Sticker available soon!
I’ve never been very forgiving of Nader voters. I say that not to rile up more argument about Naderites’ role (or lack thereof) in the 2000 elections, but as a disclaimer, since I’m on record as being disappointed in those who support the unelectable at the expense of the simply acceptable, especially when the stakes are as high as they are in Presidential politics. And no, I’m not a blind Democrat supporter, ready to believe that if we just elect our corporate whores they’ll run this country so much better than their corporate whores.
I run this disclaimer because I’m stating my support* for Dennis Kucinich. You know, the unelectable Dennis Kucinich? I voted for him in the 2004 primary, but that’s not real support, not when you’re voting in Oregon, a state which would probably have held the 2004 primary in 2005 if they’d been able to get away with it. No, I’ve always known that Dennis Kucinich would be my preferred D if, in fact, he wasn’t a fringe candidate, only barely more electable than Ralph Nader.
I mean, you know, never mind that in an (unscientific) internet poll,
Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is the first choice of a phenomenal 53% of respondents.
No other candidate, Democrat or Republican, even reaches double digits.
That means that even if the poll is off by 43%**, Kucinich is still the preferred candidate of a plurality of Americans, and more importantly, it means that there’s nothing inherently fringe-y about him. Now, I’m not so naive as to say “Eureka! Here comes President Kucinich!” Things haven’t worked that way since at least 1960 and probably 1860. But damn, if this isn’t an indictment of electoral politics, there is no such thing. For a candidate with that viable a platform to be treated as a joke is a travesty.
…[T]he pundits think Kucinich is a joke, because he doesn’t buy into the “Washington consensus” of greed, corruption, and imperialism. Kucinich takes politics seriously and is genuinely committed to Truth, Justice, and the American Way. He’s Jimmy Stewart for the 21st Century - with a vision for saving humanity from war, genocide, and environmental catastrophe.
In other words, he puts the smug know-it-all punditocracy to shame. And they despise him for it.
So what’s my point? Well, nothing, except I guess I want to share the fact that a light bulb has now gone on above my head, one I didn’t even realize was off - that, far from a metaphysical barrier between Kucinich and the presidency, there’s really only a physical one. Instead of “I wish other people believed in the things Kucinich and I do”, it’s “I wish other people knew that Kucinich believes in the same things they do.”
(There are, I will add, those who have rejected Kucinich based on an informed consideration of his stances, such as his evolving one on choice, and I respect that. I just don’t think that those rejections make up a significant portion of the electorate, and certainly do not represent the motivation of the chattering classes.)
The results of this poll and the attitudes in America it seems to represent may have nothing to do with Kucinich being viable, but they have everything to do with his deserving to be viable, and for me, at least, that’s a huge difference.
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* This message not endorsed by any candidate or candidate’s committee. And I won’t work for any campaign for less than $300,000 a year. Hear that, campaigns? I’m for sale, but it’ll cost you.
** I’m sure there’s a statistical fallacy in that statement, but it’s illustrative nonetheless.
53 Responses to “Fringe no more”
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Gore and Kucinich in ‘08.
I’ve been saying that for weeks now.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve been cheering on Kucinich since I’ve heard of him. And he does have a chance. Hilary, Obama, and Edwards could split the vote.
I love Kucinich! I voted for him in the 2004 primary, and I will do so again.
He’s like the smart kid the other students take out early SOLELY because he might wreck the bell curve and they couldn’t keep half-assing their pathetic selves through the system.
I looooooove Kucinich.
I’ve had that crush for a while now. But I…voted for Nader in 2004. [awaits rotten tomatoes]
He’s certainly my first choice.
If he gets the Dem nom, I’ll vote for him. Am registered as Independant, so no primaries for me.
I have had roughly the same thought process regarding Kucinich and have pretty much come to the conclusion that he’s MY candidate. I don’t need paid to work his campaign though.
