Some of why Kucinich is a better candidate than Dean

[MrSoundAndVision]

It seems to me that Dean is just an opportunist, being so vague on issues such as trade. And I've had many people disagree with me about him being so vague and my assertion that he's for sale, so let me show by example (though I did hear that he has gotten rather large contributions from Microsoft, I can't substantiate that here: check www.opensecrets.org to find out). So here goes:

Kucincich plans to cancel NAFTA and the WTO as his first acts in office. Half of the point in him taking this position SO ACTIVELY is so that other candidates and potential presidents will agree once the issue is in the public eye. This would ensure that American workers and foreign slave workers don't get screwed and environmental standards don't get spewed.

Dean's stand on trade: subsidize small businesses. Oh, ok, so they can sell goods made by child slaves over seas or in South America, oh great answer Howie.

So Dean isn't going to stand up to the privatization of our democracy and is only seeking to be a political opportunist. Well it seems to me that he only has two things going for him: the media likes him, and supporters that seem to stubborn to change their hearts and minds and admit that they are wrong. That their accepts money from corporations (allegedly at this point) and thus has compromised his integrity as a democratic leader for the people.

[MrSoundAndVision]

1. I stand self-corrected

No evidence that Dean got money from Microsoft was found on opensecretes.org. But I swear I read that somewhere... Maybe that was before the ban on soft money contributions. He has been a declared candidate since May of 2002 I think. Anyway, his trade stance is still less than stellar just judging from what I've heard him actually say.

[dsc]

69. For the record

Open secrets reports contributions by employer and Dean got money from employees of Microsoft not Microsoft itself. Soft money has been banned for this election. No matter when Dean announced it is banned for this election period. I gave money to the man that doesn't mean my school distict supported him it means I did.

[eyesroll]

2. Contributions are aggregated to include employers AND PACs

Corporations are not allowed to donate directly; many do through their PACs.

According to Open Secrets here:http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/summary.asp?ID=N00025663
Dean has received $16,500 in contributions from PACs. (This is out of $25 million, BTW. Pocket change.) Only $1,000 came from business PACs; I do not know if that was Microsoft or not.

Click on "Top Contributors."
$29,828 came from Microsoft.

Or, more specifically: "The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."
http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/contrib.asp?id=N00025663&cycle=2004

So, in other words, these contributors work for Microsoft. There are hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees. Some of them donated to Dean. This could be 15 Microsoft executives donating $2,000 each (or so), or it could be 1,500 contributing $20.

This is actually kind of fun -- click around on the other candidates' reports and see where their biggest contributions come from. Postal workers seem to like LaRouche. Sharpton has a lot of media.

[killbotfactory]

3. He has strong support in Washington state...

so that would explain part of the number.

[Padraig18]

4. DK can't cancel NAFTA by executive order.

NAFTA is a treaty, and the *Senate* would have to alter it. DK cannot rule America by executive order--- it doesn't work that way. :eyes:

[MrSoundAndVision]

7. The President of the United States COULD cancel NAFTA

Through direct political pressure of Congress if necessary. The pres gets what he wants, look at Iraq and ole Gephardt and Kerry's support of it. See?

And also, the Senate can't alter NAFTA, that's WTO illegal.

[Padraig18]

8. I'd like to see the legal references for those statements.

Citations, please?

[MrSoundAndVision]

17. Which statements?

That the president of the U.S. has political power in this country?
- it's not a law, its true

Or that cancelling NAFTA is WTO illegal?
- I read that on Dennis Kucinich's website, http://www.kucinich.com
maybe you should go there and see if you can find those citations you looking for. While you're there, read some of the other things posted there.

[Padraig18]

38. These

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=108&topic_id=70909&mesg_id=70941&page=

It has to be a codified law, part of the United States Code. What is the legal citation?

[MrSoundAndVision]

41. No citations needed I think...

for the president to pick up the phone and use his political sway as the executive officer of our government. No, I don't think it's written anywhere that the president has political power per se. But he does. See?

[Padraig18]

60. No, I don't see.

Treaties are laws; as such, they are found in the US Code. Any opt out provision would likewise be contained in that same Code Chapter/section. I want to see the legal basis for the claim by the Kucinich campaign that the President has the power to do what DK says he will do, if elected.

I've repeatedly heard that claim, but no one has ever cited me the legal authority to back it up.

[plurality]

10. there's a clause in the treaty that says...

any party can cancel the treaty with 6 months notice, same as how Bush cancelled the ABM treaty.

[diamondsoul]

11. Wrong, Padraig, and it seems to me we've been over this-

before.

The lawsuit Kucinich filed to stop Bush from cancelling US commitment to the Kyoto Treaty proves he can do just that as long as he follows the procedures written into the treaties. All that is required is 6 months notice of intent to withdraw.

[Padraig18]

12. All I asked was for legal references...

... which I have yet to receive. :shrug:

[rdfi-defi]

43. but is getting the usa to end its involvement in these agreement a good

idea? i would say yes.

