Could anyone give me a reason not to vote for Dennis Kucinich?

[jsamuel]

I mean I just like everything I know about him and I am wondering if there is something I should know because to me he would be a great candidate for 2008.

What do you think?

[TahitiNut]

1. Well, People Magazine subscribers probably wouldn't rate him as ...

... one of the world's sexiest men. That's apparently all they really care about. :puke:

[blm]

6. Dennis has way more sizzle in person than people think.

And I know sizzle.

[TahitiNut]

14. You. Preach. Me. Choir.

:shrug: Kucinich best represents my positions on the issues of all Dem candidates.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Depends whether you're looking at policy or politics...

Policy-wise, Kucinich is a Grade-A candidate. Probably the best major candidate the Dems can offer.

Politics-wise, the man's a freaking disaster that would be painted with a super-broad "flaming liberal" brush and go down in flames. I mean, a Department of Peace? Sounds nice, but no one in middle America is buying.

[MadHound]

8. Hey, I'm in Middle America, and I'm buying!

And quite frankly, after eight years of the ravages of Bush, a lot of my conservative neighbors would be willing to buy too. They are becoming as much ABB now as we were before the election.

Quite frankly, due to his refusal to take corporate money, Kucinich is probably the only Dem I would vote for. The rest of the usual suspects are nothing but corporate whore, no matter how you dress them up.

[sando]

17. Corporations

Will do everything in their power to make sure that Kucinich is painted with the loonie brush just as they did in 2004. And it seems that a great many Americans just don't have the analytical skills to flesh out the fact that our government is now a government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. What actually needs to happen is, the SCOUTS needs to reverse the ruling that gave corporations the same rights as individuals, that is where the main problem with politics today lies.

[SteppingRazor]

24. I 100 percent agree...

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad destroyed America, pure and simple.

Unfortunately, it would take a Constitutional amendment to reverse the decision.

[MadHound]

26. Amen friend, I've been screaming about that for years now.

But few people have wanted to listen. Fortunately, as more and more politicians come out openly for corporations over people, more and more people are waking up. Let us hope we reach the critical mass in this before it is too late, and we can seize our government back from these corporate whores.

[never_get_over_it]

56. Actually I don't think they painted Dennis as loonine

as much as they just plain ignored him....Dennis was my candidate in 2004 and the lack of coverage made me crazy....

Funny I took the test for who I should support for President and I got 100% with Dennis and like a 95% with Al Sharpton....

[charlie]

58. It's true that they ignored him

That was galling enough. But, to the extent that he did get coverage, it was character driven, ie, look at the fruitcake.

[Tace]

62. You're So Right

Bingo. It all flows from there, and fair balloting. Give the people that, and we'll figure everything out just fine.

[TahitiNut]

12. Funny how it never seems to bother the right wing to have fascists run.

The right wing doesn't give a flying fuck about getting liberal votes. Why do (so-called) liberals constantly worry about the tantrums of brain-dead conservatives???

[jsamuel]

20. How do we know a "flaming liberal" wouldn't win? When was the last time

we ran a "flaming liberal"... FDR?

[eridani]

51. So would any Dem candidate

The Rethugs said that Kerry was a flaming liberal. WFT is WRONG with Dems saying what they are for, instead of worrying about polls?

[sarahlee]

63. It has been introduced in the Senate now as well

Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) just introduced the Department of Peace legislation into the U.S. Senate (S. 1756).

"If we are to remain the world's leader, and if we are to lead the world into a more secure and more prosperous future, we must become better known and more respected for our peacemaking successes than for our military forces. Peace, to have any lasting value, must be advanced, expanded and strengthened continuously. Doing so requires skill, dedication, persistence, resources, and, most importantly, people."
---Senator Dayton

[JNelson6563]

3. Here's one

he doesn't stand a chance.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. 2006 so much more important now. Please dont distract with 2008 fantasies!