I think that this primary with a multi-way horserace is the friendliest that the Dems have been towards the left in a long time. This is a far cry from the 2000 campaign when the federal government treated labor and environmentalists as terrorists at Philly and L.A..
louise @ 7:56
I switched after ‘04. I got tired of being used, abused then ignored so my own alleged representatives could go after those tasty corpo-whackjob votes.
At least this way, I stay on the radar till election day. I’m determined not to make my mind up till mid October (and that includes write-in possibilities.)
JackGoff, I’ll withhold the rotten tomatoes. I wasn’t able to vote at all in 2004.
I cannot believe I have to point this out to you people. Kucinich has an anti-choice voting record. He only started calling himself pro-choice when he decided to run for president.
As much as i like Kucinich, if he were to be the democratic candidate we would have president Romney in ‘08.
All I ask is that when Kucinich drops out, you don’t get all pouty and refuse to vote for whoever gets the nomination because “you aren’t going to vote for the lesser of two evils and blah, blah, blah”, because then we will also have president Romney and his newly expanded Gitmo will be your fault.
I should clarify: I will volunteer as I did in 2004 (although in 2004 it wasn’t until Kerry was the nominee). I just wanted to avoid people looking at me suspiciously for airing my views as also happened to people in 2004.
If you’d read the post more carefully, you might not need to point it out, at least not in such a condescending manner. If anyone’s earned the right to have a change in position attributed to thoughtful reflection rather than political expediency, it’s Kucinich.
Are you talking to the post author? Because if so, I’d enjoin you to read the post again, paying particular attention to the first paragraph.
Kucinich’s problem isn’t his platform, or how many people agree with it. His problem is that he looks like a Keebler Elf. It really is a popularity contest.
No it wasn’t to you Auguste; it was a general request to all supporters of lost causes.
All you said was “his evolving one on choice,” which considerably blurs the issue. You wouldn’t believe how many of his supporters know nothing about his record on this issue. And I don’t buy that his conveniently timed switch was due to “thoughtful reflection.”
He was my first pick in that internet “quiz” about which candidates best represent one’s beliefs. I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. Maybe I’ll get a sticker…
Welcome to the land of 3rd party voters, Auguste. You now face the same choice as Greens did in ‘00 & ‘04. And doesn’t it feel great to know that Kucinich is unelectable because it’s common knowledge that he’s unelectable? Given that, what’s the point of voting for him in the Primaries? You’ll just be throwing your vote away if you don’t vote for one of the majors. Don’t you want the best of the major candidates to be on the ballot and, therefore, in office? Why are you wasting your time and vote on this? It’s your fault we’re going to wind up with Clinton. And on and on. (as reflected by comments 14 & 17, so far)
I was all for Kucinich in ‘04 & I’ll be for him again. Now, if we can just stop declaring him unelectable, maybe he’ll stand a chance.
I know, in a rational way, with my brain, that Kucinich ought to be the candidate for me. We see eye to eye on just about everything. Yeah, he’s shaky on reproductive rights, but we’re kidding ourselves if we believe that any of the major candidates are 100% on that (and remember, the Clinton administration wasn’t a golden pro-choice era, either).
But on a personal/emotional/inspirational level, Kucinich just doesn’t do it for me. He opens his mouth. Suddenly I become completely ADD (well, just slowly enough to notice that he has the most annoying lisp). He looks like a used car salesman. He’s not a convincing speaker. I’m all about nerds, but blegh. Unfortunately the President does need to have a certain level of charisma, charm, eloquence, panache. The President needs to engage and inspire us.
Oh, and the fact that he’s in his 60’s and married to a totally hawt 30-year-old squicks me out a little.
I’m reminded of 1999-2000 given that police agent provocateurs have apparently been caught again. Which explains why I have a profound antipathy for Ms. Clinton. “Lesser of two evils” does not capture the level of profound distrust and hatred that Mr. Clinton had managed to inspire by classifying large chunks of the left as terrorists and conspiring to repeatedly violate our civil rights.
Kucinich is disqualified from the Presidency based on his looks, his veganism, and his vaguely New Agey religion. They’re not good reasons, but this is how America sorts through it’s Presidential candidates before even beginning to think about things like positions and issues.