[diamondsoul]

76. Google search-

ABM treaty or Kyoto treaty lawsuit

You'll see the precident.

[dpbrown]

13. Please reference Bush and ICBM Treaty

These treaties have clauses that allow the President to give notice that the nation is withdrawing, and upon the passing of a certain number of days, the nation has withdrawn.

Bush just did it with the Nuclear Arms Treaty.

Same thing with NAFTA and the WTO. Same clauses. Same possibility for unilateral withdrawal.

But even if the threat of withdrawal is used for leverage to improve those treaties - for Republicans by disallowing suits by corporations against governments, and for Democrats by protecting workers' and environmental rights, then it's still a win.

Kucinich: Better Ideas, Better Candidate - it's just that simple

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[goodhue]

84. treaties

Thanks Dan for making this clear. Why is this so hard so DK-bashers to understand. Presidents can and do cancel treaties. Treaties generally have clause that allow the president to provide notice of withdrawal. A treaty is much like a contract, it can be entered into by the president and needs to be ratified by two-thirds of the senate. But the president can generally withdraw unilaterally as was done by Bush for the nuclear arms treaty.

In NAFTA, the relevant article is article 2205

Article 2205:Withdrawal
A Party may withdraw from this Agreement six months after it provides written notice of withdrawal to the other Parties. If a Party withdraws, the Agreement shall remain in force for the remaining Parties.

http://www.mac.doc.gov/nafta/chapter22.html

So in January 2005 President Kucinich can and would provide notice of withdrawal and the US would be NAFTA free come June 2005. Yes, it is that simple. The media and most opinion holders think otherwise but they are misinformed and in mass denial as usual.

[snoochie]

90. Call me paranoid, but I think there's another reason for that.

"The media and most opinion holders think otherwise but they are misinformed and in mass denial as usual."

Could these people really be that uninformed? The average American sure; pundits and opinion holders, though????

[gottaB]

94. Thanks for the info

eom

[Mairead]

32. DK can invoke the get-out provisions within the WTO and NAFTA charters

Doing that is within the President's gift.

[no name no slogan]

5. And AOL, too

He's gotten at least $45,000 from AOL, too, according to a thread posted here a week or two ago. It doesn't sound like much, but that's still just one media company. How do think he'd do if we attempted to repeal or change the 1996 Telecomm act, which has consolidated media power among a handful of large companies?

As for subsidizing small business....there's already plenty of "subsidy" out there to be gotten. I started a small business a few years back, and I had no problem finding startup loans and grants. The problem of being a small business is that most of the time you're at the mercy of the BIG BUSINESSES. If you're a small Internet Service Provider, how can you hope to compete with the AOLs and the MSNs of the world?

What small business needs is a fair playing field so they can compete using the same rules. If my opponent is using slave labor from the 3rd world, what chance do I have?


Here's a few more reasons to support DK:

* Kucinich is one of two candidates who was drafted to run for President. After his "An American Prayer" speech to the SoCal ADA, he received a flood of email, letters and phone calls urging him to run for president. After almost a year of prodding, he joined the race in Feb 2003. Compare that to Gov. Dean who set up his "exploratory" committee with funds from a utility in 2001, and spend a good portion of 2002 out of the state he was supposed to be governing (reminds me of Jesse Ventura, yet again).

* Kucinich is the only candidate who is a card-carrying union member. He's not "related" to a union member-- he IS one! Who better to represent the interests of America's workers than a REAL American Worker?

* He's the only candidate in the race who voted AGAINST both the USA PATRIOT Act and the IWR. NOBODY else can make that claim.

* He's stood up to big business interests for the good of the people, even though it cost him his career. He stood up to a big utility company that was trying to buy the city's power company, and lost his job because of it. That same utility grew to be the company that caused the huge blackout that struck the east coast last summer. Not many people realize that.

I've got a ton more, but I've got stuff to do... :toast:

[MrSoundAndVision]

6. Well don't miss my point gentlemen

about the small business subsidization plan. Don't you think manufacturers in this country see that. Don't you think that those manufacturers hear Dennis Kucinich say that he plans on splitting up the farming monopolies in this coutry, and know too that this line of reasoning applies also to them: to the Enron's, telecommunication companies (which explains some of the media slant). Don't you think that international labor issues are IMPORTANT to the future of this world.

I can't just stand by and support a candidate who doesn't have the guts to stand up and fight against the corporations who are ruining people's lives everywhere. What would Thomas Jefferson think of Dean?

[LuminousX]

9. Why the sudden sturm and drang

regarding Dean and Kucinich? Has Kucinich made a recent surge in the polls to make him a tier one contender?

Is this still the remenants of the 'rage' Kucinich had regarding Dean's ads?

In a way I really feel like people are talking like historians looking at the American Revolutionary War who keep claiming the British should have won: "The British had a better trained army, a stronger navy, better positions, more man power, better supply lines...." all the while failing to realize the British lost. End of story.

