Russ Feingold: “I have such regard for the Senator from Maine that I would consider an exception for any lobster in Maine because she…”

“I have such regard for the Senator from Maine that I would consider an exception for any lobster in Maine because she and I have shared lobster in Maine, and that is a very special thing I think everyone would accept. My admiration for this Senator from Maine on these issues is truly boundless. She is the one who, somehow, we convinced to join us very early on McCain-Feingold. And just like I said about Senator Dodd, if not for Senator Collins, there is no way this major reform would have ever passed. So I am talking to some of the people who truly have been reformers in Congress over the years, some of them much longer than I have been. And I say all of this with respect. Let me say this. We know, because some of us have been working on this for some time, that these opportunities for reform do not come up every year. They tend to come up when something bad happens, whether it be the concerns about the 1996 campaign finance violations or the Abramoff scandal. It is not like we are going to have a chance to do this next year because that is not the way this place works. And, frankly, there are weightier matters that face this country. But I am warning my colleagues, this is a chance to not have another embarrassing loophole. If we do not do what I am suggesting here, we are going to be embarrassed.…”