NationStates Jolt Archive

Here are some interesting stats on how the US sees Cindy Sheehan.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Cindy%20Sheehan.htm

Cindy Sheehan: 35% Favorable 38% Unfavorable

The interesting bits:
In general, people see in Sheehan what they want to see. Opinion about her is largely based upon views of the War, rather than views about the woman herself.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of Americans say they are following the Sheehan story somewhat or very closely. That is a lower level of interest than Americans have in stories about Iran's nuclear capabilities. It is roughly comparable to the interest in stories about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

The telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports August 17-18, 2005. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. 37% of survey respondents were Republican, 37% Democrat, and 26% unaffiliated


Anyone surprised?

No, not really. I think most people would get genuinely disinterested with the level Cindy Sheehan has been milking her case.

I think this passage is telling:

People who think we should withdraw troops from Iraq now have a positive opinion of Sheehan (59% favorable, 12% unfavorable). Those who do not think we should withdraw troops at this time have a negative view (15% favorable , 64% unfavorable).

There is no majority support in the US for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan is a self described radical and her expressed views support that. Not only does she want the US to withdraw from Iraq, she also want's the US to withdraw from Afghanistan. She has also expressed support for Lynn Stewart who was convicted of assisting terrorists.

It is unkown what Cindy expects from Bush in meeting with him, which is her demand, as it's highly unlikely that he will agree with her that he ought to be impeached, removed from office, tried as a war criminal and sent to prison.

She also makes statements that condradict other statements she has made. For example, in one interview, she said she begged her son not to go to Iraq and offered to take him to Canada or run him over with a car. In another interview, she says that Casey knew his unit was going to Iraq at the time he re-enlisted but she made no comment about attempting to convince him not to re-enlist.

Her description of the first meeting with Bush has also changed over time. In the Vacaville Reporter, she describes Bush as a man of Faith and made other rather positve comments about him. In the buzzflash interview posted in Oct of 2004, her description of how Bush acted in that meeting was rather neutral but in a July, 2005 interview which was posted in LewisNews, she described Bush as some kind of cold hearted monster.

Cindy Sheehan has every right to express her views and protest but she' paid a heavy price for it. She's lost her job because of missed time, she says that she's lost all the friends that she had before Casey died, her husband is divorcing her, she's on the outs with her in-laws and her survivng son Andy had sent her an e-mail asking her to come home and support the family she does have. A request Cindy ignored.