Thursday, August 8, 2013

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who recently announced her intention to run as the Peace and Freedom Party’s nominee for governor of California in 2014, took some time to answer five questions from Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn.

Sheehan is best known for her active opposition to the War in Iraq following the loss of her son Casey there in 2004. In protest of the war, she set up camp outside President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, demanding a pullout of U.S. troops and prosecution of Bush administration officials for war crimes. According to her website, Sheehan also advocates revolutionary socialism, believing it to be key to loosening the “Imperialist/Capitalist two-party stranglehold” on U.S. and world politics.

This campaign is not Sheehan’s first foray into electoral politics. In 2008, she challenged then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Congress, finishing second in a field of seven candidates. During the campaign, she championed the reduction of U.S. troops abroad, and endorsed economic democracy, bank nationalization, single-payer health care, education subsidies, marijuana decriminalization, alternative fuels, and electoral reform. In 2012, she ran as the vice presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party on a similar platform. The party promotes socialism, feminism, and environmentalism.

Other gubernatorial candidates include Governor Jerry Brown of the Democratic Party, former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado of the Republican Party, and 2012 Justice Party vice presidential nominee Luis J. Rodriguez of the Green Party.

With Wikinews, Sheehan discusses third party politics and her campaign and governing strategy, and assesses past governors of California, including Brown.