Wisconsin Senate race turning on national security

[Valin]

Washington Examiner:

Nicole Duran

12/30/15

 

The Wisconsin grudge match over who will represent the state in the Senate after 2016 has become a full-blown fight over which candidate will keep the country safer.

 

Until Tuesday, the campaigns of GOP Sen. Ron Johnson and former three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold had not engaged in much back and forth. The Johnson camp was content to let state and national Republicans hit Feingold for his national security record, and Feingold's side mostly ignored Republican pot shots about his votes.

 

But after Johnson's team directly attacked Feingold's votes against renewing a 2004 intelligence law's "lone-wolf" provision last week, Feingold's campaign manager on Tuesday released a critique of Johnson's national security record in the Senate.

 

(Snip)

 

The Johnson campaign acknowledges that Feingold voted for legislation that reorganized the intelligence community, created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and permitted the FBI to wiretap and track suspected terrorists with no national or group ties, or "lone wolves." But Johnson's team maintains that subsequent votes against legislation extending the lone-wolf provision along with controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act — on which Feingold was the only "no" vote in 2001 — were positions that left the U.S. open to San Bernardino-style attacks.

 

(Snip)