Kerry and Feingold Form Alliance on Iraq

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., acknowledges applause alongside his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry at Faneuil Hall, Monday, June 26, 2006, in Boston, where Kerry unveiled an energy plan reprising themes from his 2004 presidential campaign. Kerry called for reducing oil imports, increasing the number of cars powered by renewable fuels and focusing on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. (AP Photo/Julia Malakie) (Julia Malakie - AP)

WASHINGTON -- One epitomizes the Washington political establishment as the Democratic Party's most recent presidential nominee. The other is the quintessential Democratic outsider, proud to be the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act.

Notwithstanding their different histories, Sens. John Kerry and Russ Feingold joined forces last week to push a proposal that would have required troops to leave Iraq by July of next year. And they may soon have something else in common: Both are considering presidential races in 2008.

"It seems to be a marriage of convenience," said Democratic consultant Dan Payne, a former Kerry Senate campaign strategist. "Feingold wants to be considered of presidential stature, and Kerry wants to look like he can work with others to reach a compromise."

Both Kerry, D-Mass., and Feingold, D-Wis., insist that politics has nothing to do with it.

"Not on subjects of war and peace," Kerry said in a telephone interview. "Not on subjects that involve young Americans in uniform in harm's way. As far as I'm concerned, the only consideration is what's the best policy, how do you advance the security of our country, and what do we do to do it?"

Feingold, who voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, last year became the first senator to call for a troop withdrawal timetable. He said he didn't mind that many news stories referred to the "Kerry" proposal.

"I'm not in this game for ego, and I'm not in this game for trying to figure out who should go first and who should go second," Feingold said in a separate telephone interview. "This is a matter of life and death. This is a matter of our national security. And I was proud to join with another senator whom I respect to do this."

Ann Marie Hauser, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, mocked the coupling.

"Whether it's John Kerry's indecisiveness or Russ Feingold's extremism, Democrats across the board support an approach that results in surrendering to our enemy," Hauser said. "But as 2008 looms, it is interesting to watch these two senators trip over each other as they rush to the far left of their party."

While the Senate defeated, on a 60-39 vote, a nonbinding resolution that would have urged the administration to start withdrawing troops by year's end, the Feingold-Kerry proposal went down on an 86-13 vote. By Feingold's standard, that was progress.

"You know, I was the only one in this position a year ago," he said. "Now you have 13 senators, including our presidential standard-bearer, John Kerry."

Feingold certainly doesn't mind standing alone. In 2001, he cast the only vote in the Senate against the Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 federal law that greatly expanded the government's authority to investigate terrorism suspects at the cost, according to its critics, of some civil liberties. His proposal to censure President Bush for a warrantless surveillance program has attracted only three co-sponsors _ one of them Kerry.