2008 Presidential Campaign Blog

Russ Feingold Progressive Patriots Fund

The Russ Feingold Progressive Patriots Fund Launches Website with this Press Release.

Feingold Calls on "Netroots" to Help Reform Patriot Act

Middleton, WI—- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund launched a new website today, http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com, with a call for citizen co-sponsors of his efforts to protect our freedoms and reform the USA PATRIOT Act.

“We can fight terrorism and protect the freedoms that make us Americans,” Feingold said, “The Progressive Patriots Fund and our website is an effort to give a voice to that value.”

Feingold continues to lead the effort to protect privacy and personal freedoms, having cast the Senate’s lone vote against the PATRIOT Act—legislation which members of both parties now agree must be changed to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans.

Congress is currently considering the reauthorization of 16 key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. Feingold has joined with a bipartisan coalition in co-sponsoring the SAFE Act to protect the freedoms of all Americans by fixing specific portions of the USA PATRIOT Act that go too far.

Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund is targeting citizen co-sponsor support from the netroots with its website launch by advertising on  popular “blogs”

The Progressive Patriots Fund is dedicated to promoting a progressive reform agenda and supporting candidates across the country. The organization will enable Feingold to be a part of a larger national effort to build the Democratic Party throughout America as he travels across the country, listens to others, and speaks out on important issues.

Last November, Feingold won re-election to his third term, representing the Midwestern battleground state of Wisconsin, with an 11percentage point victory and the most votes for any candidate, for any office, in the state’s history.

Minnesota Leads U.S. Voter Turnout in 2004

U.S. Voter Turnout Up in 2004, Census Bureau Reports.

Sixty-four percent of U.S. citizens age 18 and over voted in the 2004 presidential election, up from 60 percent in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Tables from a November survey also show that of 197 million citizens, 72 percent (142 million) reported they were registered to vote. Among those registered, 89 percent (126 million) said they voted. In the 2000 election, 70 percent of citizens were registered; and among them, 86 percent voted.

Minnesota had the highest citizen-voting rate at 79 percent, and North Dakota the highest citizen-registration rate at 89 percent.

Seventy-three percent of veteran citizens cast ballots, compared with 63 percent of their nonveteran counterparts.

Terry Sanford 1976 Announcement

Terry Sanford's declaration of candidacy for the Presidency of the United States on May 19, 1975 in Washington, D.C.

"If you believe as I do, that the people are the ones who must govern, then you are running with the people and not with the ambition.  That is an important distinction, especially today, for it is not the imperial president we need, but many people united to choose a spokesman who can provide the focus for bold, determined, and honest self government. 

That is why I made the preparation and today announced that through the Democratic Party I seek the Presidency of the United States. 

I promise a bold campaign and a bold administration, determined to put into practice again the radical promise of the American Revolution, but determined to talk sense and issues, openly and candidly, pledged to make the government join the people, to put people first in all our affairs and aspirations. 

To these challenges I bring experience not born in Washington, and not tainted by Washington.  We need freshness.  We need change. 

I am different in many ways from the other candidates who have announced.  Those differences can be seen as the campaign progresses.  It is not for me to assert finally that my concept of America is better.  But it is different.  It demands boldness, faith in ourselves, creative change, and a focus on opportunity for all people. 

I expect to be running for the Presidency, with a positive program, but I have a duty of also to show the Nation that the South stands for more than the politics of fear.  I want the people of this country to be given a clear choice between what I see as the politics of fear and the politics of hope. 

I’m going to campaign in all the caucus states, and will enter 17 to 20 primary campaigns, not expecting to win them all, but expecting to lay out in all of them the creative tasks that lie before us."

Full Speech Text

Bob Dole 1980 Announcement

Bob Dole Presidential Announcement Speech held in Russell, Kansas on May 14, 1979.

"I am announcing today that I shall seek my Party's nomination to the office of President of the United States.

