Senator Russ Feingold is wisely posturing to be the liberal’s candidate, the one who will be the New Howard Dean, in 2008. He will steal the base from all other contenders because while liberals make up a small fraction of the US population (around 20%) they make up roughly 2/3rds of the Democrat base. Feingold is mining this liberal gold by pandering to the frustration of the liberal far left:

Sen. Russell Feingold on Tuesday blamed fellow Democrats for inaction on his stalled resolution to censure President Bush for his authorizing the National Security Agency’s electronic terrorist surveillance program.

“I’m amazed at Democrats … cowering with this president’s numbers so low,” said Feingold, D-Wis. “The administration … just has to raise the specter of the War on Terror, and Democrats run and hide.”

Feingold’s resolution, introduced Monday, accuses Bush of violating the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has failed to garner any co-sponsors.

Today Feingold is calling for censure. By Summer he will be calling for impeachment, the uber dream of the far left. And it will be then that he will call on all Democrats to take a stand against Bush – handing many elections to the Republicans in the process. Because to fulfill the dreams of the liberal 20% means pretty much repulsing the vast majority of the remaining 80%. But the liberals and their standard bearer will not care. They want to stand for what they believe in openly. They want to be recognized and do battle on their issues. And they are fed up with National Democrats ignoring their needs, like this:

On Tuesday, Democrats on Capitol Hill avoided questions about the resolution.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters he would not comment on the issue while the Democratic leadership mulls the issue. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said, “Feingold has a point that he wants to make by introducing that resolution.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the resolution “raises some very important issues,” but she refused to discuss what they were.

“I think it needs to having hearings, we need to look what exactly what all of that means and give the opportunity for both sides to speak,” she said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has declined to endorse the resolution and said he hadn’t read it.

In the eyes of the far left this is quite rightly considered complete abdication by Democrats on an issue of high priority to them. Personally I understand why they are fed up. They have no representation or respect from the people they vote into office.

Update: Didn’t take long for the infighting to start on The Hill:

Though all say they believe the program warrants “more investigation,” several Senate aides rebuked Feingold for proposing censure. They say that his move had the potential to derail Democratic efforts to strengthen the party’s image on homeland security issues, noting that a large part of the country believes the eavesdropping program should continue. Bush has defended the program, calling it a “terrorist surveillance” program, and has used aides to defend its legality.

Strikingly, some of the criticism came from liberal Senate offices.

One longtime Senate aide was particularly scathing.

“Feingold’s grandstanding screwed the pooch and played into Bill Frist’s hands,” the aide said. “Thank God Dems punted this down the field. Frist was going to force Democrats to vote on a resolution Feingold had kept a big secret and he would’ve split the caucus on an issue that needed time to get the whole caucus to support. Russ Feingold had only one persons’ interests in mind with his Sunday bombshell, and those were his own. He practically handed a victory to a Bush White House that desperately needs a win.”

Contrast that with the grass roots response:

Feingold is openly telling the Vichy Dems to stop cowering in front of the bullies.

It’s a real Howard Dean moment

He HAS to win this fight, even if it embarrasses the Dems, or else the GOPers will just use the “weak on terrorism” smear.

…

Feingold simply called Democrats to march into a noble battle…and some of them are trying to desert us.

…

I just can’t believe it’s futile. Maybe the resolution won’t pass, but it should be taken seriously. It’s gotten just token press coverage so far (except, of course, from our darling Keith). At the very least, we have to show our elected Democratic representatives and Senators that we don’t WANT them to continue to pussyfoot around Bush — we WANT them to be a true opposition party.

There is a serious disconnect being exposed between the base and the national Democrat leaders. Much more here.