veiled4allah: presenting our cases

Anybody who's interested in presenting the case for their candidate as the one who best represents Muslim interests and who most deserves the Muslim bloc vote can post it in the comments on this entry, or post a link to what they've written elsewhere. In order to save space on the front page, I've put my case for Kucinich in the extended entry field so follow the "there's more" link to read it. Oh, and I included a section on electability since that was in my original write-up.

The rules for the debate are here. Please follow these guidelines in presenting your case. Thanks.

Note for Aziz: it's not really that difficult to find it on the Muslims for Kucinich site. Look for the area that says "read this first" and then the link titled "The Case for Kucinich". That wasn't so hard, was it?

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Kucinich on the Issues
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Civil liberties - Kucinich voted against the Patriot Act and promises to repeal it. In September 2003, he introduced into Congress HR3171 (the "Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act") to repeal the Patriot Act's most egregious provisions. He also vows to oppose any attempted "Patriot II" legislation. And Kucinich has been a long-standing opponent of secret evidence and racial profiling.

Iraq - Kucinich has opposed the war on Iraq since July 2002. He mobilized 126 Democrats in the House of Representatives to vote against it and even filed suit against the Bush Administration to try and stop it. He opposes the continued American occupation of Iraq and has proposed an exit plan to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out within 90 days.

Middle East - Kucinich believes that the following four steps are necessary for peace in the Middle East: 1) Israel must stop building settlements, 2) Israel must tear down the Wall, 3) Israel must recognize an autonomous Palestinian state, 4) Israel must join with the U.S. and Europe in rebuilding Palestine's infrastructure.

Education - Kucinich has proposed a program that would offer free public education from pre-K through college level. This would be paid for by repealing the Bush tax cuts. He also believes that vouchers are not the solution to America's education problems; rebuilding our public schools IS.

Healthcare - Kucinich calls for a universal, single-payer healthcare system to replace the current system of private insurers. He calls this system, which is similar to Canada's, "Medicare for All". Since this would be a replacement rather than a modification of the current system, all the money currently spent on healthcare would be spent on it instead. Studies have shown that a single-payer system would in fact reduce health care costs. Single-payer is supported by more than 8,000 physicians.

Jobs and Economy - Kucinich has proposed a public works program that would put people to work rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure. This is similar to the public works programs of the New Deal that helped get America out of the Great Depression. To help reduce the deficit, Kucinich would cut defense spending (including the huge expense of keeping the U.S. in Iraq) and repeal the Bush tax cuts, replacing them with a system of progressive taxation that shifts the tax burden from the working poor to the wealthy.

More information about these and other Kucinich positions is available from http://www.kucinich.us

Kucinich's Record in Congress
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Of all the presidential candidates who are in Congress, Kucinich has the strongest voting record on Arab-American issues, in fact is the only one with a positive voting record on Arab-American issues. The Arab-American Institute's 2002-2003 Congressional Scorecard shows that Kucinich took the "correct" position on five issues (Iraq, Israel/Palestine, immigration reform, hate crimes, and miscellaneous resolutions) and did not take the "incorrect" position on any issue.

Legislation that Kucinich has introduced in Congress includes bills to repeal the Patriot Act, abolish the death penalty, establish a Department of Peace, and fund universal pre-K education. Kucinich has also co-sponsored legislation to establish universal health care, provide a living wage for workers, and require a paper trail for electronic voting machines to guarantee the integrity of the vote, among other bills.

Kucinich's Accessibility to Muslims
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Kucinich has a long record of making himself accessible to the Muslim community. He has hired or taken as interns a number of Muslim Americans. He meets regularly with his Muslim and Arab-American constituents in Cleveland. In his presidential campaign he has spoken several times at CAIR events, the only candidate to do so - and in spite of getting some very negative press from right-wing commentators for it. He also spoke at the ISNA convention on August 30, 2003.

Additionally, Kucinich has created the post of National Muslims for Kucinich Coordinator on his campaign staff. Muslims working as campaign volunteers, including the National Muslims for Kucinich Coordinator, have found not only the candidate himself but also his staff to be welcoming and indeed eager to work with them and to reach out to the Muslim community. His campaign manager says that this is important "for the healing of America" after 9/11.

Support for Kucinich Within the Muslim Community
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Leaders in national Muslim organizations like CAIR, ISNA, and the American Muslim Alliance have expressed support for Kucinich’s candidacy. A group of nearly 100 supporters, ordinary Muslims from around the country, have organized an email list to receive updates on the campaign and learn about volunteer opportunities. The membership of this group has tripled in the last month and continues to grow on a daily basis. There does not seem to be any comparable organized group of Muslims supporting any of the other candidates.

Among the reasons cited by Muslims for supporting Kucinich are:
1) His opposition to the Iraq war
2) His support of Palestinian rights
3) His opposition to the Patriot Act
4) That his proposals for universal healthcare and expanded public education are consistent with their religious beliefs about providing for the less fortunate and the needy

Electability
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The one concern that Muslims tend to express about supporting Kucinich is: is he electable? In reality, this is the wrong question to ask. The right question is: will we elect him? When people hold back their support, they create a "self-fulfilling prophecy". If everybody who says that they agree with Kucinich's platform would go ahead and support him, he would BE electable.

And Kucinich has a lot more support than is reported in the media. MeetUp.com, a website that allows people with common interests to arrange meetings, shows Kucinich in third place out of the nine candidates, behind only Dean and Clark. That is, Kucinich has the third-highest number of active supporters among the campaigns. Kucinich is also in the top three or four in terms of the size of crowds that come out to his campaign appearances and in terms of the number of people contributing to his campaign. Likewise, he ranks in the top three or four in measures of internet support (visits to his website, performance in online polls, mentions on personal webpages and blogs, etc). In measure after measure of the actual number of supporters, Kucinich consistently ranks in the top three or four.

Can Kucinich beat Bush? He has as good a shot as any other Democrat, and perhaps even better. The clear mood among Democrats today is "anybody but Bush". Are these people going to vote for Bush after all if Kucinich is the nominee? No, they'll vote for Kucinich. So as the nominee, Kucinich would have the full support of the Democratic party. And Kucinich has an extra advantage. Ralph Nader has said that he won't run again if Kucinich is the nominee, and will tell Greens to vote for Kucinich. He is already asking them to support Kucinich in the primaries. In 2000, the votes for Gore and Nader combined would have been enough to beat Bush. The same can be true in 2004, and Kucinich is better placed than almost any other candidate to win the Green vote. With the Democratic vote and the Green vote, he CAN beat Bush.