Grass roots v. Inside-the-beltway Dems

It's beginning to look as though the inside-the-beltway Democrats are completely out of touch with their own party.

Manchester, NH - Anti-war and anti-Bush fervor is growing among rank and file Democrats, threatening to pull the party to the left and creating a rift between increasingly belligerent activists and the party's leaders in Washington.

Many outside-the-Beltway Democrats want the party to turn forcefully against the war in Iraq and to investigate, censure or even impeach President Bush should the party win control of Congress this fall.

Yet party leaders such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have maintained support for the war while criticizing the way Bush handled it, and have shied away from talk of using power to go to after him.

The fault line is evident as Democrats gather for spring and summer sessions filled with demands for bolder action by the congressional wing of their party, especially if they win control of the House or Senate in November.

In New Hampshire, the state that will kick off the party's 2008 presidential primary voting, activists gave thunderous ovations this weekend to Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., when he pressed his anti-war agenda, boasted that he alone among potential 2008 presidential candidates opposed the war from the start, and pushed for a censure of Bush.

In Maine Saturday, state Democrats passed a resolution urging impeachment.

In Ohio, the state that decided the last presidential election and is a pivotal battleground for this year's congressional elections, the state party chairman notes that the two top statewide candidates voted against the war and says 2008 candidates who did support it have some explaining to do.

And nationally, one poll shows that more than eight out of 10 Democrats now believe the United States should have stayed out of Iraq. The same poll for CBS News this spring showed that more than three out of five Democrats want U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, even if the country is not stable.