Sheehan: PDA only endorses Democratic candidates, so to the organization, it's not how progressive a candidate is, but what letter comes after their name.
They won't endorse Pelosi, I don't think, at least that's what I have been told, but I think the organization should enthusiastically endorse me because of my platform and the work I have done with them.
I have had some very private endorsements from Democrats, but nothing public. I also have a few top people in the California Democratic National Committee who are helping me behind the scenes because they have been warned away from my campaign.
I know I have to appeal to progressive Democrats to win, but I think my message does this directly. However, "Decline to State" makes up the second highest amounts of registration here in San Francisco, so we just need an aggressive campaign to get the progressive message out there.
Frank: Why did you decide to target Pelosi out of all the bad Democrats out there?
Sheehan: I decided to target Pelosi because she is the number one Democrat in Congress and she was the number one obstacle to ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
My reasoning was and is that if she refused to hold Bush accountable, then someone needed to hold her accountable. I am not the kind of person to wait for someone else to do something that needs to be done. So here I am.
Frank: How has she responded to your campaign or the issues you are raising? Can you talk about those issues a bit?
Sheehan: When we qualified for the ballot she said something like she "welcomes" the challenge and has the highest "respect" for me. I don't respect her because I believe she has taken the amazing power that was bestowed on her and has further diminished the causes of peace, justice, environmental sustainability and economic equality. But since she has sold out to the war machine, she knows who her masters are.
We saw one interesting step slightly to the left for her when she allowed Congressman John Conyers to have the non-impeachment hearings last month. Otherwise, she has effectively destroyed the 4th Amendment by granting the telecommunication companies and the Bushites immunity from warrantless spying, and she has proudly funded the war until the middle of next year. She was also fully briefed on torture in 2002 and sanctioned the practice. There are many other ways she has abused “We the People.”
Frank: Now that you are on the ballot, has Pelosi agreed to any formal debates?
Sheehan: That's an easy one: No. But we will press her and press her to come to San Francisco and debate her opponents, which include a Republican and a Libertarian, and answer for her deplorable record.
One thing I forgot to mention in your last question is her unforgivable backslide to the oil companies in offshore drilling. I haven't seen poll numbers that address this issue here in the 8th, but I sense that this is as big of a betrayal to most voters here as it is to me.
Frank: Ultimately, what you expect to achieve by running againt. Pelosi this year? And what can members of the antiwar movement do to learn more about your campaign?
Sheehan: I expect to achieve victory against the war machine.
I realize that win or lose, we still have a long way to go in achieving a better world, but taking out Pelosi will be a significant step in the right direction.
