"Mr. Feingold goes to Iowa"

Senator Feingold made a trip to Iowa, the all-important state in presidential nominations. Pat from Iowa for Feingold was there, as was Ilya from RussForPresident.com.

I'll leave coverage of the trip to the people that were there-- Ilya has write-ups on RussForPresident and a diary on Daily Kos. Pat has posts here, here, here, here, and here. Check it all out, they're worth the read.

I just wanted to point out a couple things, though. First, Senator Feingold announced two new initiatives:

1) Progressive Patriots Fund will be hiring 10-15 staff and sending them out to important districts across the country to help win in 2006. This is how a true Democratic leader should act -rather than hoarding money for an 08 race.

2) Senator Feingold will be introducing legislation in the coming weeks for a trial program for state based universal health care. States will be able to apply for grants to develop healthcare ideas on their own. and 3 will be selected. This way states can be idea laboratories and effective programs can be replicated in other states. This goes along with Senator Feingold's vision of universal health care wherein the government mandates health care and then allows individual states the flexibility to implement their own ideas.

The second one, especially, I like. It's a step in the right direction, looking at the problem rationally. It's basically the perfect way to start up a new health care system.

Then, Ilya writes:

After the afternoon event, a woman called me over and asked about my 'Run, Russ, Run!" button. She hadn't heard about the Senator before but liked what he had to say and was now a supporter. She promptly got ready to put the button on her hat - Senator Feingold had won over yet another voter.

Expect a lot more stories like this in the near future.