Cindy Sheehan's real threat to the Bush Republicans

Over at The Left Coaster Steve Soto has an excellent post on Jeffery Feldman's post at Frameshop on the real threat Cindy Sheehan is to the Republican Party. I suggest you go read both of the above linked posts but the bottom line is that Cindy's appeal and hence threat to the Republican Party is less about the war and more about the American family.

In broad terms, the success of the 'grieving mom' phrase indicates that Americans are now thinking about the War in Iraq through the frame of the family, rather than thinking about Iraq through the frame of 'terrorism' or 'ideology.'

The implications of this shift from 'terrorism' to 'family' in the country's thinking about Iraq are profound. Not only does this shift forewarn a political tidal wave soon to break on the President's foreign policy, but also of a much deeper, tectonic shift in the strategy beneath all the recent gains in the Republican party.

The great success of Cindy Sheehan's protest, therefore, is no less than the moral authority for the Democratic Party to speak for the American family.

Feldman warns that if the Democrats want to build on Cindy's success they must give the DC Democrats and consultants their walking papers.

At this point, it would seem that the main obstacle to turning Cindy Sheehan's achievements into real political gains would be the circle of overpaid and out-of-touch consultants that suffocate the potential and idealism of the Democrats' high-profile national candidates.

While Cindy Sheehan has lead America's families in an emotional and meaningful discussion, the consultants are still trying to distract voters into thinking that our potential Presidential candidates are the true voice of 'staying the course' in Iraq. We can only hope that somebody with real influence in Washington--and the ability to fire these consultants who leading our candidates astray--has the same courage as Cindy Sheehan.