From today’s Political Diary E-mail:
Liberals should be wary of some of the personalities they’ve pushed forward to secure temporary advantage in the debate over Iraq. Ned Lamont, the anti-war activist who defeated Joe Lieberman in a Democratic Senate primary last year but then lost to Mr. Lieberman’s independent candidacy, comes to mind. So too does movie director Michael Moore, whose "Fahrenheit 9/11" energized the left-wing base but whose extreme statements (the Cuban people have "artistic freedom") often repel moderate voters, is another.
Now comes Cindy Sheehan, the eccentric mother of a soldier who died in the Iraq war and then became a symbol of resistance to that conflict. For the last two years she has held vigils against the war from a five-acre compound she purchased near President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch. Last month, Ms. Sheehan sold her land to a Los Angeles talk-show host and moved to California where she now says she will run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the Democratic leader doesn’t move to impeach President Bush.
"Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership," Ms. Sheehan told The Associated Press. "We hired them to bring an end to the war." Ms. Sheehan insists that Ms. Pelosi has a moral obligation to proceed with impeaching Mr. Bush over charges he misled the country about why the U.S. invaded Iraq, allowed the torture of detainees in Guantanamo and engaged in an "inadequate and tragic" response to Hurricane Katrina. Ms. Pelosi "let the people down who worked hard to put Democrats back in power, who we thought were our hope for change," Ms. Sheehan said.
Ms. Sheehan clearly isn’t going to topple the first female House Speaker in history, but she can create all kinds of headaches for Ms. Pelosi in a liberal hothouse like San Francisco. Ralph Nader’s 8% showing in Ms. Pelosi’s San Francisco district in the 2000 election is probably a good baseline to judge the kind of voter support Ms. Sheehan might get. But her constant drumbeat on Ms. Pelosi’s failure to stop the war will certainly attract copious media coverage. President Bush and Ms. Pelosi both have good reason to want to have Iraq stabilized enough that they can start putting it in their political rear-view mirrors.