Let the fun [7] begin:
SAN FRANCISCO - A tearful Cindy Sheehan cited her son, killed in Iraq, as her inspiration as she announced her candidacy Thursday for the U.S. House againstRep. Nancy Pelosi.
Sheehan last month said she intended to run against Pelosi, the House speaker, if the San Francisco congresswoman didn't move to impeach President Bush by July 23.
Sheehan said Thursday that Pelosi had "protected the status quo" of the corporate elite and had lost touch with people in her district, most of whom, she asserted, want American troops out of Iraq. ...
"The country is ripe for a change," said Sheehan, who spoke at a podium with her son's photograph attached to it. "It's going to start right here and right now."
Sheehan said she would run as an independent on a platform of universal health care, making college affordable and improving ethics in the legislative and executive branches. She did not offer specifics. ...
Sheehan said she had no funds for a campaign but planned to immediately start
raising money. She said she wouldn't accept money from corporations.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former high-level Pentagon analyst who in 1969 leaked the Pentagon Papers to Congress and the media and a Sheehan supporter, said Sheehan has a difficult task.
"At the moment, facing a well-funded, powerful incumbent without party support, the odds against Cindy appear insuperable," said Ellsberg, who was arrested twice with other protesters outside Bush's Texas ranch.
"But we plan to change that."
A few observations: Note her agenda, other than the expected anti-war (and Pelosi's not anti-war enough) angle, we have universal health care and the ethics issue. Two staples of the radical left. It will be interesting to see how Pelosi begins to position herself on those items. Second, she's not going to take corporate money. Well, you can bet the farm that Nancy will...she's been around the campaign track long enough to know that money is the mothers' milk.
The open question is how much of a factor the nutroots become in this contest. Do they adopt it as a "cause celeb" like they did against Lieberman in Connecticut last year? Or do they ignore her and leave her starved for oxygen because they come to see her as the wrong messenger running the wrong place to advance their cause?
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More:
Polipundit [8] says "Run Cindy, Run!"
Captain Ed [9] says "Thanks, Cindy!"
Sister Toldjah [10] doesn't think she has a chance
