Where Can We Get An Unwelcome Wagon?

That's what the people who live in Crawford, Texas want to know. There is little positive anticipation of the arrival of the Sheehan Circus and Sideshow® in that small town.

"I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat," Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said Friday while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street.

Sheehan, whose monthlong war protest near Bush's ranch last summer attracted more than 10,000 demonstrators, recently bankrolled the purchase of a 5-acre parcel near downtown to be used for future protests, including one next month.

The protesters group said it outgrew a 1-acre lot about a mile from Bush's ranch that a sympathetic landowner provided. Several hundred demonstrators returned to the lot over Thanksgiving and Easter.

Now many of the town's 700 residents fear the traffic congestion, noise from rallies and odor from portable toilets — complaints from residents near the other campsite — will affect those closer to town.

"When it's here, it affects a different set of people," Teresa Bowdoin said.

The town has tried to stop some of the craziness by banning roadside camping, but that led to that tried and true method of making friends and allies used so often by the left. Sheehan and company filed a lawsuit.

Then last fall, county commissioners enacted roadside camping and parking bans to prevent similar protests. Some demonstrators returned to Sheehan's original makeshift campsite during the November and April protests for a civil disobedience action and were arrested. Sheehan was not among them.

In late June, Sheehan and four others sued the county over the ordinances, saying they want to return to what became an "international symbol of protest against the Iraq war."

Tammara Rosenleaf, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, said she is glad the group now owns a lot but that some protesters may return to Sheehan's original site because it is considered "the soul of this movement."

However, not everyone in Crawford is upset by the impending arrival of hordes of followers of Sheehan's Super-Whamadyne Ultra Fast™.  The local Burger Barn has perfected the triple Angus bacon cheeseburger and large fries smoothie which is expected to be a major seller. Cindy has reportedly ordered dozens just for herself.