I'm not saying Kucinich has lost, he is still in the race, but hopefully he is smart enough to realize he isn't going to become president and had better start staking out a position that allows him to mandate a few things from the candidate who gets the nomination. The issues he supports cannot die because he fails to become nominated. He owes it to himself and his supporters (and to us nominal supporters) to make sure some part of his agenda gets enacted in the next five years.

Maybe he needs to stake out a position as Labor Secretary or some other cabinent position so his talent and resources aren't lost to us.

[MrSoundAndVision]

14. well I'm not laying down

Very personally and not at all with the air of an historian, this country was not founded on principles of political compromise, it was founded on political action. Kucinich is a LEADER not an ISSUE. By being at the debates, and not being deferential and overly polite and respectful, he is trying to get these fools to agree to some substantive issues. We don't need an issue man leading this country, we need someone who intuitively knows what the right thing to do is.

I absolutely disagree, Kucinich owes it to this country to do every thing he can to WIN, not just sway Dean because the media picked him and that's it.

[LuminousX]

15. Then why isn't he winning?

[MrSoundAndVision]

21. Because of people like you, and that's why I'm here

I think that most Americans would LOVE IT if Dennis Kucinich were elected, except for those hateful people who always want it there way. I don't necessarily want to offend anyone, but I think that a large part of why Kucinich isn't "winning" is that Dean got such an early start, and that many of his supporters, having election fever as I did, are too embarassed to switch: they would look like flakes. All I'm asking, is that when you're in the booth, vote DK.

[Cha]

24. I would "switch" in a New York second if I found

someone better than Dean. And I wouldn't be "embarrassed" as you so inaccurately put it. And when I'm in the "booth" I will be voting for Dean! And Proud of it!

[MrSoundAndVision]

28. Be proud to vote for Dean then

I wasn't attacking you. I'm just saying that DK is the best candidate, and that voters aren't very likely to switch once they selected their candidate.

[LuminousX]

SelectSmart

I took the selectsmart quiz a long time ago. It told me that Kucinich is the person I should support followed by Dean, Kerry, and Gephardt.

I was already pretty familiar with Kerry's history but totally clueless about Dean and Kucinich, so I rolled up my sleeves and started reading about the two. It didn't take but a day for me to favor Dean because everything about Dean was pragmatic. Kucinich is an idealists.

So Kucinch isn't winning because of me and people like me. How is he going to win my support? He is failing to do so and when he misses great opportunities to lay the smack down on Dean (or any other candidate) he doesn't. He is not 'Alpha Male' material in comparison to Dean, Kerry, and Gephardt.

[MrSoundAndVision]

30. oh you made me want to say something vile

Alpha male huh? Do they make your ***** tickle a little?

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, i know I'm rude and vile. No, Kucinch has ideas not Axioms. And that's a good thing.

[LuminousX]

34. Alpha Male

You could help it if you truly wanted to.

Every elected official is an 'alpha male' to a point. The issue is which is more 'alpha' than the other. Essentially in a moment of crisis you have these guys in a room, which one would you listen to first.

Kucinich doesn't come close to being at the top. He's the guy I consult with in a non-crisis situation. He's the guy I know I can always count on to have a solid morally superior answer. He isn't the guy I trust to motivate a room full of scared people and kick their asses into action.

Sorry. That is my opinion and why I can't support Kucinich for President, but why I desperately want him to play a role in our government in the next 5 years. I'm a pragmatist. He isn't even in the top four of any major poll in the first few states holding primaries. He needs to change tactics immediately.

[MrSoundAndVision]

39. well I was just being funny

And the alpha male thing is completely untrue.

You see, I don't want to support a candidate that gets us into those crisis situations where we need to kick ass and whatnot (have you been watching the West Wing or something?). No, Dennis would sit down and solve problems, not bark orders or whatever it is you think the president does all day.

As for terrorists, I think that they might find that they no longer have a juggernaut capitalist enemy who is stealing their resources and labor for pennies a day. Maybe we wouldn't be such an enemy if we had a president who understands the pitfalls of the profit system, especially in the international community.

I don't want a general to run this country, I want a patriot.

[Mairead]

89. Do you really think there's going to come a time

when whoever's in the WH is going to have to 'motivate a room full of scared people and kick their asses into action'? And if you do, shouldn't you be worried about what he'll motivate them to do?

[Padraig18]

16. This country *was* founded on political compromise.

The Constitution is a HUGE amalgam of compromises.

[MrSoundAndVision]

19. okay that's not what I meant

I was hot and bothered. This country was founded on this: that people are governed best when THEY PICK THIER OWN LEADERS. Not some trendy wanna-be a writer career journalist with a BMW.

[Padraig18]

20. I agree.

And I see no evidence that Democrats are not going to do just that.

[LuminousX]

22. How are people NOT picking their own leaders?

A post further down points out that Kucinich and Dean have democratized campaign funding. They are both less reliant upon the super rich than any other candidate before them.

Dean gets criticized because he gets media attention. I still maintain Dean's media attention comes from doing things that gets the attention: attacking Bush at the time Gephardt was cozying up to Bush, breaking fundraising records, innovative campaigning, and fundamentally giving the press an interesting story to write about.

