No More Incumbents Blog

Cindy Sheehan is preparing to make some big headlines.  She has given House Speaker (D) Nancy Pelosi until July 23rd to file articles of impeachment against George Bush.  If Pelosi fails to file for impeachment then Nancy Sheehan will announce her run for Pelosi’s office.

Nancy Pelosi has recently inherited power as the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Pelosi is no stranger to the house.  She has served in the House for 20 years, that’s 10 terms + that Pelosi has been an incumbent.  She has taken in over $7 million in contributions over the years, more than half of that from PACs.  Occidental Petroleum and Kleiner Perkins, a high profile high tech venture capital firm, were her largest individual contributors.  Her PAC was fined $21,000 a few years back for taking excessive campaign contributions over the allowed limits.

She has maintained a high profile in the House since the Democrats have taken power, but true to form as an incumbent, she has achieved very little.  Many Democrats that elected the Democratic party into power in 2006 wanted the Democrats to get the troops out of Iraq, end the war and impeach George Bush.  However, there is no political capital to be gained by seasoned incumbents in going through an impeachment process.

Cindy Sheehan has sold her protest ranch in Crawford and is traveling the country on her way to Washington where she will announce her run for office when or if Pelosi fails to file articles of impeachment against Bush.  Pelosi represents the 8th district of California in San Francisco.

Cindy Sheehan has indicated that she is intent on making incumbent politicians that have not lived up to their promises pay. 

It was expected that Chuck Hagel was going to run for president announced his intentions today (March 12th). That did not happen and it’s uncertain

why at this point. Maybe the daylight savings Time blog through Senator Hagel off or maybe there’s some behind-the-scenes pressure or appeasement taking place.

Chuck Hagel is a long time Republican Senator, and recently he’s become a dedicated opponent to the war in Iraq.

When or if he announces a couple significant things will take place immediately.
1. He will be the first Republican candidate running for the nomination that openly opposes continuing the war in Iraq. That’s important because it will open up the debate of the value of the Iraq war within the Republican Party. Republicans are currently able to remain united despite, while Democratic candidates are engaged in infighting over the pros and cons of the Iraq war. When an antiwar candidate enters into the fray on the Conservative side, politics are bound to get uglier for the Republican side. This will level the playing field of Democrats.

John McCain who is a Republican presidential nominee hopeful is also one of the biggest war hawks on the Iraq war. His poll numbers have been going south for quite some time now due to his hawkish stance.

2. If Chuck Hagel doesn’t win the Republican nomination but does generate enough support from Republicans that are also against the war and it Hillary Clinton grabs the Democratic nomination, it could open the door for Hagel to make an independent run as the antiwar sucking votes from both the Democratic and the Republican side.

An independent party with a presidential and vice presidential candidate running on an antiwar “bring our troops home campaign” could be a worst nightmare for both Democrats and Republicans.

NoMoreIncumbents Stance
From our perspective that would definitely change the presidential campaign significantly. As we go into the campaign today it appears that we will have an incumbent party the Republicans, and an incumbent first lady Hillary Clinton that will likely be the two groups squaring off for the top job.

If an independent party entries into the fray and can develop a sizable following things could change drastically. Ralph Nader is sometimes seen as a spoiler as he pulled in a number of votes that some people think could have put Al Gore in the White House.

However there were many other additional party candidates that took enough votes to stop either candidate from winning. The real spoilers of the 2000 election or Al Gore and George Bush, who would not compromise and reach out to third parties to cover individual planks from that party.

So the lesson going into 2008 election is that third parties can be a serious force in American politics and any candidate that ignores or dismisses third parties do so at the risk of dismissing a large block of voters, and historically that costs elections.

Update 3-13-07
I found an interesting article related to this topic on Liberal Delight talking about the potential for Chuck Hagel to split and run a Bipartisan Ticket under the Unity ‘08 concept cause.