Jake Squid:
By the time the primaries come to my state(May) the candidate has already been annointed.
Voting for Kucinich for me and all my crazy liberal friends, was saying, “More Like This!!”
It seems to have worked.
He truly impressed me and my non-voting fiance(He finds pie charts impressive) during the 2004 primaries, and I believe that his “evolving” position on abortion, is the fact that I don’t think a pro-life Democrat could get the nomination.
He runs like he truly wants to be president, not just to heighten his profile(like some perennial candidates), and I think he hopes his candidacy will appeal to our better nature(or our Mr. Smith nostalgia).
Yes, the Kooch is unelectable because he looks like a gnome, is a vegan, and has an uninspiring speaking style.
That being said, so what that he is not as authentically pro-choice as I (and most others here probably) would like. With President Kucinich, no anti-abortion legislation would get signed. He might not lead a pro-choice push, but, well, he listens to his constituents. When his constituents were working class Catholics as a congressman, he was anti-choice. Now that he is a progressive, he is running, and will continue to run, pro-choice.
I’m not saying its ideal on that issue, but no candidate is perfect, and Kucinich is great on most issues.
All I ask is that when Kucinich drops out, you don’t get all pouty and refuse to vote for whoever gets the nomination because “you aren’t going to vote for the lesser of two evils and blah, blah, blah”, because then we will also have president Romney and his newly expanded Gitmo will be your fault.
I say this as a commited democrat who demeaned himself to voting for Kerry despite being thuroughly dissatisfied with him (my primary vote was for Edwards in 2004. Kuchinich was already out.): Shut. the fuck. up.
Nevermind the shitstorm of political squabbles spawned by such bullshit. in ranks of culpability, Outsider Candidate voters are down there with “people who forgot to vote” and “People living in a black district that gets sabotaged.” As much fun as it is to snipe at people who agree with us on policy for not working hard enough to form a coalition because they feel they’d be shortchanged, It shows the exact same commitment to reason that “We’re losing Iraq because the reporters don’t support the administration” demonstrates.
You know who’s a fuckton more responsible than Naderites and other outsider candidates? Every dumbass motherfucker who voted for Bush. Everyone who votes for Romney. THEY bear real culpability. And “We can convince our allies, they’re our enemies and won’t support us anyway” is bullshit. Everyone has some level of natural charisma. Everyone has dumbass conservative relatives that won’t see the truth. And if Outsider Candidate fans have a duty to vote for a candidate they really dislike, then YOU have a duty to try everything you can think of to convince your relatives, up to and including emotional blackmail.
That’s One. Two is that it’s in the fucking past. Even if you DO think they’re responsible, LET. IT. GO. Causality is not a two way street. getting them to say “golly, you’re right, Gore isn’t that bad” will accomplish even less than a self-congratulatory I-Told-You-So.
On the list of “People fucking up the country” Ralph Nader falls somewhere below Carlos Mencia and above Joss Whedon. We don’t just have bigger fish to fry. We have better cytoplankton to fry.
Now, before we turn this into the post-election whinefest 2004 revisited, can we PLEASE just get back to masturbating at the shining utopia that Kucinich’s America would be?
Kucinich is unelectable, but I point this out as someone who voted for a third party candidate in 2000 (not Nader) and will vote for Kucinich in the primary. I really like Kucinich’s message.
However, you should not blame any voter for voting for the candidate who best represents their views. Party politics is what has caused so many of the political problems we have. Kerry should not have been the candidate in 2004 and Lieberman should not have been Gore’s VP candidate. To people with sensibilities like mine, the anti-Bush was not Gore. Arguing that to vote against Bush you must vote for the candidate most like him, is part of the insane politics the US has devolved to. I will make a prediction: in 2016, even if a Democrat is elected in 2008, the US will have troops killing people in Iraq. That is what this dirty party politics achieves.