[MrSoundAndVision]

23. Yeah right, as if his anti war stance is COOLER or BETTER

than DK's. I'm sorry, Dean's isn't the one who stood by and fought in Congress when the Democrat's there let all of this mess in Iraq happen. Yeah, he had his mouth. But actions speak louder than words, and apparently the media isn't impressed that Kucinich stood up to the Democratic leadership.

[Padraig18]

25. Two points

One, Dean wasn't in Congress, so he did what he was able to do as a private citizen--- and did so loudly and publicly. Two, it is entirely possible that the media don't care for DK for reasons having *nothing whatsoever* to do with his stance on the Iraq war.

[MrSoundAndVision]

27. that's my point

That the media ABSOLUTELY has other reasons not to like Kucinich as well as Dean. The fact that Kucinich's active opposition to the war isn't as noteworthy as Dean saying he was against the war (which is action too, i know) only proves my point that the media has other motives for not paying attention to Kucinich: probably because they fear their jobs!

The media is an industry, and industry leaders worldwide would know that they no longer run this world if DK were elected.

[LuminousX]

29. So Kucinich is going to get elected how?

You are telling us that he doesn't know how to play the game. I guess that is the other element of Kucinich I dislike... part of his idealist nature is he doesn't fundamentally understand what it takes to get his message out to people.

[MrSoundAndVision]

31. I thought speech and literature were how people convey ideas

Is there something magic that Dean does or something? Mind control? Tell me, what is his magic method of getting his message out?

I'll tell you, it's that the media DOES IT FOR FREE for him, and NOT ANYONE ELSE.

[LuminousX]

33. Media

you are correct. But you then told us the Kucinich has made the media industry afraid of him. Kucinich threatens the livlihood of the mediatypes. So what incentive do they have to carry his message far and wide?

Dean provides the media with a fascinating narrative: if he wins, it is a great story about the liberal governor from Vermont overcoming great odds. If he loses it is about how even a well funded nifty campaign couldn't overcome Bush. Either way it is a great story. Kucinich is expected to lose. There is no story in his loss.

So I reask the question: after Kucinich has caused the media to hate him, how did he expect his message to be brought to the people?

[MrSoundAndVision]

35. From people like me

His strategy is completely grass roots: he encourages his supporters to write letters to the editor of paper, hand out literature, chat on websites, etc. He knew that the media was not going to support him when they so feverishly supported the war themselves. You should check out

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" at http://www.kucinich.us

That's how. I think actually that it is a very remarkable story of how Kucinich will win. I think it is remarkable that Kucinich has as much support as he does (being the most agreeable to the crowds at the debates, etc.) given that he is only given about 4 minutes our of 90 at the debates, just his stands on the issues carry him that far. He doesn't need 60 minutes, and thank god, cause he ain't getting it that's for sure.

Good discussion i think, be back later.

[MrSoundAndVision]

37. Oops...that's

60 minutes the show on cable TV, not at the debates, just to be clear. Dean got an appearance on 60 minutes, I think, and I'm sure he didn't have to pay for that exposure.

Don't you want healthcare for all? Isn't that a good thing? Think about it. Free college, no war, etc. Be back later.

[LuminousX]

44. Healthcare for all, Free College

and a cherry pie on every Tuesday. Yeah, I want a lot. I don't want to have a weakened military to get it.

It is about balancing. Kucinich wants to pull out of Iraq immediately. He obviously is not a student of history to know what kind of disaster that will cause on a humanitarian level and on a political level. Who will fill the gap? Syria, Iran? Geez, sounds delightful. He has the idealist vision of 'just get out of there and things will go back to normal.' They won't. They will be worse. We now have a responsibility to put humpty-dumpty back together again.

Kucinich wants to repeal NAFTA. Bad idea. NAFTA is exactly the leverage we need to get trade unions into Mexico and boost their standard of living to slow the illegal immigration.

Yeah, how did Dean get his 60 minutes interview? Has Kucinich gone to CBS and said, "I want to be interviewed?" Yes? Then he needs to get a different campaign manager because his current one is doing a piss-poor job in selling him.

[rdfi-defi]

46. "nafta is exactly the leverage we need to get trade unions into mexico

and boost their standard of living to slow the illegal immigration" i disagree with you on two points here. one is that nafta and other trade agreements of its kind increase union membership/strength, go to just about any manufacturing town in america and ask thoes union members if nafta helped them and their union. my guess is that you will a very angry response ala "roger and me." if itdoesn't help here why would it help there. the second thing is the slowing of illegal immigration. if you mean illegal imigration will slow because nafta will lower the standard of living provided by american jobs. you are correct, who wants to starve to death in a far away land when you can starve to death at home surrounded by friends and family and cultue. but if you are infering that their standard of living will increase to the same level as current american standards because of nafta you are mistaken. there are ever growing signs that people in mexico and south america don't want deregulation and capital flight because it hurts working/poor people and underminds democracy.

[LuminousX]

48. Convince me otherwise

If you can put together an argument on how life will be better without NAFTA and make it understandable to average America, then Kucinich stands a chance of winning me over on this point.

