Taking Back America with Russ Feingold

Just a minor update...Yesterday, Senator Feingold spoke at the Campaign for America's Future "Take Back America" Conference in Washington, D.C.

Video of the speech is available here and you can read it here. The speech is about twenty minutes long (well, the video is, you can probably read it quicker...) and Senator Feingold emphasizes the importance of Democrats standing on principle and standing up to the Republicans, especially on the war in Iraq and the war on terror.

Here's one of my favorite parts, which comes towards the end of the speech (as you might guess for the "And so to conclude..."):

And so to conclude, I would urge you, as you go out this year and do all the wonderful things you're going to do in the various venues that you work in, to make the point to people that you care as passionately as anyone about the tragedy of 9/11, you care as passionately as anyone about protecting our kids, that you have your memories of what happened on 9/11 and how it made you feel about your future and your kids' future and your grandchildren's' future.

But as you say that and as you share your own memories with people, make it clear that there is no greater victory for these terrorists than if they can get us out of fear to alter our great system of government. They would have no greater victory than to be able to do that to us. (Applause.) Make the argument -- make the argument based on the fact that the American people want to be focused on making sure that we're not attacked again. They do not want to fear that their own government is doing something inappropriate to them. That's a distraction that makes it harder for us to do this.

I hope that Democrats far and wide will start picking up on that message, and I'm certainly glad Senator Feingold is putting it out there.

At least it got a good reaction at the "Take Back America" Conference. According to the AP:

Some at the audience chanted Run-Russ-Run, and others wore buttons with the same sentiment. The Wisconsin senator is considering a presidential run in 2008.

Many people at the event, put together by the Campaign for America's Future, gave Feingold standing ovations when he said Democrats needed to stand up to the Bush administration on Iraq and on civil liberties issues.

Until next time, keep going Forward!