I am going to vote for the Democratic candidate this year, just like I did for Kerry in 2004, which I did quite reluctantly. I really think in 2010, Democrats must purge their party of the moderates and stand real liberal candidates. That would be the year Sheehan ought to challenge Pelosi. If the US is in Iraq in 2016, there will absolutely be no reason to support their double bind gambits of saying we must vote for Cheneylite if we do not want another Cheney to be elected.
Damn, karpad.
Yeah.
But on a personal/emotional/inspirational level, Kucinich just doesn’t do it for me. He opens his mouth. Suddenly I become completely ADD (well, just slowly enough to notice that he has the most annoying lisp). He looks like a used car salesman. He’s not a convincing speaker. I’m all about nerds, but blegh. Unfortunately the President does need to have a certain level of charisma, charm, eloquence, panache. The President needs to engage and inspire us.
They didn’t always. This relates back to the “TV = Teh Bad” discussion.
I point out that William Taft rates about as well as Clinton as a President, and was probably more talented, going on to be Chief Justice. He also seems to have done pretty well on a “liberal” agenda, heeding the danger of writing modern understandings of the term into the past.
However the guy would never have been elected post-TV. He was a porker. I mean he was fat, Frank. Huge. A whale. People would have preferred someone much… healthier. Someone who jogged. And mountain biked. And cleared brush. Someone you could share a beer with at the local bar. You know, someone more… Presidential.
There’s only one way to turn an unelectable candidate (or party) into an electable candidate (or party) - by voting for them. It’s gotta start somewhere.
I’ve never played the ol’ “paper scissors rock” game during the Dem primaries, except maybe in ‘92 when actually I wasn’t registered as a Dem during the primary anyway, but a Green. (I’d just moved to Humboldt county, and was trying to get the Greens established as a fully recognized party, so I registered as one, only to find that the party had no actual primary candidates that year there). In a typical phone fight with my mother, who was strawmanning me as a Brown supporter, I yelled that I was for “Clinton!” Actually I meant to say “Harkin!” but I was kind of flustered.
But generally I’ve always viewed the primary as the time to vote for the one you actually like the best and let the party make what they would of it during convention logrolling. This is why I voted for Hart in ‘84 (sue me; I was a newbie and, judging from papers I wrote years later, amazingly conservative still); Jackson in ‘88 (and I didn’t just vote for him, I campaigned–hard). In ‘96 of course Clinton had a lock on it and I forget who I favored in the primary; since I voted for Nader (again, bite me–I knew California was going overwhelmingly for Clinton in the GE and this was my way of sending a “left turn” signal) I suppose I was for someone else, if anyone else was still on the ballot by the time our primary rolled around–that too being a left turn signal. I also forget who got my check mark in ‘00; again not Gore, and again, knowing that CA was safely in Gore’s pocket I voted for Nader. (All hail the mighty Electoral College…sigh. If we had direct election of Preznits, I would have had harder decisions to make.) And it was Edwards, or possibly Kucinich, in ‘04, then Natasha and I threw ourselves into full support of Kerry, especially after he picked Edwards for running mate.
The thing is, in terms of partisan political machinery, votes for also-rans can and sometimes do count at the convention. Anyway, regardless of how much of a lock a particular candidate has on the nomination, I think it is always meaningful to send these signals of what we really want.
Kucinich is clearly the way to signal support for uncompromising progressive values. In addition, I think that the abuses of the Bush admin and the populist backlash against them have changed the ballgame considerably. We have seen in the last election the rise of new Democratic constituencies and candidates to represent them. I think that the power structure of the Democratic party is more in play than ever in our lifetimes, and so assertive progressive voters can carve themselves a place at the table. If Kucinich makes a strong showing in the primaries, then there is perhaps a basis for his becoming the VP running mate, or getting the nod for a high appointed office like Secretary of State, and I think he can be a strong player from those positions, especially if his policy approaches bring strength to the administration as I think they might. As a VP, he’d be good “assassination insurance” for the President, since the kind of people who would want to take down a moderate Democrat by impeachment or murder would presumably quail at handing the office to him.