I'm a big Free and Fair Trade person. How is Kucinich going to get my vote?

[redqueen]

52. Lucky for me I'm in Texas!

Did I just say that?!!!! ;)

Seriously, though... ending NAFTA and the WTO are part of the Republican state party platform here!

I don't think it'll be hard to convince a solid majority these deals are not 'deals' at all but tools used to drive wages down and drive profits up.

[rdfi-defi]

53. look the burden of proof is on athority to state how its policies benafit

the people. but i will humor you and provide you with a couple of simple points. first, by repealing nafta you will stop the mass exodus of manufaturing and other jobs from the united states. that will improve life in the us. second when the state of mexico can put legal tariffs on crops imported by american agro buisness it will alow native farmers to grow food for consumption and domestic sale at a price that will alow them to actualy survive. there are two simple points for you, i will be expecting your vote for the most democratic candidate (kucinich) in the primary.

[LuminousX]

55. Actual burden of proof is on the one who wants to change the status quo

We've been under NAFTA for awhile. It is less than perfect, but it is a foundation to build from.

[rdfi-defi]

57. what no real response

i'm so shocked. you make anti-democratic statements and then defend them with "it is less than perfect, but it is a foundation to build from" foundation for what? uneven distribution of wealth, starvation, facism? contribute to the debate like you told another poster on this thread.

[LuminousX]

58. That was a debate contribution

since you felt it didn't enrich the discussion, I shall leave this thread.

[hippywife]

81. We attended a lecture

that brought Mexican women from Chiapas here to speak. NAFTA has done nothing but make their lives worse. For one thing, once NAFTA became a reality, the wealthy in Mexico moved to renege on a 70 year agreement to return lands to the indiginous peoples. The result has been that they now no longer have the land they needed to grow food for their own sustanance and it has forced their men to go away to other places like the U.S. itself or larger Mexican cities where American companies can pay them much less than their American counterparts for the same work.

These women are trying to survive by teaching the children at a very young age to weave textiles so that every hand in their villages, no matter how young, is put to work. They have formed co-ops to sell their woven goods but payment takes 6 months or more to get to them.

They can't grow corn or coffee and import it here or even sell much of it in their own country. The system of subsidies and tariffs that favor American industry and agri-monopolies make it cheaper for the people of Mexico to buy imported American corn than that grown by their own countrymen.

The Chapter 11 provision is possibly the most obscene of all. If any industry from any of the participating countries chooses a region in one of the other participating countries, and the people protest to keep them out because they would pollute their envirnoment or for whatever reason the people actually living in the area don't want them there, the company can then sue that country for profits they would have made had they been able to take advantage of their resources and their cheap labor. This is when the people are allowed to protest at all since it is common for the military in areas like Chiapas to stifle any dissent at all.

This has been so successful for the captains of industry in all the participating countries that they want to extend it even farther with the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) which would then effect all of Central and South America.

So, ask any immigrant if they prefer leaving their families behind and coming here to do back-breaking labor that no American worker would even consider or would they rather be toiling for their own existance on their own land, in their own country if trade was actually fair. There's not doubt that legal and illegal immigration is favorable to the corporate bottom line. People who have nothing to lose are willing to work hard for little in the way of wages and nothing in the way of benefits and fair treatment. They can't get away with that in the American labor force, or they couldn't until the Dems ditched their progressive ideals and started rolling over on these issues.

It isn't just America that loses jobs due to NAFTA. Indiginous peoples lose their land and their very livelihood.

http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/
http://lasolidarity.org/

[snoochie]

86. Thanks for posting this, hippywife.

I think this should get its own topic, since obviously some people on this forum think NAFTA just needs some tweaking to be A-OK.

I have seen news on this situation on Link TV and the colonias in the border towns where manufacturers moved their plants are filled with disgusting, unsanitary shantytowns where the workers live.

NAFTA is a scam and it has to go.

[MrSoundAndVision]

50. No actually you are quite wrong there

On Iraq:
'The U.N. in, and the U.S. out', you see, you forgot the first part of one of Kucinich's main campaign slogans. But I forgive you. You see, the U.N. represents the interests of the international community, not just Lockeed-Martin, Boeing, Halliburton, and the conservative right wing. The U.N. alone will bring legitimacy to the Iraq situation, and we should pay for it out of our pockets books, because we are responsible for that mess.

On NAFTA:
NAFTA eliminates tariffs and restricts the leverage of our government to mandate standards that weren't already in place at it's inception. And UNIONS were NOT in place. So Kucinich pulls out of NAFTA and says, you allow unions and pay a decent legally mandated wage, and THEN we will do business. No, NAFTA is assurance to industry that it is going to take destroying a trade agreement to improve labor and environmental standards in developing and third world countries. NAFTA prescribes that there will be no negotiating. And that's why it must be repealled NOW.

[LuminousX]

54. tsk tsk

On Iraq:
'The U.N. in, and the U.S. out'

Uhmmm, how? Who is paying for it? What incentive do other nations have to clean up the mess we created?


