Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on the ballot
By John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
0/08/08 "SFGate" -- - Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan qualified
Friday for a November showdown with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
collecting the signatures needed to get on the ballot as an
independent candidate for Congress.
"We're very excited," said Sheehan, 51, the mother of a soldier
killed in Iraq who is well-known for her protest outside
President Bush's Texas ranch. "Now we have to get organized and
regroup."
Republican Dana Walsh and Libertarian Philip Berg will join
Pelosi and Sheehan on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The collection of signatures by Sheehan's campaign was more
exciting than usual. On Wednesday, the campaign was well short
of the 10,198 signatures needed to get on the ballot after San
Francisco elections officials found that more than 40 percent of
the people who signed weren't registered in the city's Eighth
Congressional District.
Sheehan's supporters redoubled their efforts to collect enough
signatures to beat the 5 p.m. Friday deadline, ultimately
turning in more than 17,000 signatures to ensure that she
qualified.
"It was a little disconcerting to see all the problems with the
signatures," Sheehan said from her Mission Street headquarters,
where more than 100 supporters gathered to celebrate. "The last
couple of days, I've been checking the registrations myself on
the computer."
With her ballot spot guaranteed, Sheehan can focus on the fall
campaign, where she will challenge Pelosi from the left,
slamming the speaker for refusing to start impeachment
proceedings against President Bush and not taking a stronger
stance against the war in Iraq.
"The next part is going to be exciting," she said. "I want at
least one debate with all four candidates so that Nancy Pelosi
has to answer for her record."
Sheehan, a former Vacaville resident who lives in the Mission
District, became involved in the anti-war movement in 2004,
after her son Casey was killed while serving in Iraq. A year
later she founded Gold Star Families for Peace and spoke out
against the war in Iraq.
For months, she stayed at "Camp Casey," an area near President
Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch where she and other peace
activists demonstrated against Bush and the war.
Sheehan will be the longest of longshots in her attempt to oust
Pelosi, one of the nation's best-known and most powerful
Democrats.
While Sheehan said Friday that she has raised more than $300,000
for the race, Pelosi had collected more than $2.3 million by the
end of June and had $455,138 in the bank.
Sheehan's campaign also missed the July 15 filing deadline for
her most recent federal campaign statement, which Sheehan blamed
on the frantic efforts to qualify her campaign for the ballot.
"One of the first things we need to do is hire a professional
accountant to deal with those reports," she said.
E-mail John Wildermuth at
jwildermuth@sfchronicle.comaid .
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