But those gathered for the anti-Bush rally in Salt Lake City still will hear from the national peace activist through a live or taped broadcast.
Her message? "What [it] has been all along," Sheehan's spokeswoman, Tiffany Burns, said Tuesday. "The war in Iraq is wrong. We need to get the troops out as soon as possible."
Burns said Sheehan, who recently bought property in Crawford near Bush's ranch, was excited to join anti-war activists in Utah and felt it was important to bolster the peace movement in "one of the few red states left."
But she recently underwent surgery for a hysterectomy and is not healing quickly. "She is under doctor's orders not to travel," Burns said.
Organizers of today's protest, which will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the City-County Building's Washington Square, were disappointed Sheehan canceled. She has been the national, and controversial, face of the anti-war movement after she started speaking out when her son, Casey, died in Iraq in 2004.
"This is still going to be a fantastic rally," said organizer Crystal Young-Otterstrom. "It's still going to be very fun, very cool with a lot of people expressing their discontent."
That includes Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a Democrat, who had invited Sheehan and will speak at the rally.
The state Republican Party has bought radio ads denouncing Sheehan and Anderson's involvement. The ads urge residents to call the mayor's office to tell him to "stop embarrassing Utah." Since Monday, the mayor's office has received 1,345 calls, with 57 percent against the protest.
Jeff Hartley, executive director of the state Republican Party, is pleased with the response. He also is glad Sheehan is staying in Texas. "It's unfortunate that she's not well. It's fortunate she's not coming."
Hartley tried to take credit for Sheehan's cancellation, suggesting Sheehan was "chickening out" because of GOP animosity.
"That's absolutely untrue," Burns said, noting Sheehan frequently encounters people protesting her and has "never shied away from it."
Young-Otterstrom maintains the GOP campaign has bolstered the protest. The rally hopes to show that while Utah continues to give Bush his highest approval ratings in the nation, discontent is growing with his policies on issues including the war, health care, immigration and education.
"If anything, it gave us encouragement knowing they felt so desperate to stop it," she said.
Burns said the GOP ad mischaracterizes Sheehan's past statements. For instance, the ad says Sheehan has called al-Qaida in Iraq "freedom fighters" and America "the largest terrorist organization in the world."
The source of the "freedom fighter" quote is a videotaped interview Sheehan gave a CBS reporter that apparently never aired but which has circulated among right-wing blogs and Web sites, which also complain the mainstream media haven't picked up the story.
In the transcript, verified by the video, Sheehan said Iraq wasn't a threat to the United States until the 2003 invasion. "But now that we have decimated the country," she said, "the borders are open, freedom fighters from other countries are going in . . . "
The Utah Republican Party cites London's Daily Telegraph as the source of Sheehan calling the United States the world's largest terrorist organization. That's actually a paraphrase; Sheehan is quoted saying Bush is "responsible for the needless and senseless deaths of more people than any other organization right now."