[blm]

10. Well, Dennis needs votes in 2006, too.

;))))))

[Toots]

5. The answer you always get is "He can't win so why waste your vote"

I hate that answer....:shrug:

[peace frog]

9. You may hate it but that doesn't make it any less true.

Sorry but there it is. :hi:

[5X]

15. Oh, Ok, lets all vote for Kerry, he can win it. yeah right n/t

[peace frog]

18. He DID win.

:thumbsup:

[WI_DEM]

7. if you agree with him and think he would be a great candidate

then encourage him to run and support him. Doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.

[mtnsnake]

11. This country just isn't ready for someone like Dennis yet....

unfortunately.

It's not Dennis's fault either, it's America's.

[Qibing Zero]

38. You are probably right,

and it is just so, so sad. =/

How different is he from what JFK was back in the 60s though? The US needs that kind of drastic turnaround if it's going to survive.

[pnorman]

44. "This country just isn't ready for...."

As we're finding out, this country wasn't ready for CAT-4 & CAT-5 hurricanes either. Or a high body-count QUAGMIRE in Iraq, with Afghanistan ready to follow.

We may see the greatest seismic shift this nation has ever seen. And Dennis may be the ONLY one from the two so-called major Parties who seems to know what's wrong, AND has the integrity and courage to say what it is. Temporizing and foot-shuffling by the Democrats, could very likely give the theocrats a winning platform. If they ever take power, there'll be no such thing anymore as "loyal opposition". GO DENNIS, GO!

pnorman

[LSK]

13. we live in a shallow society where image is everything

And he just does not look Presidential. Yes, I know its stupid, but thats America - really stupid at times.

[jsamuel]

16. How do we know a "flaming liberal" wouldn't win? When was the last time

we ran a "flaming liberal"... FDR?

[SteppingRazor]

21. Yes, but...

That was back in the early 1930s, when America had a viable Socialist Party.
We are a completely different nation now. All it would take is for Kucinich ti run against someone perceived as a moderate -- say, John McCain -- and he would be destroyed.

On the other hand, I'd be curious to see how Kucinich would do against a total nutjob like Frist or DeLay or some other wacko. That could actually be an interesting race.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. Mr Balance The Budget And Mr. Win The War Didn't Run As A Flaming Liberal

nt

[frictionlessO]

29. Carter... in the backlash of Nixon/Ford. They said the same things back

then. Honestly I think some people in the Dems just don't want someone that devoted to peace. Peace above party is taboo to so many these days... thats just my general feeling.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. Carter Didn't Run As A Flaming Liberal...

He ran as a moderate southern governor and he carried every state of the Old Confederacy except Virginia*


I can't think of one Democrat who was elected who campaigned as a "flaming liberal"....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. *I'm Not Sure About Virginia But Too Lazy To Look It Up

nt

[frictionlessO]

42. Dennis is not a "flaming liberal" and I truly despise the homophobic

connotation behind that tag.

Carter was known as a Liberal for many on the other side of the fence. I remember certain Nixon lovers that I knew refering to him as such over and over again...

Anecdotal to be sure but we are talking about unqualified perceptions here (as in speculating on what people will want for a POTUS over two years from now).

Its all good and I mean you no flack by this post.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. Someone Else Used "The Flaming Label " First ... I Merely Responded...

"Carter was known as a Liberal for many on the other side of the fence. I remember certain Nixon lovers that I knew referring to him as such over and over again..."


To wingnuts everybody with a D in front of their name is a liberal but Carter was quite the centrist as a governor, presidential candidate, and president...

[frictionlessO]

50. Uhmm they weren't wingnuts as much as loyalists.. dont know...

So Ill rest on your judgement about this more than mine...

apologies and I wasn't on about you with the flaming liberal thing thats what I meant with the last comment.

