By Michael O’McCarthy
From Ed Pearl
I am so annoyed that so many of my friends tell me that Kucinich has
the best position on issue after issue, but they are still going to
support
one of the other candidates because Kucinich cannot win. This is
basically conceding our elections to corporate controlled media and/or
corrupt electoral processes.
Bush has been pretty bad. Some of the Republicans running look at
least as
bad, plus they are probably smarter, a bad combination. None-the-less,
what
do we have to lose in the primary by supporting Kucinich? I know
Clinton is
bad, but are any of of the Corporate favorites any better? I don’t
really
think so. It appears to me that the “goodness” of the candidates is
inversely related to corporate media approval. The more their
positions
reflect the popular opinion, say bring the troops home ASAP, the more
the
media belittles their chances. What kind of Democracy do we have here?
Personally, I think Kucinich would have a better chance of knocking off
the
Republican candidates than would any of the other so-called Democrats
in the primary. Of course there isn’t much point in speculating on
that if
Kucinich’s supporters aren’t willing to vote for him in the primary!!
If you cannot bring yourself to campaign for him, or even to vote for
him,
at least send his campaign $50 so he can stay in the running and, to
some extent, keep the others honest!
“Kucinich for President”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18790.htm
Gore Vidal : Dennis Kucinich
The Nation 11/28/07
For the past two years I’ve been crisscrossing the United States
speaking to
crowds of people about our history and politics. At the same time,
would-be
Presidents of the greatest nation in the country, as silver-tongued
Spiro
Agnew used to say, have been crowding the trail, while TV journalists
sadly
shake their heads at how savage the politicos have become in their
language.
But then, it is the task of TV journalists to foment quarrels where
often
none properly exist.
As I pass through the stage door of one auditorium after another, I now
hear
the ominous name of Darth Vader, as edgy audiences shudder at the
horrible
direction our political discourse has taken. Ever eager as I am to shed
light, I sometimes drop the name of the least publicized applicant to
the
creaky throne of the West: Dennis Kucinich. It takes a moment for the
name
to sink in. Then genuine applause begins. He is very much a favorite
out
there in the amber fields of grain, and I work him into the text. A
member
of the House of Representatives for five terms since 1997, although
many of
his legislative measures have been too useful and original for our
brain-dead media to comprehend. I note his well-wrought articles
proposing
the impeachment of Vice President Cheney, testing the patriotic nerves
of
his fellow Democrats, but then the fact of his useful existence often
causes
distress to those who genuinely hate that democracy he is so eager to
extend. “Don’t waste your vote,” they whine in unison–as if our votes
are
not quadrennially wasted on those marvelous occasions when they are
actually
counted and recorded.
Meanwhile, Kucinich is now at least visible in lineups of the
Democratic
candidates; he tends to be the most eloquent of the lot. So who is he?
Something of a political prodigy: at 31 he was elected mayor of
Cleveland.
Once he had been installed, in 1978, the city’s lordly banks wanted the
new
mayor to sell off the city’s municipally owned electric system, Muny
Light,
to a private competitor in which (Oh, America!) the banks had a
financial
interest. When Mayor Kucinich refused to sell, the money lords took
their
revenge, as they are wont to do: they refused to roll over the city’s
debt,
pushing the city into default. The ensuing crisis revealed the banks’
criminal involvement with the private utility of their choice, CEI,
which,
had it acquired Muny Light, would have become a monopoly, as five of
the six
lordly banks had almost 1.8 million shares of CEI stock: this is
Enronesque
before the fact.
Mayor Kucinich was not re-elected, but his profile was clearly etched
on the
consciousness of his city; and in due course he returned to the
Cleveland
City Council before being elected to the Ohio State Senate and then the
US
Congress. Kucinich has also written a description of his Dickensian
youth,
growing up in Cleveland. He has firsthand knowledge of urban poverty in
the
world’s richest nation. Born in 1946 into a Croatian Catholic family,
by the
time he was 17 he and his family had lived in twenty-one different
places,
much of which he describes in Dreiserian detail in a just-published
memoir.
Kucinich is opposed to the death penalty as well as the USA Patriot
Act. In
1998 and 2004 he was a US delegate to the United Nations convention on
climate change. At home he has been active in Rust Belt affairs,
working to
preserve the ninety-year-old Cleveland steel industry, a task of the
sort
that will confront the next President should he or she have sufficient
interest in these details.
I asked a dedicated liberal his impression of Kucinich; he wondered if
Kucinich was too slight to lead a nation of truly fat folk. I pointed
out
that he has the same physical stature as James Madison, as well as a
Madisonian commitment to our 1789 Constitution; he is also farsighted,
as
demonstrated by his resolute opposition to Bush’s cries for ever more
funding for the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More to the
point, in
October 2002 he opposed the notion of a war then being debated. For
those of
us at home and in harm’s way from disease, he co-wrote HR 676, a bill
that
would insure all of us within Medicare, just as if we were citizens of
a
truly civilized nation.