I have no illusions about the magnitude of the undertaking; neither have I any undue concern for the magnitude of the problems associated with it. Financing, logistics, simple human effort or the lack of these may conspire in time to defeat a candidacy, but they cannot deter it at the outset. The magnitude of the endeavor rests not in the institutional necessities which must carry it forward, but rather in the expectations which any candidate must engender and then satisfy in the minds and the hearts of the American people. This is the great task.

I came home simply because the strength I need for the undertaking before me is here. I know that as I travel the country in the weeks and months ahead, I will be heard and helped by others who agree with me, who will consider my views and examine my record and judge my capacities and they will determine, as they should, whether I succeed or fail.

But there ought to be at least one place for every person where he or she is accepted with unjudging love and strengthened and reassured by it, and for me that place is here. I was born here, I left for awhile, I was hurt and I came back. I was helped and healed in this place by my townsmen and I began my public career here. And whenever I have set out on a new path, I have come back here to begin. No failure has ever been so hurtful that this place could not ease the pain. And no success has ever been so great that its satisfaction exceeded the satisfaction of being a part of the people of Russell, a citizen of Kansas."

Thank you.

Full Speech Text

Bob Graham 2004 Announcement

Bob Graham's Declaration of Candidacy for President of the United States on May 6, 2003.

"We are gathered here today because this is where the future is built. In communities across America. And especially in places like Florida.

This land at the southern tip of the United States has lured people for centuries with the promise of a better future.

But we Floridians know well that a dynamic future rests on a fragile foundation: an environment we must protect; diversity we must nurture; values we must safeguard; families and communities in which we must invest.

We know we will be judged by whether we leave our children and grandchildren an America that is better than the one we inherited.

I am an optimist. America's best days are still ahead of us. Yet, realizing that future starts with an honest assessment of where we are today.

We must become one America again -- an America energized with optimism -- an America that continues its never-ending experiment of democracy -- an America that looks to the dawn and the spring -- an America whose sights are higher, never lower, whose aspirations are greater,
never lesser.

That is why...I am today...Declaring that I am a candidate for President of the United States of America."

Full Speech Text

John Kerry Hosts KidsFirst Town Hall Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota

John Kerry traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota on Tuesday, May 3rd for the second in a series of town hall meetings to highlight the growing need for health care coverage in this country and promoting his KidsFirst bill to provide health care coverage to 11 million uninsured children in America.  Kerry will visit Seattle, St. Paul, Baton Rouge and Miami during the tour.

In St. Paul, Kerry was joined by Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN), The Minnesota Nurses Association, KidsFirst coalition partners, health care providers and citizen KidsFirst activists for a town hall meeting on children’s health care coverage.

He spoke about how his KidsFirst legislation can help and how they can get involved to hold their leaders accountable on children’s health care issues.

On the first day of the 108th Congress, Kerry introduced legislation in the Senate, the “Kids First Act” – S. 114, to provide health care coverage to the 11 million American children who currently go without. Kerry’s legislation also helps Governors and states save on health care costs by reducing the burden on state’s Medicaid rolls. 

George Bush 1980 Announcement

Presidential Announcement Statement of Ambassador George Bush on May 1, 1979.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am a candidate for President of the United States.

With the help of friends and supporters throughout the country, I intend to seek and win our party's nomination and the general election in 1980.

I seek this nomination as a lifelong Republican who has worked throughout his career, in business and in public office, on behalf of the principles of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

At the outset of this campaign, let me say that I am not running for President as a regional or factional candidate, but as a national candidate. I ask all Republicans to join me in a common effort to bring America the principled, stable leadership we must have in the decade of the eighties.

As a national- candidate, I will welcome the support of all Americans -- Republicans Democrats and Independents -- in my campaign, to give America the new leadership needed to keep our country free prosperous and second-to-none in the years ahead.

In this spirit, too, I from this day will go forward to seek the Presidential nomination of my Party and the support of Americans everywhere who believe that in the decade of the eighties, America must have a new leadership -- a leadership confident of our strength, compassionate of heart, and clear in mind, as we turn to the great tasks before us."

Full Speech Text