[never_get_over_it]

57. Last Dem to take VA

was LBJ....I learned that from LBJ's daughter Lind Bird Robb at a very fancy fund raiser for Chuck Robb I actually got to go to and also got to meet Al Gore - it was great and I didn't even make a contribution to get in - don't ask how I did it - I'll never tell

[SteppingRazor]

39. In 1976, the Demcorats could've run a ham sandwich...

and it would've won.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. That Would Have Seemed The Case

but it was a an Electoral College and popular vote squeaker....


If it wasn't for several thousand votes in Hawaii and Ohio Ford would have won....


Any way Ford would be a RINO now... He was pro choice, pro affirmative action, and pro ERA...

[SteppingRazor]

41. True enough, Carter only pulled it by about 50 electoral votes...

The strange thing is the electoral map. It's the exact opposite of our modern electoral map, with Carter winning throughout the South, but almost nowhere else, and Ford taking places like California and Massachusetts.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

48. No... Carter Won Massachussets In 76... Unbelievabably Lost It In 80*

*Anderson got 15% of the vote in Massachussets most of it at Carter's expense...


Carter won the entire south and most of the big industrial states....


In 1980 he lost the entire south except for his home state of Georgia...


Yeah, politics was different... You had party elders like Gerry Ford trying to stop Reagan's nomination in 80 because they thought he was too conservative to win...

[XemaSab]

46. Nixon would be a RINO too...

....virtually all our environmental legislation was signed by him.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. Ford Was A Fundamentally Decent Man...

As is evident by his amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of his alma mata's (University Of Michigan) affirmative action policy...

Nixon was a bad man regardless of his politics...

[Qibing Zero]

30. I agree with that sentiment

Catering to the middle is bullshit these days. It just makes you seem like you're not sure of anything - which is a big loss in many people's eyes. Say what NEEDS to be said, especially at this point, and help pull American politics back away from the right.

Cries of 'radical' and 'extreme' can easily be debunked by asking the questions: 'Is a war not as extreme as it gets? Can you get any more radical than bush's economic and foreign policies?'

Kucinich is by far the best candidate, IMO, but then again I'm just a filthy idealist, aren't I?

[Mr_Spock]

19. My only issue is that he looks like a Romulan

Well, they are a grumpy offshoot of the Vulcan race.

[jsamuel]

22. ...

:rofl:

but, he is usually smiling from what I have seen :P

[Mr_Spock]

35. lol - he's a good natured ROMULAN

:rofl:

[jobycom]

23. Two minor reasons, but nothing major.

He invokes religion and prayer too often for my tastes, but that's just me. I haven't seen him claim that religion should be part of government.

And he has a terrible record on abortion. He had an election year conversion on the issue, but I suspect politically he'd stick to his new views.

If you like him, vote for him, and volunteer for him. The best way to make an unelectable candidate electable is to win him or her more votes. Worst that can happen is he'd lose, and he might siphon votes from the candidate closest to him, giving the election to a candidate farthest from him in the primaries. That's not too likely, though. Vote your conscience in the primaries. The general is when you have to hold your nose and vote.

On edit: A friend of mine did some work with a committee Kucinich sat on. Not sure which committee, but this friend was in military intelligence. He said Kucinich was the sharpest and hardest working Congresscritter on the committee.

[eridani]

52. His change on abortion was 2 years before his candidacy

And who would be better qualified to bridge the cultural gap between anti-abortion and pro-choice people?

To please an institutionalized brother, he voter for the flag-burning amendment 5 or 6 years ago, but voted against its more recent incarnation on the grounds that civil liberties were too much under attack now.

[jobycom]

65. No it wasn't

He was still evading the question in his early campaign, and only finally announced he had changed his views after Salon did a critical article on his evasiveness. If he's claiming he had changed his mind two years before that, I retract anything nice I said about him.

[eridani]

66. His voting record is on the books. Check it yourself.

Before he actually started voting pro-choice, he abstained on votes.

[jobycom]

67. I'm aware of that. And he still refused to back a woman's right to choose

until after the Salon article during his campaign.

