For all I know, Cindy Sheehan probably doesn't like toll roads either.

It’s what a GOP friend of mine in Missouri calls “the moronic ravings of an obvious lunatic”—Cindy Sheehan’s attempt to lead a protest the other day over the current war in Afghanistan and Pakistan outside Dick Cheney’s house in Fairfax County, Virginia.

That’s right: Dick Cheney’s house. Anyone sense that Cindy’s not all there? Someone in the Democratic Party might grab Cindy by the shoulders, look straight into her glazed-over eyes, and tell her that Dick Cheney isn’t still the Veep. That’s Joe Biden, at least for about the past year. So, if she thinks that using remotely-controlled aircraft to kill bomb-chucking misogynist whackjobs is somehow “cowardly” and “immoral”—her words—then she should lead her protest outside Number One Observatory Circle.

Naturally, I’m not suggesting that she lead her protest outside Barry Obama’s abode at 1600 Pennsylvania. He’s the guy actually leading the war, telling the Air Force’s generals to dispatch its drones to dispatch those scum. He’s the guy calling those lethal shots, right? So, if she really had a problem with it, she could directly her opprobrium there, no? Oh, definitely not—for to do so would be to criticize the Great One, her Chavez, the savior of her would-be movement, who has turned out to be many things, but not the pacifist that she and her kind had hoped.

It’s easy to feel bad for Cindy: she lost a son to the noble cause of ridding Iraq of Saddam and the murderous cabal around him. Coming to terms with that could be difficult for just about anyone. What’s harder is to imagine what’s going through her mind these days—what must be an the intense sense of betrayal over a pair of wars that she has built a career, such as it is, opposing. But from this confusion a lesson can be drawn: The most loyal Obamanistas, the ones who beat the bushes and flogged the Bushies to get out the vote in 2008, are feeling profoundly left out in the cold.

Across the states, that’s pointedly noticeable this month in health care. The more successful trade unionists are torqued that their “Cadillac” insurance plans might get taxed to pay for benefits for their less successful brethren (and so much for solidarity). Here in Texas, there’s a fascinating quandary shaping up for the leftists. How will populist agitators deal with Bill White, the likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee, as comfortable as he seems to be with toll roads? As many conspiracy theories as they’ve hatched over Governor Perry’s interest in tolling Texan roads, how will they react to this former federal deputy energy secretary who’s bound-and-determined to solve greater Houston’s air quality and congestion problems with a little sensible demand management? It will be fun to watch the teeth-gnashing.

As a current GOP campaign manager put it to me a few months ago, there’s no reason to cede issues to the Democrats. Theirs is not the party of education; that’s the GOP. The Dems, rather, are the party of the teachers’ unions. We’re the only hope for injecting enough freedom into the publicly-funded system to make a difference. Ours is not the party of business;, theirs, however, appears after bailout after bailout to be the party of well-connected, rent-seeking business. Ours is the party of the market, the very basis of economic freedom—it is they who are happy to cajole and nudge people into all sorts of officially blessed behavior, regardless of preferences or efficiency.

In short, people in Travis County have a serious independent streak; fortunately for us, a lot of the Democratic Party doesn’t.