based on this story, i'd have to say yes:
ON March 25, 1921, at the age of sixty-five, Robert M. La Follette Sr. took the greatest risk of his long political career. Four years after he chose to lead the Congressional opposition to World War I, La Follette was still condemned in Washington and in his native state of Wisconsin as a traitor or--at best--an old man whose political instincts had finally failed him. But La Follette was not ready to surrender the U.S. Senate seat he had held since leaving Wisconsin's governorship in 1906. He wanted to return to Washington to do battle once more against what he perceived to be the twin evils of the still young century: corporate monopoly at home and imperialism abroad.
The reelection campaign that loomed just a year off would be difficult, he was told, perhaps even impossible. Old alliances had been strained by La Follette's lonely refusal to join in the war cries of 1917 and 1918. To rebuild them, the Senator's aides warned, he would have to abandon his continued calls for investigations of war profiteers and his passionate defense of socialist Eugene Victor Debs and others who had been jailed in the postwar Red Scare.
The place to backpedal, La Follette was told, would be in a speech before the crowded Wisconsin Assembly chamber in Madison. Moments before the white-haired Senator climbed to the podium on that cold March day, he was warned one last time by his aides to deliver a moderate address, to apply balm to the still-open wounds of the previous years, and, above all, to avoid mention of the war and his opposition to it.
La Follette began his speech with the formalities of the day, acknowledging old supporters and recognizing that this was a pivotal moment for him politically. Then, suddenly, La Follette pounded the lectern. "I am going to be a candidate for reelection to the United States Senate," he declared, as the room shook with the thunder of a mighty orator reaching full force.
Stretching a clenched fist into the air, La Follette bellowed: "I do not want the vote of a single citizen under any misapprehension of where I stand: I would not change my record on the war for that of any man, living or dead."
The crowd sat in stunned silence for a moment before erupting into thunderous applause. Even his critics could not resist the courage of the man; indeed, one of his bitterest foes stood at the back of the hall, with tears running down his cheeks, and told a reporter: "I hate the son of a bitch. But, my God, what guts he's got."
more here: http://www.fightingbob.com/aboutbob.cfm
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 8 June 2006 08:23 (nineteen years ago)
a very prescient and timely quote from mr. la follette:
"The purpose of this campaign is to throw the country into a state of terror, to coerce public opinion, to stifle criticism, and suppress discussion. People are being unlawfully arrested, thrown into jail, held incommunicado for days, only to be eventually discharged without ever having been taken into court, because they have committed no crime. But more than this, if every preparation for war can be made the excuse for destroying free speech and a free press and the right of the people to assemble together for peaceful discussion, then we may well despair of ever again finding ourselves for a long period in a state of peace. The destruction of rights now occurring will be pointed to then as precedents for a still further invasion of the rights of the citizen."
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 9 June 2006 01:50 (nineteen years ago)
His 1917 speech in the Senate on the eve of the U.S. declaring war on Germany, in which he eviscerates Wilson's mendacious foreign policy point by point, is a stunning piece of oratory. Walter Karp's
Politics of War provides a summary.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 9 June 2006 01:52 (nineteen years ago)
oh noes, he had the nerve to run as a third party candidate for prez, which means he would be excoriated as an egomaniac and blamed for "throwing the election" or some such in today's context (perhaps he was in his day too - anyone know the shit he faced by breaking with the Republicans?)
― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 9 June 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)
the GOP brass didn't like him anyway, so he was all like 'eff it, I'm bob motherfuckin la follette, soon they will name madison's fourth-best high school after me'
the man is a god here, even though most wisconsinites have NO IDEA what he stood for and/or did
closest present-day analogue, in terms of so-called opponents saying 'i hate him but he's got balls' = russ feingold
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 June 2006 02:39 (nineteen years ago)