The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Daniel Bice paused from his usual attacks on Republicans and conservatives to focus on former and, he thinks, future U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold:

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. …

Feingold officials countered by saying that his PAC was responsible for raising much more money for the candidates it endorsed through a fundraising portal. While that bolsters the bottom line, it means Feingold’s PAC still spent more than $3.50 for every $1 that a candidate received in direct or indirect funding over the past four years.

In 2011, shortly after losing his Senate seat, Feingold announced that he was setting up his PAC and a political nonprofit called Progressives United Inc. The two groups have raised and spent $10 million over the past four years.

The PAC was created with the aim of “directly and indirectly supporting candidates who stand up for our progressive ideals.”

But campaign records show that Feingold’s PAC did little to help candidates directly, donating a mere $352,008 to federal candidates and political parties since 2011.

Most of the rest of its budget went to overhead.

Fundraising was the top expense, with one direct mail firm, Nexus Direct of Virginia Beach, Va., being paid $2.3 million by the Feingold PAC in the past four years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Feingold and nine of his former campaign and U.S. Senate staffers drew salaries or consulting fees from the PAC, federal election records show. Five of them also spent time on the payroll of Progressives United Inc., the nonprofit.

For instance, Mary Irvine — Feingold’s longtime chief of staff — was paid a total of $317,823 by the PAC and nonprofit from February 2011 until July 2013, when she left to take a job joining Feingold at the U.S. State Department. Irvine was listed on federal tax reports as vice president of Progressives United Inc.

Feingold received $77,000 from the two groups, one of which spent $42,609 to buy hundreds of copies of the ex-senator’s latest book, “While America Sleeps.” …

Federal tax records show Progressives United Inc. raised and spent $2.8 million during its four years in operation. Of that, more than $1.2 million was spent on salaries and $1.3 million on fundraising for the nonprofit.

Those two items made up nearly 90% of the group’s overall budget.

Apparently being a Progressives United employee was a good gig, not just because of the six-figure salaries, but because of ritzy hotels and fine dining for employees too.

It would be one thing if Feingold hadn’t wrapped the maverick mantra around himself all these years, despite the reality of his voting record, which is indistingushable from any Democrat, except when Feingold went left of the donkey party. Apparently I was mistaken when I assumed the purpose of a political action committee was primarily to raise money for candidates, not create cushy jobs for your former Senate and campaign staff.

Then again, phoniness seems to run in the Democratic Party these days, with the supposed hero of the middle class, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the similar lack-of-spending-on-anybody-but-ourselves Clinton Foundation.