[eridani]

70. Abstention is acceptable during a period of soul-searching, IMO

It isn't like he changed back with the end of his campaign or anything.

[jobycom]

71. Which is why I gave him praise. Doesn't change the fact that it

was an election year conversion.

[Madrone]

27. One reason.

Because you hate America. :cry:

Why do you hate America?

[WilliamPitt]

28. Here's one, if you need it

He needs to learn how to be a candidate for national office. In 2004, he ran his campaign as if he were managing his congressional office - totally hands-on micromanagement that required all the pros working his campaign to pass every decision through him. The problem with this was that he was either campaigning, traveling or sleeping 23 1/2 hours a day, requiring important decisions/statements/releases to be delayed for hours or even days until he could find the time to give approval.

A candidate for national office must be prepared to be 'handled.' He or she must allow the pros on the campaign to write the statements and press releases, to get them out in a timely fashion, to keep the campaign abrest with the news of the day and the activities of other candidates. During Kucinich '04, this was impossible because the candidate refused to be managed, and needed every wee decision/statement/release to be vetted personally by him. This is a recipie for total failure, and the frustration felt by his staff watching this happen was volcanic.

A lot of people saw a media conspiracy in the lack of press Dennis got during the '04 campaign. This wasn't true; the press wanted to cover him, we had reporters following us like pilot fish. But because of the approval logjam at the top, releases and statements sometimes were delayed up to 72 hours. The campaign was three steps behind everyone else, and this led to irrelevancy. We'd finally get a statement out on an issue (after waiting for that approval for hours and days), and the press would say "So what? That was three days ago."

If he does it like this again, frankly, he won't be worth supporting. He'll be done before he gets started. He is a good and decent man with amazing ideas, but he needs to learn how to be a candidate. If he doesn't, your energy will be better spent elsewhere.

[jsamuel]

32. Thanks, Will

:hi:

I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

[zulchzulu]

37. Spot on

That's what I heard from people who worked with him...and since you were there, I'm pretty convinced.

I remember some Kucinich staffers complaining in August 2003 when Kucinich spoke at the Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo, Wisconsin. A person picked him up at the Madison airport and was fairly rudely treated by Kucinich and a couple staffers who wanted dead silence for the hour-long ride to and from the venue.

After Kucinich spoke, the supporters who had gone way out of their way to have the largest table with merchandise bought by them were not visited and generally ignored. It would have been a small effort for Kucinich to have paid a minute-long visit.

I think the guy's wrapped a little too tight. Aside from his appearance (which unfortunately is not "presidential" imho), his apparent micromanagement style would certainly not make him a good president.

[Ron Green]

45. If he can successfully allow himself to be handled, he's made a big

step toward the nomination. But for God's sake, let us not be saddled with the likes of Donna Brazile ever again.

[eridani]

55. And the leftie outsiders supporting him need to know more--

--about campaigning as well. We were mainly progressive issue junkies who had not paid too much attention to electoral politics. (My own last foray was McCarthy in 1968--too busy in grad school vor McGovern.) In WA state, it was mostly people moving directly from antiwar vigils into the campaign, joined by a some labor and health care activists. We had maybe four people in the entire state campaign who even knew how the state caucus process worked. They were able to spread their knowledge around, but it was still a first time for many of us. We had no internal party connections, and so were charged $8K for walking lists that other campaigns got for free or for a reduced charge.

The real problem is that there just have to be more progressives in the pipeline. Bernie Sanders has been running for some office or another in Vermont since the mid-70s. What if more of us lefty issue junkies had considered doing the same back then? 2/3 of the campaign dropped out after the February caucuses, but those of us who remained moved up the local learning curve rapidly, enough to go from 0 to 8 delegates. Now we are the PCOs and the candidates for local office. We're making good personal contacts with people who worked for Dean locally, backing progressives for quite a number of local offices. (This works like strange cats getting to know each other--the paw under the door, the sniffing, and finally curling up together on the sofa.) A labor activist who caucused for Kucinich is now my state legislator.