Yuri K: Kucinich’s “New Agey religion” is of course Roman Catholicism. Progressive Catholics might be tickled you perceive it that way; I suppose most doctrinaire Catholics would be mortified.
From my own reading of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church in recent years, I’d say that it is a fundamentally authoritarian, paternalistic document, manifestly patriarchial–but the injunctions on the authorities to pay some minimal attention to ethics and the general welfare amount to quasi-socialism by American standards. Kucinich is evidently the kind of Catholic who takes these moral obligations seriously, and clearly he’s a democrat who would not interpret them to mean some kind of theocratic takeover. As a person of sincere faith in such a mainstream religion and also one committed to democratic values, he’d be an excellent bastion against Dominionists, IMO.
I don’t see him actually winning the Presidency then–in fact, I imagine his progressive Catholicism would land him squarely between stools, because the reactionary Church hierarchy will surely lambaste him even more than they did Kerry for not being an authoritarian patriarch on reproductive matters, whereas we’ve seen already how uncomfortable progressives are on his allegience to that same Church. But as a VP or high Cabinet official, I think he would be capable of doing serious work patching up the damage Bush et al have done to our moral standing, foreign and domestic, and perhaps even champion real progress toward a more ethical approach to foreign or domestic policy than we’ve ever seen.
So if he’s still on the ballot when the primary rolls around to California, he’s got my vote. (Even if Gore is running, unless I judge my vote in CA might be critical to put him over the top). If not, Edwards gets it, and if he’s out, Obama. And if as I fully expect, Clinton gets the nomination, she’s got my vote in November. But whoever gets the nomination, we should logroll for the progressive candidates getting solid positions in the new admin.
How about Wesley Clark for Sec of Defense for instance?
Elie, my husband switched from 30 year R to D in ‘04 and while my dad didn’t go that far, he did vote Dem as well. For me, registering Ind since 1984 is a bit different- my home state of Maine was the first to elect an Independant governor (Jim Longley) and his campaign was the first I ever paid attention to (1976).
A third party candidate CAN do well- but she/he has to fight a difficult uphill battle. People are terribly resistant to change, even in the face of clear proof that the current options aren’t working.
On some blogs there are wingnuts who pretend to be from Cleveland who slag off Kucinich.
But there were Kucinich assassination attempts in Cleveland because he didn’t kowtow to the banking and business interests there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20sRFPAbDQw
That is the true face of American capitalism.
Here is another report on Kucinich as mayor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z0rk5RoP2U&mode=related&search=
The opoponax hits it on the head. Presidents are not chosen based on their platform. It is a leadership position, and all the great policy ideas in the world will do no good if he can’t get his policy enacted. Being President is about building consensus, powers of persuasion, choosing and leading personnel.
Eliminate candidates based on what the believe the President should do, choose your candidate based on their ability to get it done.
I’m with opoponax and Dwight.
Please read the original survey.
http://www.dehp.net/candidate/
That survey doesn’t ask participants to pick a candidate. It asks participants to describe their stance on 25 single issues and correlates their choices to a particular candidate. I don’t want a president that tallies up on current issues as much as I want a president that I trust to make good decisions in the future. I grant that current agreement and future agreement are connected–it is unlikely that someone who completely disagrees with me now will make good decisions in the future. (I think this is partially explains the reason Kucinich’s past anti-abortion standpoint is worrisome, we couldn’t trust him to make a good decision then).
Many present and future potentially important issues aren’t on this list, this is a list of the current popular contentious viewpoints. What do candidates think about our relationship with China, Russia, the EU, Israel, Cuba? What about Social Security? A recession? Prosecution of rape suspects? Other means of education reform?
To me, this list says “how partisan are you” and on which red state/blue state side do you present yourself. Clearly the unelectable and unwilling to compromise candidate will come out well.
A good president is not a president that takes the straight partisan line. A good president is a president that refuses to compromise on some issues and takes the best compromise on others, while negotiating the country to the best future issues.
