Cindy Sheehan to Run Against Speaker Pelosi

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is now officially on the November ballot.  The mother of an Iraq war veteran killed in 2005 gathered enough signatures to run as an independent for Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat.  But the grassroots campaign is struggling for the support of many of Sheehans own fans, who think she's veered too far off her anti-war focus, and that there are far worse members of congress that need to be removed from office than Speaker of the house Pelosi.  From San Francisco, Andrew Stelzer reports..

STREET AMBI

Standing outside the Cindy for Congress office on the corner of Laske and Mission streets in downtown San Francisco, Richard Stone has just returned from collecting signatures.  He's one of dozens of signature gatherers who fanned out across the city in the days before the August 8th deadline, trying to get enough to qualify Sheehan for the ballot.

"The hardest thing to do is to convince people that she is in more than a 1-issue candidate.  Not necessarily one-dimensional, but a one issue candidate,"

Stone, a Navy veteran of the 1st Gulf war, says until recently, he supported Nancy Pelosi.  But reading Cindy Sheehans blog exacerbated his frustration with Pelosi's recent stances, especially on the current war in Iraq.

"I've just really given up on Pelosi   I used to be a really ardent supporter…I was really proud of her because she stood up for operation Desert Storm, but somewhere along the line, she had a change of heart.  I just really don't like the direction she's taking."

Talking to many of Sheehans supporters, and to the candidate herself, its clear that the campaign is just as much an anti-Pelosi drive, as it is pro-Cindy Sheehan.  But Sheehan defends her decision to challenge one of the so-called progressive democrats in Congress.

"I could have gone to many districts across the country and had an easy walk into Congress.  But we are working against…Somebody who is the queen of the system.  That represents a two-party duopoly that is very damaging to democracy.  So we are not only going to send one person to Congress.  We are going to defeat the speaker of the House, of the Democrats.  We are going to put every congressman on notice, that their jobs are now going to be performance-based--Not based on who has the most money for who has the incumbency."

While Sheehan is optimistic, having raised more than 300,000 DOLLARS so far, Nancy Pelosi has more than 2 million dollars for her own re-election bid.  And FOR SHEEHAN, just getting on the ballot was a struggle; it took Sheehan until the last day to get the roughly ten thousand signatures needed to qualify.

"I think this is a perfect example of how it has become about her."

Markos Moulitsas, the publisher of Daily Kos, has written a new book set to release this month titled Taking on the System, Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era.  In it, he praises Sheehans actions in 2005, when she camped out near President Bushs Texas ranch, demanding to speak to the president about why her son Casey was sent, and then killed in Iraq.

But Moulitsas believes that since that time, Sheehan's ego has turned her into a celebrity, and she has lost her focus.  He says the run against Pelosi is just anther example of a mis-informed attempt to stay in the spotlight.

For Election Unspun, from San Francisco, I'm Andrew Stelzer

PART 2

Sheehan has critics and fans alike, but what are her chances of beating the Speaker of the House?  We ask our reporter Andrew Stelzer who is in the Congressional district Sheehan is trying to overtake.