My thoughts on Kucinich

[Syrinx]

I like Kucinich very much, as I've told you before. But I really don't
see him getting more than about 35% of the vote in a head-to-head with
Bush. He looks like a leprechaun, and like it or not, that's not
going to be a help. And he'll be mocked as being "out of touch," for
being a vegan, and as "soft on defense," for his proposed Department of
Peace. Assuming we even have a fair election next year, which is a
highly dubious proposition, the most important thing is to get the Bush
Family Evil Empire out of power, and investigated, prosecuted and judged
for being the traitorous bastards that they are. And I just don't think
Kucinich can do it. But if he were to get the nomination, I would without
a moment's hesitation vote for him.

[JohnKleeb]

1. well I would like to think you are wrong

By the way I thought leprechauns were from the emerald isle not Croatia lol.

[Syrinx]

4. No discrimination against Croatian leprechauns!

Seriously, I love Dennis. But, John, do you really think he can win?

[JohnKleeb]

6. did people doubt dean at first

I want him to win and I think if he makes his voice heard yeah I could. lol i am ancestrly from the same region syrinx, I am a Slovene. I of course have ancestry in the emerald isle.

[Syrinx]

I will absolutely support him if he's the nominee

I just don't think he would be the strongest one. Now if I could decide who IS.

:shrug:

[JohnKleeb]

18. of course I know you will

He has an history of upsets. He would give a whole new meaning to the nickname the comeback kid.

[Syrinx]

27. come-out-of-nowhere kid?

That would be extra cool!

[JohnKleeb]

29. yeah and it can happen

Look at Dean and his campaign. With DK you get a 180 and the best guy in the race,

[mdmc]

2. My thoughts

He is showing us what Democrats should sound like. He has nice posistions.
If no one can beat Bush, then I don't mind Kucinich in 2004. I hope many people can beat Bush.
:dem:

[WilliamPitt]

3. I met Kucinich a couple of days ago

and he is a dynamo. However, I sussed out two possibly terminal problems his campaign will have to address if they want to get anywhere:

1. Dennis wants to take 15% of the Defense budget and spend it on social programs. BRILLIANT idea that I support completely...but the post 9/11 media (and the massive numbers of Americans who watch it) will eat him alive because of this. Sad but true. They'll call him weak on defense, etc. He has to figure out a sound-bite way to justify this to the masses who get 10-second clips. If he waits for the debates, the media will have a month to convince people he is insane, and any explanation he gives at said debate will be too little, too late.

2. He is a Vegan. There are millions of Americans in the South and West - cattle country - who think Vegans are something from Star Trek. They will not be able to relate to him because of this, unless he deals with it. INSANELY STUPID, I know, but a reality. Politics these days is about the surface, sadly.

[Syrinx]

5. surface, yep. n/t

:(

[JohnKleeb]

7. sad isnt it

[WilliamPitt]

8. But true, and requires a plan n/t

[JohnKleeb]

13. hmmmmm

yeah he needs a plan to counter that. Glad to see that Kucinich is being talked about postively here. :)

[WilliamPitt]

14. He was wonderful

That afternoon, barely able to lift my arms above my head, I was brought down to an organic foods co-op – essentially a vegetarian supermarket with a nice café on the second floor – to hear a quick speech by Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. He was there when we arrived, and I plowed through the crowd to get a view. Kucinich, I saw, was sporting a sharp new haircut, and was bristling with energy. He addressed the crowd very briefly and answered some questions. The man, I decided, has sand.

As he was headed for the door, someone told him I was there. Came then the shock of my life. Kucinich stopped dead, whirled around, and bulldogged through the crowd to find me. I smiled and reached out to shake his hand. He grabbed it and hauled me in until we were basically bumping chests and nose to nose. He did not give me the standard triple-pump politician handshake, but the triple-grip old-school activist handshake. He said an incredible number of nice things about my work, and about truthout, the very last thing I was expecting to hear. He only had a few seconds before he had to head off to his next speech, but a connection got made in that café that is difficult for me to deny. I am not the swooning type, but I felt after that like I had just come out of the hot sun. There aren’t many politicians who can do that to me.