On NAFTA:


As I said to another poster, show me, convince me, and you have something. Telling me we are going to pull out of NAFTA and you immediately lose my vote.

[MrSoundAndVision]

61. RESPONSE

On Iraq: We pay for it, and incentive the world community has is that that it further legitimizes the U.N., which is in their interest, and that by further legitimizing the U.N., at our monetary expense, it shows the international community that preemptime strikes based on corporate interests and LIES won't happen again here. It says: we learned our lesson. Iraq is hell now, and there are people who wouldn't even want the U.N. to be there even in a humanitarian sense. But that is what an Iraqi government is for. It is in the interest of ALL the world to fix this mess: the U.S. leadership, Iraq, Isreal, and the reason the U.N. doesn't step in is because of our veto power and influence. Kucinich would correct things, it goes much futher than the slogan.

On NAFTA: I want to convince you and thought I had previously laid out my case. I guess I don't know what you mean. NAFTA prevents our government from negotiating labor and environmental standards in Mexico. Got it>?

[MercutioATC]

72. Didn't Kucinich turn DOWN a MTP interview?

You can't blame the media if the candidate refuses press.....

[Padraig18]

77. Didn't he also turn down a 'Hardball" interview?

I have to agree that when you turn down free air time, and then bitch about not getting air time, there's a definite disconnect somewhere... :shrug:

[MercutioATC]

78. Maybe I was thinking of "Hardball", not MTP...

I only heard of one he refused to do.

[LuminousX]

79. Must Be

Kucinich was on Meet the Press February of this year.

As for Hardball:
http://politicalwire.com/archives/003305.html
Rep. Dennis Kucinich "has mystified political observers once again," the Harvard Crimson reports. "In a move that will likely further his reputation as an eccentric, the dark horse presidential hopeful has chosen to boycott Hardball: Battle for the White House, a Harvard-based series of candidate interviews, charging that the series is irreparably tainted by host Chris Matthews’ conservative agenda."

I mentioned this in another thread, about the hooks or tags that get assigned to a person while campaigning. It is better if the campaign gets the ones they want into the press first and they need to be adjectives that people find favorable in a leader. Eccentric is not one of the, but that is how it looks.

I also mentioned that Kucinich needs to rally his resources for his cause and issues, essentially to play out his endgame. FREE MEDIA is VITAL to any endgame. So instead of being able to make some news on Hardball, mix it up with the crowd, demonstrate to a vast audience he is viable, he declines and his supporters claim he isn't getting media attention.

Sorry, you don't get to choose when the media has you in focus, but when they do you have to make the most of it.

[Mairead]

80. Shouldn't you have to support this statement?

NAFTA is exactly the leverage we need to get trade unions into Mexico and boost their standard of living to slow the illegal immigration.

Because as far as I can tell, it's exactly the opposite of the leverage needed. The WTO, under which NAFTA falls, totally overrides in the interests of 'trade' (read: elite profits) national and local law. So, since it should be completely understood by now that business resists unionisation, and business is in charge of WTO dispute resolution, exactly how is NAFTA going to provide the leverage you assert?

(Small anecdote: when I heard Clinton touting NAFTA, I 'somehow' got the idea that it dropped trade barriers for everyone wanting to trade. So I ordered a small appliance from a Canadian company. It was defective, but I couldn't return it because all the rigamarole was still in place. When I protested that NAFTA had ended all that, I was told that the barriers had dropped only for big corporations, not for actual people. Ohhhhhhh. How silly of me at my age to have expected anything else.)

[snoochie]

85. I agree Mairead

Seems to based on empirical evidence you can pretty much tell NAFTA is the opposite of what we need. Too much room there for the process to be corrupted by big corporate interests. They've had years, and improved it how much? How much better off are we, and other workers? Admit it, it's a failure. A sham for multinationals to get windfall profits off workers' and consumers' backs.

[rdfi-defi]

40. "how to play the game"

you see that is the thing that gets me, and most kucinich supporters i would guess, democracy is not a game people, it is what controls our very lives. by supporting dk we are trying to end "the game" through things like campaign finance reform. dean likes to say that "you have the power" but if we play "the game" of american politics as it stands today "the people" will loose the power and a whole lot more. "the game" is anti democratic, help the citizens of the usa to truly "have the power to take back washington," support dennis kucinich or urge the canidate of your choice to end "the game" through real reform that will have a positive impact on our country

[MrSoundAndVision]

42. Absolutely

Well put.

[LuminousX]

45. But it is

Failing to realize that means you waste a lot of resources in the wrong places.

[no name no slogan]

63. He doesn't play "the political game"

If you think that selecting a candidate to run our country is a game, that's your opinion.

However, I know of many Democrats, Republicans and a vast number of non-voters who are sick of the political "games" that get played every election. There's no way in hell they'll vote for another "player" like most of the Dem canddates.

IMHO, Dean is not much different from the other candidates: he still plays the same tired political "game" that has led to record voter apathy, a system where a candidate's value is equated to how much money he can shake down from supporters, and two political parties who seem to be playing a game of who can kiss the most corporate ass.