***
Gore Vidal and Dennis Kucinich
Sunday, December 9, 2007
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Join
Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich,
Gore Vidal
And a host of celebrities & supporters
At the home of Jerry Manpearl & Jan Goodman
Santa Monica , CA. 90402
Donation: $125.00 per person & $200.00 for two
Space is Limited, RSVP Required: (310) 458-7213
or jansorders@gmail.com
HOST COMMITTEE
In Formation
Aki Aleong, Aris Anagnos, Lila Garrett, Jan Goodman, Louis Gossett Jr.,
Hon.
David Finkle, Jim & Channa Horwitz, Earl Katz, Mimi Kennedy, Julie
Lopez
Dad, Jerry Manpearl, Michelle Phillips, Hon. Bill Rosendahl, Stanley
Sheinbaum, Bree Walker, Gore Vidal and many others
Event producer: Ilene Proctor
—
Unconsciously, Many favor Kucinich
By MARC HANSEN
Des Moines Register: October 23, 2007
Don’t panic, but there’s a chance you aren’t supporting the
presidential
candidate you most agree with on the issues.
As we stumble toward the primary/caucus season, millions of voters (or
at
least dozens) are going online and taking surveys that match them with
candidates. And they’re not automatically matching up with their
favorite
candidates. This happened four years ago when the Democrats were
trying to
figure out how to beat George Bush. Most of them wanted Kerry or
Edwards or
Dean.
But surprise, surprise. When they punched in their select-a-candidate
surveys, Kucinich’s name kept blinking back at them on the computer
screen.
That’s the Dennis Kucinich whose poll numbers were below sea level, the
Kucinich nobody took seriously, the Kucinich who never had a chance.
Kathleen Ferguson of Des Moines says nothing has changed four years
later.
She found one of those surveys on the Web site of WQAD-TV in the Quad
Cities. She answered the 11 multiple-choice questions and decided how
important each issue was to her.
The topics were Iraq, immigration, tax cuts, stem cell research, health
care, abortion, Social Security, a line-item veto, ethanol, same-sex
marriage and the death penalty. Ferguson clicked “select a candidate,”
and
up popped Kucinich.
She had family members take the test. Kucinich came in first or second.
She
wondered what was going on. A lot of Democrats like what he has to say
on
the issues. Yet only a small percentage like him as their candidate.
“We’re not all that liberal,” Ferguson said. “Several of us are former
Republicans. It’s astonishing to see what we want was labeled too
far-out
liberal.”
A lawyer she knows took the test, and another friend. Kucinich,
Kucinich.
“To paraphrase Kucinich himself,” she said, “we can have a president
who
agrees with us on the issues and will work to institute the policies we
want, or we can have a president who’s tall.”
It can’t be just physical stature, but it’s almost certainly a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Voters might agree completely with a
candidate,
but if they don’t think the candidate has a decent shot, they’ll vote
for
someone else.
Ferguson, a paralegal at the Principal Financial Group, fits that mold.
She
supported Kucinich in 2004. She volunteered for him. But now she’s
trying to
decide between the two front-runners. “I threw away my voice last time
by
supporting somebody who had no support,” she said. “It’s important to
stand
up for your beliefs, but if I’m reasonably certain it’s going to be
Obama or
Clinton, don’t I have the responsibility to decide which is the better
candidate and support that person?”
Ralph Nader, George W. Bush’s best friend in 2004, would say no.
Ferguson gives Kucinich good marks for his debate performances. His
punch
lines get positive audience response. He’s quick on his feet in the
debates. When they asked him about prayer, Kucinich said he was praying
somebody would finally ask him a question.
David Redlawsk, a political science professor at the University of
Iowa,
isn’t surprised by the contradiction. Redlawsk and Rutgers University
professor Richard Lau wrote the book on this subject: “How Voters
Decide:
Information Processing During Election Campaigns.”
Redlawsk says you can’t read too much into these computer-match
programs.
They sometimes oversimplify a candidate’s positions. And even when they
don’t, issues aren’t everything to the average voter.
“That isn’t to say they aren’t useful,” he says. “People who go through
them
learn more about the candidates. But most people don’t make decisions
looking at every issue. They look at a limited set of issues, then they
look
at other things like personality, viability, who’s the best overall
fit.”
Voting on a candidate’s position on issues alone is a little like
dating
through the personal ads. You have to see the prospective suitor up
close.
Focus too much on content at the expense of context and you might miss
the
big picture.
Redlawsk then committed political science blasphemy. He said the voters
with
the most information don’t automatically vote in their best interests
anyway. “People are efficient at taking small amounts of information,”
he
says, “making good decisions with that information and moving on with
their
lives.”
Speaking of small amounts of information, I took the candidate-match
test.
All I’ll say is I like Mike Gravel and Ron Paul a lot more than I
thought.