Importantly, this says nothing about the president’s ability to respond to new crises. Would they make a good diplomat negotiating with Syria? With Japan? With North Korea? Would they appoint responsible and talented cabinet members? Would they work well with Congress? Will they advance feminist legislation? Will they be a good guardian of our rights? Will they find socially and environmentally responsible ways to stimulate the economy? Will they try to balance the budget?
To me, this is a poll of people who think that all that matters to them are a suite of issues, perhaps among this highly biased group, Kucinich is the best candidate. But I want the best future, not just the best blue state stance.
I’ve seen that poll. While Kucinich is one of the three Dems I like best, I’m not sure that
The problem with the poll is it’s based on this chart, and I’m not sure it’s valid. Kucinich’s success in this pole can be traced to just a couple factors:
* Kucinich has a “support” or “disagree” on all of the issues; no other candidate does. The way the quiz is designed, a candidate gets points for agreeing with the quiz-taker on an issue. An “other” vote is identical to having an opposing opinion.
* The table lists him as having the following positions which are not shared by most of the other candidates (the two most common exceptions being Gravel and Paul): (1) against the Patriot Act; (2) against a border fence; (3) against sanctions for Iran; (4) against the option of military action against Iran; (5) for immediate (not phased) withdrawal from Iraq; and (6) for same-sex marriage (not just civil union). I suspect that many of the other Democratic candidates’ positions are misrepresented here, but the chart has no citations so there’s no way of knowing where they got their info from.
Aw, crap.
I’m not sure that the poll is even *fair*.
I’ll vote for Kucinich in the primary next year, same as I did last time. I’m a bit wary about his position on choice, but other than that he’s a dream on every issue. Not that I think he’ll get the nomination, but I do think it’s important that he gets a substantial number of votes so that the message is sent that we want a more progressive, left, liberal party than the one we have.
Frankly, however, I think Clinton will get the nomination and she’ll probably pick Obama as a running mate. I don’t know that they’d win, but I do think they’d have a good chance. And I’ll vote for them and probably volunteer for the campaign. Because even though they aren’t my ideal candidates, they aren’t completely awful, and they’re certainly better than anyone the Republicans could run.
I hope you don’t blame the early primary states for this. We’re not forcing anyone in your state to vote for who we picked. We’re not forcing candidates to stop fundraising, and we’re not forcing donors to abandon the ‘losers’. We’re not the ones with the desperate need to raise up “The Winner” 5 seconds after the polls close and then go right back to gossiping about cleavage and haircuts(that would be the media).
By all means, keep donating to Dean after his ground game flopped in Iowa and the media ambushed him for his enthusiasm. Heck, your delegates will drown out Iowa’s completely, if you can convince your state to pay attention to the candidates and not vote for who CBS tells you has already won.
It’s just, a little attention from the rest of the country every four years (even if it is mostly gawking at us ‘bumbling hicks’ milking the pigs) makes us feel, well, wanted. Dare I say, important. We don’t really have anything else. We don’t have hurricanes or tornados, or mine disasters, or hills, or coastline, or 10,000 lakes. We don’t have a creationist school board or the Black Hills. We don’t even have fucking cheese. Only North Dakota and Nebraska are more geographically worthless than Iowa. So forgive us if we want to keep something that makes us a tiny bit more special.
It’s kind of the same thing for Ron Paul on the conservative side … unscientific Internet polls routinely find him way ahead, but no one will give him the time of day in the real world … it’s a shame. I like Kucinich and Paul at least more than a lot of the others on either side ….
Oh, but what I should have added to that comment was that, you know, we’re talking unscientific Internet polls … which really says nothing about general electability …
Even if Kucinich is shaky about, or even outright against abortion rights, isn’t he still going to appoint liberals to the supreme court? So his personal stance on that would get canceled out where it matters.
Kinda like Guliani, you know? He’s pro-abortion rights but would still throw a bunch of Catholics on the court.
Wes Clark will likely be the Democratic nominee for VP, particularly if Hillary wins the major primary states. The Draft Clark movement came late into the game in ‘02 and yet Clark was still able to score some impressive second and third place finishes in state races (winning Oklahoma). I can’t think of any other reason he stayed out of the presidential race while still working with his PAC, if not to secure a tight VP spot, running on his extensive military credentials as a bona fide liberal.