Kucinich is different from the others-- he refuses to play the media game (like refusing to go on Tweety's slag-fest) and to do things "under the radar" in such a way that the media has no problems trivializing him. He's not "cute", he's not soundbite-friendly. However, he is HONEST, and will FIGHT for US against the oligarchs who would run this country.

[Padraig18]

64. Well, if he plans on winning...

... he'd better start playing the game, because he's gonna be a footnote in political history if he continues to do what he's doing.

[redqueen]

65. So he should start kissing corporate ass

to get some coverage?

:crazy:

[Padraig18]

66. If he plans on winning...

... he'd better do something different, because his numbers are about as bad as they can be. If he continues to do what he's doing, he will be a footnote in political history.

I'm not gonna tell him what to do--- that's his choice.

[redqueen]

67. Sure. Okily dokily.

You go ahead and follow the anointed one.

He's more better at making nice nice with big biz. Be proud!

[Padraig18]

68. I am.

And you and Dennis keep right on holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya'...

[Duder]

18. Dean, Kucinich Democratize Fundraising

Seems to me the only "opportunist" would be some Kucinich supporter in this case:

<...>

'Dean and Kucinich have managed to become less reliant on the superrich, which should make them more responsive to the needs of ordinary people.

And they have also managed to ignite the grassroots, giving vast numbers of people a sense of empowerment in the process of nominating a Presidential candidate, a process that usually is reserved for the handlers and the pollsters and the $2,000-a-platers.

How a candidate raises money tells us a lot about who the candidate is. In this primary, Dean and Kucinich are neck and neck.'

http://www.progressive.org/webex03/wx101703.html

[MrSoundAndVision]

26. sure I'm an opportunist

But I'm not claiming to represent you.

[Mairead]

36. What a pity that the biggest change Dean seems to favor is

grassroots fundraising. He's getting money from working people to fund his campaign, but his policies are all for the status quo of taking money from our pockets (via the war, healthcare, and drugwar/prison industries) and putting it into the pockets of the wealthy elites.

So what we have is a guy who's bamboozled working people into giving him money so that he can be elected and take care of the wealthy elites rather than the people who paid his freight.

Such a deal.

[genius]

47. That's all true. Also Dennis tells the truth and Dean's whole campaign

is a lie.

[LuminousX]

49. Wow, nice generalization, thanks for enriching the debate

[MrSoundAndVision]

51. That was entirely UNCALLED for...

No I think Dean is a pretty good man, I'll say that. And also before I heard Kucinich speak and his platform, I supported Dean, I watched his videos and got fired up because we are going to take this country back, or else I fear.

But Dean's campaign isn't a lie. I just don't think he has as much integrity as DK. I think he thinks it would awesome if he were president. And I think Kucinich thinks it would be awesome if we could change the world. I want to change the world so...

So keep your broad, angry, useless generalizations to yourself. I'm sure the Kucnich campaign would want it that way.

[Cha]

56. Dean wants us all to help in taking our

Country Back. And it would be "Awesome" if we were all in it together. We are the ones with the "Power"!

[no name no slogan]

73. Gephardt wanted to "take our country back" in 1988...

...so did Brown in 1992.

"Take our country back" is just another tired political slogan used by Joe Trippi to play on the anger of the "dispossesed" upper-middle-class who have started to feel the pain the poor folk have been feeling since the 1970s.

If Dean "takes our country back", who will he give it to? The same corporations who bidding he did in VT, following the same tired scheme that Clinton used to win two pyrriac (sp?) victories in the 1990s?

No way. The big-money interests can look out for THEMSELVES. I want a candidate who'll look out for EVERYBODY, not just whoever is paying his bills. Kucinich is the one who will do that. He's the one who's willing to work for REAL, MEANINGFUL change. Most of the others are just for more of the same-ol', same-ol' that got this country into the mess its in.

[NNadir]

59. And here's some of why Kucinich is not a better candidate...

He'll lose.

Here's why Dean is a better candidate than Kucinich:

He'll win.

If Nafta and WTO were the most important issues in the universe for Americans, Ralph Nader would be President.

Last I looked, Nader was doing Republican shilling on CNN. Otherwise he's nowhere.

[MrSoundAndVision]

62. Kucinich can and will win

It just takes believing it. Think about this:

Who would be the candidate to best put it to the Bush administration and the right wing and corporations and all of the idealogues in the media? Kucinich of course! The media now only gives Kucinich 8 minutes a month or so to convince people like you that he is the answer for this country: health care for all, an intelligible environmental policy, a Department of Peace! Not just NAFTA silly boy. Just imagine, Kucinich in three 90 minute, nationally televised presidential debates with GWBUSH! Bush wouldn't even show up for round 2.

