Posted on 08/12/2007 3:24:36 PM PDT by hardback
After gaining national attention for belaboring President Bush over the war in Iraq, activist Cindy Sheehan — the mother of a U.S. serviceman who lost his life in that conflict — has been back in the news for refocusing her anger at a different and somewhat unexpected target:
Sheehan officially announced Thursday that she is staging an independent campaign to unseat Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi next year in the San Francisco-based 8th Congressional District of California.
Yet some political analysts speculate that Sheehan’s candidacy actually could benefit Pelosi and her Democratic Party.
While Sheehan is widely deemed as unlikely to pose a serious threat to defeat Pelosi, her arguments that Pelosi’s views are not liberal enough could provide a counterpoint to the contention often voiced by Republicans that the House Democratic leader is too liberal.
Pelosi has represented a liberal Bay Area constituency since winning a June 1987 special election and will seek an 11th full term next year. Republicans cast her as the embodiment of the “West Coast liberal” — and much as they did in the 2006 elections, GOP candidates are already invoking Pelosi’s name in their 2008 campaigns, warning their party base of what they contend is her determination to shift Congress far to the left.
But it is from the left that Sheehan is attacking Pelosi, which in turn might allow Democrats to cast the Speaker as more mainstream than she appears in Republican caricatures.
University of Minnesota political scientist Kathryn Pearson told CQPolitics.com that Sheehan’s candidacy “will definitely benefit her [Pelosi] at the national level, particularly as she continues to try to prove to be a pragmatic speaker who tries to unite Democrats and ... is really trying to represent all Democrats.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Go, Sheehag, go!
Dang, that spin would impress even the Duncan Yo-Yo Man.
If Mao and Che were running Pelosi would be positively right wing.
Doesn’t Mother Sheehan have more moral authority than Stretch?
Excellent use of the “barf alert.” These people are grasping at straws.
Unfortunately, clarity is the first thing either side sacrifices when they place their own agenda above all else.
Check old FR posts after the 2005 elections - losing was winning, it didn’t mean anything, losing a few elections was actually good for conservatives, etc. It was damn comical at the time - I confess, I laughed.
Then the bottom fell out in election 2006. Undaunted, the spin continued - conservatives didn’t really lose, it’s a good thing, we’ll win it again in 2008, etc.
“Leftist portrayal?”
It would be very difficult to “portray” Pelosi any further left than she is.
Sheehan, on the other hand, is just a fruitcake wacko.
You know, from the article, one might assume that Pelosi and her supporters aren’t too proud of her being a leftist.
One has to wonder why Liberal Democrats go out of their way to deny they are in fact, ‘Liberal Democrats.’
I disagree. This is an excellent point.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I can’t wait for Cindy’s camapign events, Orville Reddenbacher stock will double in the coming weeks!
The Times exists to elect Democrats.
Wishful thinging by the NY Times.
Remember, this is an age where nothing is crioticized, so people feel free to say the most stupid things. All opinions are m=not equally good and this one by the NYT is mega-dumb.
Just another San Francisco threesome.
What did you expect from an Editorial Board that calls ITSELF, “The Gay Mafia”???
Pelosi=Lenin
Shenhen= Marx
They are both Commies.
Antoher case of wishful thinking, Ny Slimes.
This is pure spin, They are both liberals. The cooky base is POed at Pelosi for not ending the war and impeaching Bush. So if two liberals are running they are gonna share the idiot vote so this helps Republicans.
Only to morons. Well, I guess that does cover most Demoncrats.
It’s spin all right. But spin sometimes works. Otherwise, the Clintons would have faded from the scene a long time ago.
Remember, there are a lot of clueless voters out there. Just look at the spin coming out of the Democrats’ homosexual debate. Almost all the stories are about how the Dems “disappointed” the homos by opposing same sex “marriage”. Now, all of us here at FR know this is all a scam. The Dem candidates all favor same sex “marriage” and are lying about it, and the homo activists are just pretending to be “disappointed”. It’s all a ruse to make the ‘Rats look moderate enough to win the election.
Likewise, a dozen or so big news reports featuring Sheehan calling Pelosi a right-wing tool of the U.S. military could make the ‘Rats appear sane to voters who rely on the MSM for news.
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