March 2005, his Senate campaign staff registered the domain www.russfeingold08.com, as well as the .org and .net versions. On June 1, 2005, Feingold launched a political action committee (PAC), the Progressive Patriots Fund. A "draft Feingold" movement was established independently of his campaign.
  On August 17, 2005, Feingold became the first U.S. Senator of either party to suggest a firm date for American withdrawal from the Iraq War, saying that he favored a complete withdrawal by no later than December 31, 2006.
  Feingold supported John Roberts's Supreme Court nomination in September 2005, and was one of three Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of sending the nomination to the floor for a final vote. Feingold graduated from Harvard Law School the same year as Roberts, 1979. Four months later, in January 2006, he voted against Samuel Alito's nomination to the Court in committee and against cloture of debate on the nomination.
  Considered a long shot for president, Feingold announced in November 2006 that he would not seek his party's nomination in 2008. He said that a presidential campaign would detract from his focus on the Senate, and the resulting scrutiny "would dismantle both my professional life (in the Senate) and my personal life." In his parting comments he warned his supporters against supporting anyone for the presidency who voted for the Iraq War, whether they later regretted it or not, saying his first choice for president in 2008 was someone who voted against the war, and his second choice is someone who was not in Congress but spoke out against the war at the time.
  On February 22, 2008, he said he had voted for Obama in Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary election.
caption: Feingold on the campaign trail, stumping for Maria Cantwell (D-WA), October 2006.
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