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Cindy Sheehan

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This profile of a DEFEATED 2008 U.S. House candidate for California's district 8 is part of the "Wiki the Vote" project.

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Cindy Sheehan is an independent candidate for the 8th Congressional District of California

Cindy Sheehan is anti-Iraq War activist. She and her husband Patrick are co-founders of Gold Star Families for Peace. Their son Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, an Army mechanic, was killed in action (KIA) in Sadr City (Baghdad) on April 4, 2004, just five days after arriving in Iraq.

Sheehan is also an independent candidate in the 2008 congressional elections for the 8th Congressional District (map) of California. She is challenging Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Contents

Positions, record and controversies

Bio

Sheehan has held peace vigils in Washington, DC and Crawford, Texas in protest of the Iraq War.

Peace Vigil in Crawford, Texas

Sheehan began a peace vigil outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas on August 3, 2005. It lasted until President Bush returned to Washington following Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2007, when Sheehan traveled to DC to continue the vigil.

Main article: Peace Vigil in Crawford, Texas

Cindy will return to Crawford for President Bush's Thanksgiving visit November 22-27, 2005, at his Crawford ranch, according to The Raw Story. "Sheehan will be joined by a handful of supporters back at the campsite where she spent 26 days in August during President Bush's vacation nearby." [1]

"Last summer [2004] Cindy Sheehan got a face-to-face meeting with President Bush, complete with kisses and condolences."

"Today," Tom Hall wrote August 9, 2005, in The Reporter (Vacaville, CA), "the Vacaville resident is camped outside the president's Texas ranch - in the glare of the national media spotlight - demanding another face-to-face meeting, and ultimately his impeachment.

"Sheehan's son, Casey, an Army specialist, was killed in an ambush a week after his arrival in Iraq in April 2004. In June, the Sheehan family spent 10 minutes at Fort Lewis, Wash., with the president, who met with 16 other families who had lost loved ones in the war.

"Cindy Sheehan since has become a focal point in the partisan battle over the Iraq war, drawing the praise of many anti-war Democrats and the ire of Republicans who back Bush's decision."

Cindy Sheehan's vigil has received widespread coverage from mainstream media, anti-war organizations, and the blogosphere.

"Even as other members of military families, activists and ordinary citizens rally to her cause, the right-wing attack machine has already kicked into gear, questioning her motives and distorting her statements. But it's to little avail -- Sheehan remains undaunted, even while facing threats of imprisonment." [2]

Peace Vigil in Washington, DC

When President Bush left Crawford, Texas and returned to Washington following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Sheehan moved her peace vigil to Washington, DC on August 31, 2005.

Main article: Peace Vigil in Washington, DC

2008 elections

Sheehan is running as an independent candidate to challenge Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).[1]

Quotes

  • "I got an email the other day and it said, 'Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity ... there's people on the fence that get offended.'
"And you know what I said? 'You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?'
"'If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out.'" --Cindy, BuzzFlash, August 20, 2005.
  • "... Cindy Sheehan has done something many thought not possible in America anymore: she has reminded us of shame. ... She has done this by asking a simple question: why did my son have to die? And by asking that question, she has revealed something that has come as a surprise to many Americans: the president has no morally defensible answer." --Steven Laffoley, Common Dreams, August 18, 2005.
  • "Whether one supports Sheehan's position or not, she put the war back on the front pages in the middle of August and brought the war home to suburbia in a way other antiwar organizers hadn't been able to do." --Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle, August 18, 2005.
  • "They’d all come to rally with this woman, this regular lady, who’s not particularly camera-ready but who’s agreed to be The Face anyway—and by 'agreed,' I mean a tacit agreement, an organic one, like every piece of fruit served at this damn place. No professionals have come to Sheehan and drafted her to be a spokeswoman, she just became one, and people—including professional organizers like the peace chicks of Code Pink—have flocked around her to help.
"Well, for the most part. An awful lot of people are also flocking onto the television to call this woman with a dead son names." --Rebecca Schoenkopf, OC Weekly, August 19-25, 2005.
  • "Bless their black little hearts. The Pundit Elite have finally figured out two very simple facts:
  • 1) Most Americans have a dim view of the Iraq war -- and want our forces out. Yesterday. If not sooner.
  • 2) Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq, has stolen the issue of the Iraq war from George W. Bush." --JJ Balzer and Scott Johnson, American Politics Journal, August 14, 2005.
  • "The president has visited plenty of parents. He’s visited with many wounded. But, does a woman whose politics is not aligned with his, whose view of the war is in direct opposition, does she deserve a hearing?
"We know the president is busy. He’s made a number of politicking and policy trips since his vacation began. He’s been visited by Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice. He’s also found time to go mountain biking and went to one of the regional Little League playoff games.
"Meanwhile Cindy Sheehan maintains her vigil. Hers is not the voice of a celebrity or politician. It’s the voice of a woman who has sustained an injury that cannot be healed. She’s had something taken from her in a manner that in her eyes cannot be justified." --Harry Smith, CBS News, August 15, 2005.
  • "It was very effective when people who actually have skin in the game ask the president to be held accountable for the words he has actually said." --Cindy, The Huffington Post, August 12, 2005.
  • "The more light that gets focused on this woman the better. There is something so simple in her query and the force of her sacrifice makes it searing and indelible - a question that cannot now be lost in a tumult of false platitudes and tangles of words patriotic and security-minded.
"Her request seems so easy - just look me in the eye, talk to me, explain.
"Again, it's simple. Explain the mission. Explain why a son died. Any mother deserves that much." --Jim Baca, The Huffington Post, August 11, 2005.
  • "In every standoff there comes a time when the tide will turn in one direction. In our culture, these moments are palpable because a complicated question has been rendered into a simple confrontation between the just and the unjust, the big guy and the little guy, the powerful and the weak. And we all know who Americans choose in those kinds of fights. Cindy Sheehan, with her soft voice and steely determination, has given us a simple choice. We can stand with a mother who doesn't want other mothers to suffer the way she is suffering; or we can side with a president who offers us platitudes instead of exit strategies and unfounded optimism instead of honest logic. ... Cindy Sheehan is proving to us again that America still functions as a democracy. Power and the presidency are still accountable to the Cindy Sheehan's of our country. She is helping a lot of otherwise disconnected people realize that this president has made a mistake with Iraq and his refusal to acknowledge that mistake is leading to more death." --James Moore, "Tiananmen Ranch," The Huffington Post, August 12, 2005.

Money in politics

Information on this candidate's 2010 fundraising is not yet available. Stay tuned for live feeds of data from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org site.

Committees and affiliations

Committees

Sheehan will be assigned committees if and when she is elected to Congress.

Affiliations

More background data

Contact

Web: http://www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org/

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

Sources

  1. ↑ California’s primary election results according to the Green Papers

External resources

Interviews with Cindy Sheehan

Ongoing peace vigil coverage and updates

  • Ongoing live coverage:
  • No on-site coverage at these links:

By Cindy Sheehan: articles, commentary, statements, and daily blog entries

External articles

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cindy_Sheehan"
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