Kucinich visit builds support
Originally published in The Union.
It's not often a presidential candidate stops in Grass Valley, but a May 26 speech by Democrat Dennis Kucinich has proven that the trip can pay off with local support.
Driving around western Nevada County, it is difficult to miss Kucinich bumper stickers dotting all manner of vehicles, and the long-shot candidate's speech is responsible for the "groundswell of support" the area has seen in the past several weeks, said Alexi Bonifield, the presidential hopeful's county campaign coordinator .
"We're shaking up the local Democratic Party," she said.
Bonifield estimates more than 100 area residents have volunteered to help the campaign since the speech and said that she only became campaign manager after his visit.
Kucinich is a four-term Ohio congressman whose family was in and out of poverty throughout his youth. After becoming the youngest mayor of a major city at age 31, he was chased out of Cleveland politics when he refused to privatize the city's power and the city defaulted on its loans in the late 1970s.
"There have been other liberal ideologues that have come along," Bonifield said. "(George) McGovern didn't have a chance. He doesn't have the history of overcoming adversity that Dennis has."
California is one of three states, along with Iowa and Ohio, where the Kucinich campaign has opened offices. Kucinich's national communication director, Jeff Cohen, said support in Nevada County has paralleled similar success throughout the state.
"I believe we will do well in California," he said. "I wish the country were California and Iowa."
And it is exactly that regionalism of support that has dogged Kucinich. While the anti-war candidate has shown strong support in liberal strongholds, questions remain about the breadth of his appeal.
Bonifield contends that people from across the political spectrum would join the campaign if they would listen to his message - a message, she said, that has been under reported.
"It's partly because he's really not part of what the corporate media has been covering," she said. "He, (Al) Sharpton and Howard Dean have been marginalized."
While Kucinich struggles to pull support from centrists and conservatives, more-liberal third party backers have been switching parties to side with him, Bonifield said. At last week's Friday Night Market in downtown Grass Valley, she said, 14 people, mostly Green Party supporters, re-registered as Democrats at the Kucinich booth.
One such supporter is Eleanore MacDonald, a local folk singer and longtime Green Party backer, who will play at a Kucinich fund-raiser July 27.
"I was skeptical when I first went to the speech," she said. "But I haven't been that inspired since I was 14 or 15 and saw Robert Kennedy speak. I looked in his eyes and saw there's someone there who really cares about us."
This could be a mixed blessing for a candidate who insists backers sit in circles at campaign meetings to avoid hierarchy and has suggested the creation of a "Department of Peace." Kucinich's label as an ultra-liberal peace candidate has many wondering if he can be a viable candidate on the heels of a popularly supported war led by a conservative president.
Still, local supporters say they believe his grass roots campaign will translate into success at the polls come primary season.
"I have a lot of faith that the average American can wake up," Bonifield said.
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