Kucinich touts spirituality, blasts Bush
The Bainbridge Sun did a better job. In addition to the Seattle stop, Kucinich also visited Bainbridge Island and the Sun's coverage is of that campaign stop. But it gives a good feel for what the Seattle stop was like. Too bad there doesn't yet seem to be any coverage like this of the Seattle stop.
Anyway, here's the article.
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
Kucinich touts spirituality, blasts Bush
Steven Gardner
Sun Staff
July 20, 2003
America can be lifted from its present sense of fear to the "spiritual" traits of freedom, optimism and courage, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich said Saturday.
The Ohio congressman spoke Saturday evening to about 300 supporters in a hot, packed theater at Bainbridge High School as part of a campaign swing in the Seattle area.
"This is truly a turning point in the life of our nation. We know that fear has dropped over this country like a dark cloth," he said. But that fear, he said, is "not our real home."
The event was organized by Kitsap Citizens for Kucinich and Bainbridge Neighbors for Peace.
Kucinich has a smaller war chest than most of his opponents, but finished second to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in a nationwide online poll and has received several celebrity endorsements.
The Green Party's presidential candidate in 2000, Ralph Nader, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer he'd be less inclined to run in 2004 if Kucinich was the Democrats' nominee.
Despite the enthusiastic crowd Saturday, his candidacy is seen in mainstream circles as a longshot. That's something he said doesn't bother him.
"I never worry about what might happen, I try to spend time making things happen," he said.
David Korten, a Bainbridge resident and author of "When Corporations Rule the World," said he knows the odds are against Kucinich. He publicly pledged, however, to donate $1,000 to the campaign, because he said he knew "American corporations are not going to support this campaign."
That may stem from Kucinich's stands on health care, creation of "living wage" standards and workers' rights to organize.
Kucinich spoke often of spiritual realities detached from the material world to support his view that America, with a U.S. Department of Peace, can work with other nations to to create a world in which war is an archaic idea.
The candidate said if he were president he would have the United Nations lead the rebuilding of Iraq, rather than the current U.S.-led efforts.
Kucinich blasted the USA Patriot Act and hammered President George W. Bush. "It's time we end fraud being passed off as governance," he said, one of several comments that generated ovations throughout the evening.
He said the war in Iraq was a "grievous" offense and was based on "books that were cooked on Downing Street" in London.
"If we don't hold this administration accountable for the lies and misrepresentations that led this country to war in Iraq," he said, "they'll do it again."
Furthermore, he said, the impression that Democrats supported the war is wrong, because two-thirds of the Democrats in Congress voted against giving the president the authority to send the military to Iraq.
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