Kucinich can win, we just have to choose which America we want to live in, Howard Dean's America, where the government is vague about trade practices and demands a budget without saying how and which programs will be cut (not military I suppose, since that hasn't even been mentioned by anyone Kucinich). And an America that has a program to "help" people get "better" healthcare and yet leaves the profit system in place so that the peoples of Africa give American pharmaceutical companies there future because someone in there family has AIDS. I see this view of America with some contempt. A Dean America isn't a BAD America, it's just not the BEST America.

In Kucinich's America everyone has health care. Everyone has free college opportunities. The Department of Peace will be in place to genuinely teach the ignorant and DVD addicted people of this country that violence IS NEVER the answer. That's the future I want, and you should too, because it's a great America.

So just saying he can't win doesn't make it so. This is my future and I'm not gonna just lay down and agree with the media on the best future of this country. They certainly didn't choose correctly a year ago when they primed us for war.

[no name no slogan]

71. What a well-reasoned and thorough response!

When in doubt, crack stupid one-liners. BRILLIANT!

:eyes:

[Mairead]

82. Check your facts

And no, your unsupported opinion and groundlessly hostile spin doesn't qualify as fact.

[dfgrbac]

91. Americans don't understand NAFTA, WTO, etc.

No wonder they are not big issues. Any candidate who educates the people on the real issues in this campaign can and will win. I think Dennis has the capability, but he cannot do it alone. He needs as much help from his supporters as he can get, not just financially, but in telling your friends about him and his solutions on the issues.

The other side, and I mean the corporate side who control this country, will do everything to keep Dennis Kucinich's words from getting out. They will do all they can to stop him. The KUCINICH.COM website is an example of this dedicated effort to stop him. The crooks know the game is up if Dennis gets elected!

[Speck Tater]

70. If Kucinich were the best candidate...

... then a lot more people would be impressed by him.
Since most of the voters are apparently not impressed he doesn't have the support to get into the White House, and if he were magically teleported into the White House right now he wouldn't have the support to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.

Part of the measure of a good political leader is his ability to inspire a large body of followers. Kucinich is not passing that crucial test. It doesn't matter that he has better policies and takes better stands on the issues. If that one crucial component of leadership is missing he can't get to be the POTUS.

Sad but true. It's time for him to do a reality check and throw in the towel. He has failed one of the vital entrance examinations, so it doesn't matter what his score is on the other tests. You don't get your diploma if you got A's in every class, but failed geometry. Get passing grades in every course or tough luck.

[no name no slogan]

74. Um, most people haven't even HEARD of him....YET

Dean's name recognition in NH is something around 90%, and he's polling around 40%.

Kucinich's name recognition is under 5%, and he's polling around 2%.

This game is FAR from over. There's still A LOT of time and undecideds for a 9-candidate race.

Nobody thought Jesse Jackson would finish in the top 3 in Iowa in 1988. But he did. Kucinich is waging the SAME type of campaign, using MANY of the same people and hitting the SAME issues. The only difference is that Dennis has government EXPERIENCE.

And, if he has so "little" support, how do you explain his MeetUp numbers? For being a relative unknown, he sure has a lot of volunteers. Many of them are either "lapsed" Dems or those who have never voted Democratic before-- precisely the ones the major polls COMPLETELY IGNORE when they do their polling.

This this is far from over. There's still plenty of room for suprises. Just wait and see.

[MrSoundAndVision]

75. I think people are absolutely impressed with him

Any I think it's very narrow minded for you to think otherwise (that is, I assume, at least, you heard the debates. You see, I've said it at least 10 times here and I'll say it again: Kucinich doesn't have the support of the media, Dean does.

And you absolutely should pick the candidate with the best stance on the issues and the most integrity, that's the whole point.

I wish we had a paper trail to the guy who has thought up the best weapon against Kucinich: that he somehow can't win against Bush, I mean, the guy is boiling over with Democratic progressive principles, and all I hear here is that with the choice of Kucinich or Bush, it's Bush! What a Republican thing to say. I'll wager it started on Fox News.

[Mairead]

83. If the playing field had been level from the off, you would have a case

But as has been pointed out elsewhere, Dean got 10 times the press Dennis did from the NYT although at the time Dean and Dennis were even in the polls (this was right after Dennis entered, though Dean had been on the stump for nigh onto a year). After which, mirabile dictu, Dean pulled ahead in the polls, justifying even more press.

Amazing how that works.

[snoochie]

87. Is this like that "Catch 22" thing posted in another thread? n/t

[Mairead]

88. I don't think so, Snoochie

But the site pointed to by the one I'm thinking of is http://www.politicsus.com/presidential%20press%20releases/Kucinich/102903.htm

[dfgrbac]

92. Americans need to learn to think.

They should not look for inspiration from a candidate by his/her charisma - which I think is what you are talking about. Charisma is irrelevent, ideas are relavent. We should look for inspiration through ideas, and Dennis has the best! In reality, I know charisma attracts attention. You start to see Dennis's charisma when you listen to what he has to say, and begin to realize he is saying something of substance. Try that with anyone else. The others are experts at saying just enough to attract your attention with no real substance to their statements, as they then say something else to keep your attention. It is a mind game!

[Mairead]

93. Right on!

Well said.