Censure Polling Numbers

Raw Story has the goods on this quick poll done by the American Research Group:

46% favor Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) plan to censure President George W. Bush, while just 44% are opposed. Approval of the plan grows slightly when the sample is narrowed to voters, up to 48% in favor of the Senate censuring the sitting president.

Even more shocking is that just 57% of Republicans are opposed to the move, with 14% still undecided and 29% actually in favor. Fully 70% of Democrats want to see Bush censured.

More surprising still: The poll found fully 43% of voters in favor of actually impeaching the President, with just 50% of voters opposed. While only 18% of Republicans surveyed wanted to see Bush impeached, 61% of Democrats and 47% of Independents reported they wanted to see the House move ahead with the Conyers (D-MI) resolution.

Feingold's censure motion hasn't been gaining a lot of traction in the Senate. Salon's War Room notes that only Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Barbara Boxer (California) have signed on to it. And less than three dozen members of the House have signed onto the Conyers impeachment resolution. Yes, it's true that the votes and control of Congress just aren't there to make these motions successful right now (they could be if we get some heavy-duty turnover this coming election, but that's nothing you can bank on). But we need some spine from the Democrats, and this is just the thing to continue the debate over the legalities over the warrantless wiretapping program. The previously noted War Room posts sums it up nicely:

As Feingold said the other day, members of his party still "run and hide" every time the White House plays the terror card. Maybe everything changes if the Democrats somehow win back both houses of Congress in November. But if the party's leaders can't join in a purely symbolic censure resolution now, can anyone seriously hope -- or fear -- that they'll find the fortitude to take on something more serious then?

Help them bolster their spine--give your Senator's office a call. And if they don't have the stomach enough for it, maybe they shouldn't be there.