Democrats and the war

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This story of Cindy Sheehan has been around a while, but this one--The Plight of the Antiwar Democrat--shows how tough the war can be on Democrats in narrowly divided districts.

This is a little of what Cindy had to say:

Cindy Sheehan, the slain soldier's mother whose attacks on President Bush made her a darling of the anti-war movement, has a new target: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan, who announced in late May that she was departing the peace movement, said she decided to run against Pelosi unless the congresswoman moves to oust Bush in the next two weeks.

It would be sweet to see this cat fight.

Here's a little from the 2nd story about freshman Congressman Altmire from western PA:

This is the Democratic Iraq Dilemma. Altmire, like many of the other 30 newly elected Democratic freshmen, must serve two masters if he hopes to win re-election in his narrowly divided district--the Democrats who elected him in the hopes of ending the war and voters like Proch who still largely support the military effort in Iraq and are turned off by Democratic attempts to force Bush's hand.....

For now, Altmire is in a kind of political no-man's-land. At a local event shortly after he voted for a timeline to withdraw troops from Iraq, he was confronted by a constituent who was angry that Democrats hadn't put more pressure on Bush. "He asked why he'd bothered to vote for me, since I was clearly another rubber stamp for Bush," the Congressman recalls. Not three feet away, a woman who opposed the timeline jumped into the conversation. She argued that he was just a rubber stamp for Pelosi. "The crowd laughed when they heard her say that," he says, chuckling. "What am I? A rubber stamp for Bush or Pelosi?"

It'll be interesting to see how Democrats do in the next election. It would be mighty intesting if Pelosi loses to someone such as Sheehan. I not convinced that would ever happen. Yet, Majority Leader Tom Daschle lost a few years ago. So, who knows? The Dem Congress is polling awfully low. Perhaps they're opening the door for the Republicans.

In case you didn't notice, that is Hugo Chavez w/ Sheehan in the picture at the top. She's some citizen of the U.S. !