That night, several activists and I went to hear Kucinich give a more formal address at a public theater. Before he came out, the crowd was addressed by a Hispanic man named Fernando Suarez del Solar. Mr. Suarez carried in every aspect of his bearing - in his eyes and his face and his very being – the most profound sorrow. His son, Jesus, was one of the first men killed in this second Iraq war. Mr. Suarez spoke to the crowd in passionate Spanish, which was translated by a woman to the side of the stage.

Suarez denounced the war, denounced Bush, and asked that everyone present reinvest themselves in the effort to get American troops out of Iraq. He described how troops fighting in Iraq are being denied standard overtime pay, despite the fact that they have been deployed well beyond normal time parameters. He announced that he would be going from high school to high school on a tour to tell the children not to believe the lies told by military recruiters, lies that caused his son to enlist and die in an unnecessary war. When he was finished, he closed his eyes and kissed a pair of dog tags he was wearing around his neck. The tags had been worn by his son on the last day of his life.

A document being handed out described an organization founded by Suarez called Guerrero Azteca, created to help Latinos whose family members have died in the war. The last paragraph reads, “The immense majority of the youths in the armed forces were recruited with deceptions. They are the ones in the line of fire. They are the first ones to go into battle. They are the cannon fodder. Therefore, for the Hispanic community to support the antiwar position is to protect their children. They are protecting their loved ones from going to die in absurd wars.”

Then came Dennis. He reached the podium on the crest of a great ovation, and stood silently until the crowd hushed. And he waited. And he waited. And in that silence he began to sing, softly, “Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?”

Kucinich then slammed the podium and roared, “Courage, America! Courage, America! Courage, America!” before spending the next 20 minutes denouncing the Bush administration, the war, and the direction this nation is moving in some of the most eloquent language I have yet heard. There is not a single Presidential candidate in the field willing to say when Kucinich said on that stage in San Diego, for good or ill. The crowd reacted as if they were coming out of the desert to find a pool of ice-water waiting for them. They drank it up and called for more.

I learned a few things on that road. I learned that a lot more people care about what is happening than the television would have us believe. I learned that just about everyone in the activist communities I met is ready and willing to join ABBA – the Anyone But Bush Association – to put aside their own hard-core preferences when the deal goes down to make sure that George is unemployed in January of 2005. I learned that, despite my sense on occasion that there isn’t anyone out there who feels as I do and is willing to act on it, there is an army of good people across the country doing just that. I learned that George has some tough sledding ahead of him.

I learned that Dennis Kucinich is still polling in the low single digits. The political campaign analyst in me understands this: He has less cash, a few wild ideas, and is less well-known. A lot of people think Dennis has no chance to win, and they well may be right. But I learned that, in the end, there is something profoundly wrong with a country where a man like Kucinich has no chance to win the Oval Office. The point of the exercise, I learned, was to change that.

http://truthout.org/docs_03/080703A.shtml

[JohnKleeb]

16. Thank you he sounds like a great guy

[mdmc]

20. He has the respect of this Dean supporter

;:dem:

[JohnKleeb]

26. thank you and even after last night

Thank you Dean supporters who show DK the highest respect he deserves.

[Jim Sagle]

40. Same here.

[Syrinx]

21. I agree with your summation

[Tinoire]

24. Whooa! Jesus Will!

That's the 2nd thing you wrote tonight that went straight to my HEART! Have you sent that to the Kucinich HQs?! That was one of the most brilliant and deepest things you've ever written. You touched my soul with that (just as you did with your Veterans' for Peace speech).

I will DEFINITELY be there Saturday now and your first drink is on me!

Thanks for the depth of that beautiful piece!

[WilliamPitt]

34. Thanks

I don't know where to send it. Can you send it for me, or give me an address?

[Tinoire]

51. Will- check your in-box, your voice-mail at Truthout

and please send me a decent e-mail address. I sent out your article and cc'ed you at the truthout address (and also some old hot-mail address which was kicked back).

Would you mind if I made copies of this to distribute outside the Veterans for Peace DK table tomorrow morning? Link, full credit etc will be on the copies.

Left my phone number on your voicemail and in-box so you could let me know.

