Express Milwaukee: The Dishonesty of Non-Politicians

Wisconsin voters know Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold very well. They know that even if they disagree with him on an issue, Feingold will stand firmly on his principles rather than pander to whatever is politically popular.

Voters don’t know Feingold’s Republican challenger Ron Johnson very well. In fact, Wisconsin voters wouldn’t know Johnson if he bit them.

Most of them had never heard of Johnson until a few months ago. Many still have not.

Despite that, state Republicans decided Johnson would make a dandy candidate for the U.S. Senate because he’s a millionaire willing to spend lots of money to become a senator.

Most voters need a little more than that to go on, however. And finding out what Johnson thinks about anything is a lot harder than you might imagine.

Since he’s never held public office, there is no record of where Johnson stands or what he believes. His entire public career apparently consists of making a couple of speeches at tea party rallies.

But it gets even more complicated than that. Every time the Feingold campaign manages to nail down something Johnson has said that demonstrates a clear political difference from Feingold, Johnson either reverses his previous position or denies he ever believed what he said in the first place.

It’s become a pattern.

This first came up on the issue of oil drilling. There are good reasons to wonder where Johnson stands on oil drilling since he’s disclosed he owns stock valued between $116,000 and $315,000 in BP, the oil company giant whose blown-out well spewed hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

(Johnson also has given conflicting accounts as to whether he will or won’t sell his BP stock.)

(Read More)