First off, I don’t think you give voters enough credit for seeing through Kucinich. A lot of Democrats like me have had profound doubts about his convictions. He’s always looked to me like a progressive version of Mitt Romney. He knows exactly what his voting base wants him to say so he says that. His “evolving” position on choice evolved right when he entered the race in 2004 and it certainly supports the perception have that he’s not for real. Or at the least, not any more real than any of the other Democrats running for the nomination who all have strong liberal bona fides in their own rights on a number of issues. I reject this notion that the other candidates are somehow unacceptable to progressives. There are a lot of good ideas and strong values among this lot of candidates. Yes, even Hillary. One platform being marginally better than another isn’t going to be enough to convince everyone.
There also is the issue of him doing the job. Its easy to recognize Kucinich’s platform and support him knowing full-well he’ll never win. In a primary, I actually that’s a perfectly healthy and reasonable stance to take. All the same, its just as valid to seriously judge whether a person would be fit for the office they are being nominated for. I don’t feel Kucinich is. He’s had a chance at being the executive in government when he was mayor of Cleveland. Even if you agreed with his positions, his confrontational governing style was massively unproductive. The problem wasn’t with his beliefs or policies but with the massively ineffective way he pursued them. That speaks very poorly to his capacity to lead the country as President.
Don’t kid yourself. There are plenty of reasons true-blue progressives won’t give Kucinich the time of day and they are more than him just being unelectable. Hi’s leadership in the past was an utter disaster and the reasons to vote for him aren’t really overwhelming in the first place. Some of us just don’t see this dream candidate people talk about it, and not because he has no chance at winning the election or even the nomination.
Mrs Nice Guy again (can’t get past the dog at the gate): Kucinich and Paul can’t win, but it’s not because of their platforms, nor because of their looks (I mean *really* — does Bush look like anything but some kind of elven vermin that you’d see scurrying under the cupboard?)
It is because corporate interests will insure that they can’t get the obscene amounts of money needed to run a winning campaign.
Look what ABC did after their own poll showed Kucinich to be the leading Dem candidate:
Damn. can’t find the link; but it will be on the Kucinich site. They asked him fewer questions than the others in the debate, they denied him the opportunity to answer questions, they cut him out of a group portrait, and they went back on their “promise” to fully report on the debates.
But if everyone who agrees with his positions writes him in, he will win. Sorry about the choice issue, but I think he is capable of learning, and I’d really like for civilization to survive long enough for him to have the chance. There won’t be a “perfect” candidate, but Kucinich comes close.
Bstu is typical of the closet wingnuts I see who lie about Kucinich, “Hi’s leadership in the past was an utter disaster”
No proof, no examples.
Bstu obviously didn’t watch my links to Kucinich as mayor.
Karpad- It doesn’t really matter who gets elected and what the consequences are so long as you feel good about your vote.
Well if you want a “Eat your spinach and vote for Kucinich” bumper sticker go to
http://www.zazzle.com/maximus7/product/128275983300597431?rf=238083065491105452
Well if you want a “Eat your spinach and vote for Kucinich” bumper sticker click on the link with my name.
“I like Kucinich and Paul at least more than a lot of the others on either side ….”
I hate to pop the bubble around Ron Paul, but he’s very strongly anti-choice/pro-life. He pretends to be different on the issue by saying “the states should decide,” but that’s basically him saying “If a given state wants to remove the basic right to control your own body from 50% of its population, I won’t stand in its way–I just won’t do it myself.”
His views on other things are… hit or miss.
No one has mentioned Kucinich saying that he’d get rid of the military. If that happened, what do you think the rest of the world would do? I can’t see people like Putin getting rid of their military. Instead, I see the rest of the world going crazy if Kucinich were to be elected. They’d violate everything we keep them from doing now, like invading other countries and abusing smaller countries. Think about it. It’s not just the anti-choice and confrontation. There’s also the anti-military to think about!