Let the fun 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 against Rep. 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 says "Run Cindy, Run!"

Captain Ed says "Thanks, Cindy!"

Sister Toldjah doesn't think she has a chance

Will the loony, liberal left devour itself?  Well, it seems like a distinct possibility anyway.

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan said Sunday that she plans to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unless Pelosi introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.

Sheehan's deadline, July 23, is the same day she and her supporters are to arrive in Washington after a 13-day caravan and walking tour departing from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.

Sheehan said she lives in a suburb of Sacramento but declined to disclose the city, citing safety reasons. She added that she would run against Pelosi in 2008 as an independent and "would give her a run for her money."

"Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership," Sheehan said. "We hired them to bring an end to the war."

In other words, the Dems in Congress rode to power on the backs of the new left and are now facing an insurrection.  And Pelosi, despite her recent moves to secure her authority, is in the crosshairs.

This was bound to happen eventually, as the Democrat party is far more fractious than the GOP in terms of its ideological make-up.  Whereas conservatives comprise the vast majority of the Republican party - and an overwhelming majority of its grassroots activists - the Dems electoral coalition runs the gammut.  And this is the only way their party can gain/keep power, as far fewer Americans consider themselves to be liberal than conservative.

While their party leadership tends to be very liberal, they're usually at least hip to the facts of American electoral life, and what it takes to remain in power - meaning they can't let the loony left always run the show because they'll scare off those moderate to conservative independents in the key swing districts and states that brought them to power in the first place.

This will be an interesting battle to watch, as Cindy's latest campaign is just the type of thing the liberal netroots are likely to zero in on...just as with the Lamont/Lieberman race.  But this would be a US House race...much smaller and takes fewer resources to make a larger difference.  Pelosi will be doing a high-wire act from this point.

And does this mean we'll have another Summer of Cindy...but this time on the Mall in DC...burning Pelosi in effigy?

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