Feingold Bails Out on '08

Sen. Russ Feingold, a favorite of the wacky left blogosphere for president in '08, has left them at the altar (from Feingold's website):

I want you to know that I've decided to continue my role as Wisconsin's Junior Senator in the U.S. Senate and not to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008...

Yet, while I've certainly enjoyed the repeated comments or buttons saying, "Run Russ Run", or "Russ in '08", I often felt that if a piece of Wisconsin swiss cheese had taken the same positions I've taken, it would have elicited the same standing ovations. This is because the hunger for progressive change we feel is obviously not about me but about the desire for a genuinely different Democratic Party that is ready to begin to reverse the 25 years of growing extremism we have endured.

Hmmmm. Feingold was supposed to be the guy who would attack Hillary from the left, ala Howard Dean in '04. Are the Democrats clearing the way for Queen Hillary? Will there be any serious opposition?