See you soon :)

[unfrigginreal]

33. I wish you would elaborate on these "few wild ideas."

The guy comes across as a certifiable nutcase and you want to make it easier for him to get into the Whitehouse? I don't think you're doing yourself any favors with that piece.

[WilliamPitt]

35. Thanks for the advice

:eyes:

I met him, and heard him speak. I am pretty good at knowing nutcases when I see them. Kucinich is a certified righteous dyed-in-the-wool liberal from the old school. It is a sad testament to how fucked up things are that he can be dismissed as a "nutcase."

Somehow, I will survive this assessment.

[DemBones DemBones]

45. Amen, Brother Will! It is indeed "a sad testament to how

fucked up things are. . ." Tell it all, Brother, tell it all!

Passionate progressive populist does NOT equal "nutcase."

[JohnKleeb]

46. those are the kinda people

Americans used to love now Americans love a chimp who likes to pretend to be one of the people.

[JohnKleeb]

47. those are the kinda people

Americans used to love now Americans love a chimp who likes to pretend to be one of the people.

[unfrigginreal]

48. "I met him, and heard him speak."

Well, most of America hasn't. Seeing him onstage the other night screaming, just as he did on the House floor a few weeks ago, does not bolster your case for him. Maybe you forget that most of the country gets thier opinion of these guys based on what they see on TV.

I stand by my statement that he *comes across* as a nutcase. Maybe he isn't, but that opinion won't change until he changes his approach.

[DemBones DemBones]

38. That's very interesting, Will, because DK had the same effect on

Tinoire, revcarol, and DesertRose, when they met him, but this is the first account I've seen of a man-to-man encounter with Dennis. He seems to have the same ability as Bill Clinton, to focus on the person he is talking to as if no one else is there. I just hope I'll get the chance to hear him speak in person, even if I don't get to meet him. He alarmed some DUers last night, apparently using barnraiser stump speech techniques in a TV panel format, but I appreciate a good speaker and don't mind podium pounding or roaring when appropriate and well done. Sharpton does it well, too, of course. Clinton channeled Elvis and he was very, very good (still is, but I'm reflecting on past campaigns) but the Elvis gambit is unique to Clinton.

As you said, "in the end, there is something profoundly wrong with a country where a man like Kucinich has no chance to win the Oval Office. " It's wrong because money should not keep a good candidate from mounting an effective campaign and it's wrong because no one should give a rat's rear end what a candidate looks like or what he chooses to eat for dinner.

[JohnKleeb]

44. They are all so lucky to have met him

He really is an inspiration,

[mdmc]

10. vegan

lol. I work with a vegan, and our coworkers think that she sneaks big macs and ben and jerrys. Most Americans would think that Kucinich only "acts" like a vegan. Most Americans can't understand life without meat (or, in my case, without Ben & Jerrys).

I think America might be ready for a Vegan President.

[JohnKleeb]

12. I love meat but I can understand Dennis

[DemBones DemBones]

42. When people understand that he will INCREASE military pay and

veterans' benefits and that the cuts he'll make are things like the online video game about Army life and the Army's NASCAR entry, I think they'll support it. At least, those with good sense will support it. Those with good sense know that Bush* has deliberately alienated other countries and pushed for war and that with a sensible, non-warmongering president, we can have a return to peace and not have to spend giga-billions on endless wars. Defense is important but enriching the defense industry has little to do with military preparedness.

Dennis seems, BTW, to be the kind of vegan that my daughter is -- totally committed to it personally but not interested in talking other people into being vegans. I think that should defuse the vegan issue for most people. Most people may not know any vegans but they probably do know a vegetarian or two (or ten) and realize that eating meat has some drawbacks in regard to cholesterol, E. coli, and mad cow disease. Besides, most vegetarians and vegans are skinny and surface-oriented Americans admire skinniness.

[JohnKleeb]

43. wow even better than I thought

[Ein]

9. If his supporters ...

aren't sitting on thier asses, he has a chance. I'm spreading his word.

[JohnKleeb]

11. I am volunteering soon and come school I will be advertisng

with my backpack people will ask.

[mdmc]

15. Keep it up Kleeb!

If Dean and Kerry drop out, Kucinich will be my guy! Hang in there!
Your fighting the good fight and should be proud.

