Feingold Fires Up Crowd

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold told the crowd Democrats can't win this fall if they're timid.

He took his own advice.

The Wisconsin Democrat railed against a proposed amendment to ban gay marriage and Vermont-style civil unions, the death penalty and the president's domestic wiretapping program.

"We will not win by default," Feingold implored the crowd. "We will not win by running out the clock."

Feingold recounted how one Republican U.S. senator held a news conference in which he bragged no one in his family had been divorced or had a homosexual relationship.

"We're not all born the same. Some of us make mistakes," said Feingold, who is twice divorced. "But we're still proud of our families."

The crowd cheered as he bragged Democrats had never tried to write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution to torment people. He also predicted Wisconsin voters would reject the proposed amendment to the state constitution on gay marriage.

He did not call for the impeachment of President Bush over what he called his abuses of executive power. But he said the president was "in the strike zone" of the high crimes and misdemeanors that the Founding Fathers wrote about.