By refusing to commit or pull out, all she does is seriously fuck up the chances of a strong, viable candidate or two to raise the money and get out the message necessary if we Liberals are ever going to win back the White House. I am so sick of the Bushes and the Clintons. Honestly, is this the best our country can do, switch dynasties every 8 years?

It's time to not only take the ballsy stance Feingold has taken regarding Iraq and Bush, but it's long past due to call bullshit on Hillary's Presidential aspirations. It doesn't matter who the Republicans put at the top of the ticket. She is not going to win the election in 2008. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

If the Democrats want to actually try and win in '08. Red-state governor, just like Bill Clinton. Hillary would get trounced even if the Republican nominee was a fart in a jar. Feingold's a Jew. Gore won't run. Kerry, if he runs, will become Dennis Kucinich. Warner-Edwards might be the best chance at victory, especially if the opposition fields McCain-Giuliani. McCain is a tough nut to crack, though. Maybe the Dems will fall on their swords, a la '84, and run Hillary-Feingold. I'll give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, though, and predict they'll opt for Warner.

I was more enthusiastic about Warner until I read this. "Warner also underscored his belief that change has to come through national 'consensus' rather than 'repolarizing the country.'" Great. Tell me this is NOT the third guy in a row who's going to run a nice-guy, can't-we-all-get-along, pre-Karl-Rove campaign in a post-Karl-Rove world.

Hey, Governor, the country can't be "RE-polarized" -- the polarization has already happened. You've got to run your campaign accordingly, which means doing everything you can to beat the living crap out of whomever the Republicans run. Think of it as a public service, because in fact that's what it is. Or, consider what's become of Al Gore and John Kerry: They're in danger of going down in history (albeit only in footnotes) as the two guys who had the best chance of stopping George W. Bush, and didn't do it.

Go for Warner.

In recent history, all presidential victories have been by sitting presidents, vice presidents or (recent) governors.

When was the last time a senator won?

- Michael

The biggest challenge to Feingold will certainly be the belief that he's not electable. It's unfortunate because he's a man of outstanding character and intelligence. I believe that most Democrats would love to see the party move away from the bland middle of road and towards a dynamic future and I think Feingold has the energy and ideas to get us there. A lot can happen in the next two years but, if the Republican party continues to implode and the Democrats don't take advantage of that by making bold choices, maybe the sad truth is that they don't have what it takes to be leaders and not followers.

In recent history, all presidential victories have been by sitting presidents, vice presidents or (recent) governors.

When was the last time a senator won?

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1964. Before that was, of course, President Kennedy. Of course, Johnson was Vice-President, so go with Kennedy, I guess.

As far as 2008 goes, I would love to see Feingold win, but I agree with a previous poster in that the undercurrent of anti-semitism would doom his candidacy. It's a shame since he's one of the few people in government who seems to have some ethics and consistency in his stands.

Mark Warner, I think, will be a good candidate. He's a successful Democratic governor from a red state and will be a hard candidate to beat in the general election.

Personally, I don't want Hillary Clinton in 2008. Not because I particularly disagree with her positions, though I think she needs some guiding principles aside from "Win at all costs." I don't want her because I don't want the Presidency to turn into some sort of inherited position. It's bad enough that Bush Jr. won and that Jeb is thinking of running in 2008. I don't want the Democrats to be stuck in that same rut.

Is there really that much anti-semitism out there? I live in Wisconsin and we're certainly not known for having a large Jewish population and both our senators are Jews. Perhaps I misunderestimate red state America. I know I have trouble comprehending a lot of the actions of the religious right so I'm probably misguided here. And also clouded by the fact that I totally adore Feingold.

On the subject of Hillary Clinton, who is it exactly that wants her to be president? I don't know ANY Dems who want her to be president.

Hillary has too high a negative rating, and has slid into bed with the Bushites in her efforts to be a middle of the road candidate.

I like what Feingold has been saying in opposition to the warmongering of the Bushite neocons, but an extreme position has always been better suited to getting the nomination than to getting elected. A Democrat needs the votes of Independents and disaffected Republicans.

Warner might have the right stuff as a southern governor, in the tradition of Clinton and Carter. How about Obama as Vice President to add a little excitement?

The one time I paid any attention to Russ Feingold I was impressed by his intelligence and thought to myself, 'This is someone I would vote for'.

I hope he does run. At the very least so that when I go to vote I can do it without saying 'at least he isn't the other guy'.

Nothing could be better for the Republicans than a Hillary candidacy. Why? Because they've already shown that they'll stop at absolutely nothing to smear her character, and like the Swift Boaters showed, lies stick no matter how false. Volumes have been written about her lesbianism, satanism, voodoo practice, murder record, etc., and if anyone thinks that kind of stuff wouldn't fly in a national campaign, look what they did to McCain, and look what they did to Kerry. And it won't matter what kind of flasehoods they throw out, because that's just red meat to the rabid base, and the press has proven time and again that they'll keep false allegations in the headlines because it makes for easy to produce news and saves them from having to spend on real reporting.

If that's not enough for you, there's her increasingly rightward tendencies. Lately she's been Frist and Gingrich's buddy (and then there's her wild "kids these days" claim about young people in the workforce). After all, she was a Republican until Bill came along (president of the Wellesley College chapter of the College Republicans). With a Hillary candidacy, the right gets to have it both ways --they get the perfect straw woman to beat around, and the debate will shift toward their interests no matter which candidate is ahead in the polls. It'd be the real non-polarizing ticket because it'd force the entire electorate even more rightward; dems would hold their noses and vote for her before they'd vote for a third party or a Republican just to break the death grip the current batch of Republicans have on the Administration and Congress.

So I'm in agreement with the previous poster who said there's nothing much less to re-polarize (as if we were polarized and then came together). With only about half the electorate voting in the first place, and given the closeness of the past two elections, this means only about 25% of the electorate has put the last two administrations in power. The current strategy has been more of the same. So why not go for someone like Feingold? He's a straight talker, he has an incisive mind and has proven he can work across party lines without abandoning core principals, and his ability to speak to more middle/working class people might do a lot more to pull out more of the non-voting electorate than another millionaire telling us what we "got to understand." (I'm from Wisconsin and know Feingold as a politician; he's run the cleanest campaigns I've seen, takes no PAC money, and has the smallest bank account of any senator because of his unwillingness to take perks from donors.)

Feingold needs to be somewhere in the next ticket, if not on it, then in the cabinet at some important level. A dream ticket, in terms of experience, responsibility, familiarity with world affairs, and ethical governance, would be Carter and Feingold, but if Feingold is at least somewhere on a ticket, it sets up a future where the American people may be ready for him