Dennis is good for our party, and good for America. DK is a breath of fresh air.

[JohnKleeb]

17. Thanks

I hope the others feel the same way. Some Deannies were poed about last night, but some actually had the greatest respect and understandign.

[ErasureAcer]

19. you have Dennis Kucinich patches?

how are you advertising? I ask because I am also in school.

[mdmc]

22. get campaign pins

:dem:

[ErasureAcer]

25. where?

I don't see anything for sale on kucinich.us

[JohnKleeb]

28. I think you could get them at a rally

where you at erasure? If you are in California, Dennis seems to like to campaign out there, Ive heard hes gonna have an online store soon then I will get more.

[ErasureAcer]

31. Minnesota...he's coming here on Saturday the 16th...

and I have the day off work so I'll be there. I'll look for merchandise there, thanks.

[JohnKleeb]

36. no problem

If you admired Wellstone you'll love this guy, speaks about the kinda stuff the party fought for long ago, yet has modern ideas.

[wheresthemind]

37. I'll see you there!

Hope your getting the word out! See the new site?

[ErasureAcer]

41. Yeah...it looks great.

That's how I learned he was coming here on the 16th. haha.

All the different language options really is good too!

You attending a meetup today(thursday)? I'll be at the saint paul(where I live). Guess, dpbrown is gonna be there too...be nice to meet him since he posts at this board.

[JohnKleeb]

23. on my packbag yea

what grade you in or are you a college student. I am gonna get a sign too, would love a bumper sticker but I dont drive but you know I got my folks behind this guy.

[ErasureAcer]

30. I'm a junior/senior in college

have 3 semesters left. junior first semester, senior second semester.

I'm 21 and I've never had a liscence either. I could put the bumper sticker on my dorm room door though. I guess I've heard my roommate has served in 3 branches of the military(he's 23 now)...should be quite interesting to see how much we get along. I told him I was to the left on the political spectrum and he said we'd get along...so who knows....*shrug*

Where do I get the patches/pins though?

[JohnKleeb]

32. you should go to a rally

Thats where I got mine. Should be interesting with your roomie but not all military people are devoted Bushies.

[wheresthemind]

39. give the campaign some money

and just ask, you'll receive!

[wheresthemind]

49. heres why I think hes the only man for the job...

He is like nothing else out there...

He proposes such an alternative that he's drawing all kinds of people from all over the spectrum. Greens, Natural Law, I've heard more then a few repubs because they are so impressed by his honesty and really agree with repealing NAFTA and the WTO.

I am thinking outside of the typical political sphere here. I think Dennis could bring a revolution with him. One where we move beyond the media, beyond looks, to a completely new idea of how politics is waged.

Rove and the republicans attacking him personally during the election would lead to an effect like when the british beat the Indians yet the never fought back physically.

I read an article about physiology that related to this a lot. Saying the Bush is like a bully, and to try and out bully the bully (dean?) does not always work. Apparently within psychology the best response to a bully is to be compliantly at peace li

Imagine if all the people on this board, and in this country voted their concise, I think Dennis would be real close in those polls. I hear all the time that "I like what he has to say but I don't think he's the right guy."

The latest poll numbers from Iowa show Dennis at 7% (I have no link I got that from John the head of the Iowa campaign). Seeing as he was the last one to enter the race, and there is still a lot of time to go, I say he could still pull a shocker.

He offers such a contrast to Bush that I think it could snap people to their scenes.

You wanna talk about the political wilderness? Thats where we are, we have control of NOTHING, so why keep going with moderates? Now is the time we need an FDR kind of Democrat leading our party.

Look at Paul Wellstones poll numbers after his vote on Iraq. They boosted so high the the republicans secretly conceded defeat shifting resources away from MN.

I think it shows that being different works!

(THIS IS SUCH A JUMBLE BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO SQUEEZE IT OUT WITH MY LAST BITS OF CONCISENESS, I HOPE IT MAKES SOME SCENCE)

[JohnKleeb]

50. ecomomic reasons you have nailed it

I want a populist president one who understands the people and what helps them best, DK is the best for this.