Today, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan announced that she will run for Congress as an Independent against Nancy Pelosi in 2008 unless, by July 23, she puts impeachment back on the table. And while I think a lot of able-minded people on the netroots will have enough sense to oppose this distracting bit of grandstanding, I want to affirm just that here and now - a Cindy Sheehan independent run for Congress against the Democratic Speaker of the House is BAD for our party, our country, and our political system.

The American two-party system certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. As a die-hard Democrat, I must admit that there are times when even I become frustrated with our party and some of the things it does. And there are times in which, as a Democrat, I can make an impact on the shaping of the direction of our party. For example, I am from Connecticut. Last August, I cast my vote in the Democratic primary for Ned Lamont because I believe he was better suited to represent our party in the Senate as opposed to Joe Lieberman. Next year, on February 5th, I will cast my vote for one of the Democratic presidential candidates and thus let my voice be heard about the future of the party. Breaking from the party, as Cindy Sheehan would do should she in fact run against Pelosi next year, is not the right way of changing your party for the better to suit it to your desires - it is abandoning it and making it worse.

Like it or not, this is a two-party system of government. It is hard to imagine the rise of a third party in the near future and therefore those of us who care about politics and issues must work within either of those two parties in order to make a reasonable impact on the national debate. For those of us on the left, working with and in the Democratic Party helps drive it to where we want to see it. If we try and try to do that and the party still does not give way, we must keep on trying. Failure is not an option - for us or the party.

Much of the political world's attention is focused this Fourth of July holiday on the Clintons three-day visit to Iowa and what exactly that means to the 2008 campaign. And while it is still early to judge the impact that Bill has on the Iowa voters in terms of drumming up support for Hillary, we know one thing for sure - they both know how important Iowa is to her campaign.

<Four years ago -- facing what seemed to be a certain defeat in the Iowa Democratic caucuses -- John Edwards recast his presidential campaign with weeks to go before the vote, unveiling an emotionally powerful speech about poverty that he delivered relentlessly across the state. Mr. Edwards came within a few thousand votes of victory. To this day, he tells associates he would have won with another week>

(This was posted on Kos too but these are two very different blogs so I don't feel too bad about it)

Around this time four years ago, I was confused about which Democratic presidential candidate I should support and I took the advice of a friend of mine and looked into the underdog campaign of Howard Dean. It didn't take me long to see that he was my guy - his voice seemed to be the loudest when it came to opposing a war I never agreed with, he was talking about universal healthcare, and he seemed like the only Democrat in the field with the fire I wanted to see as a young man involved in politics for the first time.

Four years later, I am a different man. Four years later, our party is different. A lot has changed since the summer of 2003 - a Democrat was defeated despite the efforts of my generation. I went through college, took a class on Lincoln that made me see compromise in a different light than I had in 2003, and, sad to say, lost some of the idealism I had back then too. Things have certainly changed and that is, to me, what makes picking a my Democrat of choice in 2008 is so damn hard.

Browsing through various blogs and talking to various friends, I can't help but feel I am the ONLY Democrat who has not found their "guy (or girl)" yet. After the first Democratic debate, I was on MyDD and took part in the post-debate discussion in an effort to see how my fellow Democrats scored the fight. But what I saw was not unbiased, collective analysis but rather just a promote my candidate/bash yours kind of thing. A month later, still largely undecided, I need a little help.

At first glance of the three frontrunners, I naturally gravitate towards Edwards. Since 2004, he has done somewhat of a 180 but in a good way. Still here is the "Two Americas" populist message that resonated so well to me in '04 but gone is the Third Way-esqe solution to the problem of economic inequality. Of the three frontrunners, he is without a doubt the most aggressively against the war though he does so from outside of the Senate where he would actually be faced with voting on the war. Nevertheless, by the way he is speaking, we can assume he would be leading the charge from within the Senate had he still been there.

From there, things get complicated. I was lucky enough to have attended the 2004 DNC and, like almost everyone else, when I saw Obama's keynote address I thought he was amazing. An African-American guy with a lot of charisma, a good state legislature record, and an anti-war campaign seemed more than inspiring. However, since he got to the Senate, I felt as if he had done nothing but seek to label himself as, well, Lincoln. Never did he give a fiery speech on Iraq or join Feingold and Kerry in the summer of '06 when they led the precursor campaign to Feingold-Reid this year. He voted for Condi Rice and defended colleagues who voted for a brutal nominee to the Supreme Court on this blog after having voted against him himself. Since he began his campaign, he has not really impressed me either. But, on the other hand, what does impress me is his ability to inspire people and, in a very uninspiring and apathetic age, maybe he is just the man for the job even if his issues arent exactly where I would like him to be.

While I may be confused about Edwards and Obama, I am not confused at all about Hillary. I think she is unelectable on name and policy alone, nevermind the fact that I, sorry to say, do not believe this country is ready to elect a woman President.

As for the second tier, I am also confused. Dodd (the only good US Senator I have!)has been saying a lot of the things I want to hear from a candidate but I feel he has no shot to become anything higher than VP simply because he has not gained enough attention. Biden and Richardson make good contributions to the field but, like Dodd, havent gained enough to warrant diehard support.

What does this all mean? Well, it means that I am still confused. Do I go for the populist charisma of John Edwards or the Lincoln-esqe mindset of inspiration that Obama offers? Or perhaps neither in favor of an underdog like Dodd who I throw my support behind and cross my fingers? If you post a comment, please try to present your opinion as unbiased as possible even if that is really difficult, for I am not really going to get anything out of candidate bashing at this point.