I'm now willing to support centrist Dems that I don't always agree with while I'm waiting for more progressives to get the street cred that comes from having successfully held local office. We effectively lobbied Adam Smith and Norm Dicks to get them to change and vote against the bankruptcy bill. We pushed our entire state delegation (except for Dicks) to vote against CAFTA. We are getting there, and if Kucinich learns more about how to do a national campaign between now and 2008, we'll be ready this time.

[jobycom]

68. That's not a reason to not vote for him, only the reason he won't win. nt.

[helderheid]

73. I had this experience too ... thanks for even more insight as to what went

wrong.

[Pobeka]

34. Regardless of whether he's able to win in the end, I'd support him.

Because having him in the primary race does create dialogue about issues and ideas that never would see the light of day otherwise.

That in itself is a good thing.

[SteppingRazor]

36. That's a good point...

Just having him out there addressing certain issues forces the other candidates to say where they stand as well. When people like Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton all talked about nationalized healthcare, if forced the other candidates to include it in the discussion. And it actually meant something for a little while; until Swift Boats and Screams became more relevant.

[Ikonoklast]

43. Kucinich would be my choice for running mate

He would be an asset and bring some liberal balance to the '08 ticket, I think whoever gets the nomination will be a conservative Dem.
He is a very hard worker, smart and a quick learner. He is somewhat of a control freak and seems to have a hard time delegating the many minor essential tasks of campaigning.
Having said that I hope that he is learning what it is he needs to do to stay out in front with the message and not get caught up in the details. Having smart people working for you and trusting them to do their job is the first step.
He has the capability to be a pit bull and an in-fighter in dealing with Congress, and whoever is president could use that to great advantage.
Could be a bigger surprise than many people think.

[journalist3072]

53. My take on Kucinich

I really like Dennis Kucinich.

But I have to say to say that I was disappointed in him after participating in an online chat with him during the primary.

I asked him some very specific questions, which he failed to really answer.

I asked him if he was President, and a new Congress sent him legislation that repealed all or part of the Patriot Act, would he sign it? He went into this rant about how the Ashcroft Justice Department was the most extreme Justice Dept, etc. I wanted to shout at him: I know that. You don't have to sell me on how bad Ashcroft is. But I asked you a very specific question about you repealing all or part of the Patriot Act if you were Prez.

Then, I asked him to name specific African-American leaders that he might consider for a position in a Kucinich Administration. I asked him to name names: what African-American leaders did he admire, that he could see himself appointing to positions. He responded to that question, by saying "I want to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Washington." WTF?!

Why is it so hard for politicians to answer a specific question?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

54. I can't. I think he's exactly what we need. nt.

[Jersey Devil]

59. Yea, outside of liberal circles no one has a clue who he is

Not to mention that he looks like a cross between Alfred E. Neuman and Howdy Doody.

[charlie]

60. Never understood

the de rigeur cracks about Kucinich's looks. I suppose some of us cast wan looks at Rick Perry and sigh, if only he were a Democrat. Wellstone looked like a garden gnome, but I'd take him as president over anyone else you'd care to offer. Kucinich, too.

[hayu_lol]

61. Dennis...naw...no appeal and aside from a few speeches...he hasn't done

anything of importance. He has been in a position to initiate impeachment proceedings...he has not done so. Could have been a thorn in the side of the right, but has not done so.

If you track his record during the last election process, he failed to get over 3% support. Dennis is not presidential material.

[hippywife]

64. Not a single one.

If everyone who felt he best represented their views had done so last time, he would be in the Oval Office now.

He is the most incredible public servant.

I worked for him the last time and will do so again.

[helderheid]

69. The media has already decided for the USA that he is unelectable

:mad:

[gulfcoastliberal]

72. Al Gore

Gore in 08!