Russ Feingold used his outside candidate Super-PAC to …pay his once-and-future campaign staff?

You know, it’s sad when you see somebody whose basic motivation in life is so self-evidently Where am I gonna get my next fix from, man? Sad, and a little embarrassing. You want ’em to get help, but it’s not your place to tell ’em to shape up:

Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold — long a champion of campaign finance reform — founded a political action committee that has given a mere 5% of its income to federal candidates and political parties.

Instead, nearly half of the $7.1 million that Progressives United PAChas spent since 2011 has gone to raising more money for itself, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets.org. The data also show the group has paid another sizable chunk of money on salaries or consulting fees for Feingold, his top aide and eight former staffers.

I don’t know.  Maybe being a US Senator really is this awesome Bacchanalia of power and debauchery that addicts you on your first day, and you’ll never be able to truly live without it afterward. If so, I should have the same sort of sympathy for Russ Feingold that I would have for a junkie, or anybody else with that kind of sickness. Still.  That Mr. Campaign Finance ‘Reform’ would come to this…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Just to be clear about this: these kinds of staff-retaining shenanigans are, while more than a little obnoxious, more or less part of what you can expect out of politicians looking for an edge. But Russ Feingold has always been presented as being different. Better.  Mind you, I never bought into that, which certainly puts me one up on all those poor, stupid sad-sacks who actually believed that Feingold was somebody special. Ach, well, that’s not my problem.

Via @LoganDobson.