Candidate Kucinich Comes to Santa Fe
Originally published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Candidate Kucinich Comes to Santa Fe
By STEVE TERRELL | The New Mexican
After a baritone sang the national anthem at a rally for presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on Wednesday, a woman jumped on the stage saying that song - with the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air - was "rather inappropriate for a peace candidate."
But Kucinich, taking the stage, defended The Star-Spangled Banner.
"It's up to us to give new meaning to the flag," he told the crowd of hundreds outside the state Capitol. "It's up to us to restore the nation's purpose, to move away from domination and conquest.
Kucinich said one part of Francis Scott Key's song asks an especially relevant question: "Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
And then he told the crowd it's time to "break the spell of fear this administration has put over this nation. You can't be a democracy if people live on their knees."
Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, said the Bush administration has exploited fear since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"It's not part of the American character to be fearful," he said.
Kucinich is the latest of the nine Democratic candidates to visit Santa Fe and the second of the major peace candidates in the past few days.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was in town Saturday, speaking to a large audience on the Plaza. Both are courting local votes for the state Democratic caucus scheduled Feb. 3.
Both Kucinich and Dean lambasted the Bush administration for the war in Iraq and the encroachment on civil liberties resulting from the U.S. Patriot Act and other policies connected to the "war on terror."
And like Dean, he praised New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, telling a reporter that any candidate who gets the nomination should consider Richardson as a running mate - though the governor has said several time he's not interested this year.
While Kucinich and Dean had similar rhetoric on the war, the Patriot Act, Bush's tax cuts and universal health care, Kucinich supporters disparage Dean for not wanting to slash the Pentagon's budget, for supporting the death penalty and other issues.
At a meeting with about 30 political, social and labor activists at St. John's United Methodist Church before the rally, Kucinich made a swipe at one of Dean's most-used catch phrases, saying, "You've got to do more than say you're from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."
Without mentioning his name, he also blasted presidential rival Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the former U.S. House Democratic leader.
"Two-thirds of the Democrats in the House voted against the Iraq war resolution," he said, "but people don't realize that because some of our leadership stood next to the president in the Rose Garden (to support the war)."
But most of his wrath, both at the rally and the meeting, was aimed at the Bush administration.
"This government is run like a cartel," Kucinich said at the meeting. "The government is being run as a racket."
But he surprised some at the meeting when he said he wouldn't support a move to impeach President Bush. Some of Bush's critics say the president should be impeached if it's proved he lied about there being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Why should there be no impeachment? I'll give you two words: 'Dick Cheney,' " he said.
Kucinich said impeachment is a waste of time because "the votes aren't there (in Congress)." Bush, he said, should be removed by the people at the ballot box.
The meeting was attended by those active in several areas, including the labor movement, civil rights, drug-law reform, prison reform and other issues.
Among those there were former Gov. Jerry Apodaca and Chris Griscom, a longtime Kucinich friend and a self-described "healer/visionary" and "spiritual teacher" who founded the Light Institute in Galisteo.
Apodaca, who was governor in the 1970s when Kucinich was mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, said he hasn't made up his mind who he's supporting.
He said he and Kucinich had a mutual friend in Estelle Zanes, a former journalism professor at The University of New Mexico.
"I have a feeling if Estelle was alive, she'd be calling me about Kucinich," Apodaca told a reporter.
Kucinich admits he's an underdog in the race. He's far behind in the polls and in fund raising.
"But I think the toughest thing to be right now would be the front-runner," he told a reporter. "Politics is very unpredictable." He said he was an underdog and outspent by his opponents when he first ran for Cleveland City Council, for mayor of Cleveland and for Congress.
Kucinich's term as mayor of Cleveland (1977 to 1979) is undoubtedly the most controversial part of his career. Elected to the post at the age of 31, financial problems plagued the city, which ended up defaulting on several loans, the first American city to do so since the Depression. Kucinich barely survived a recall effort and went on to lose his re-election bid.
Though under pressure from banks to sell the city electric company to avoid defaulting on the loans, Kucinich refused.
Kucinich for years seemed to be washed up politically, but now he uses his refusal to sell the utility as a plus.
"I challenged the corrupt utility monopoly and saved the city's electrical system," he told a reporter Wednesday. "I stood up to them in public. People know I'm not afraid to stand up to powerful economic interests."
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