Ohio Congressman Kucinich campaigns in Beaver
Originally published in the Post-Gazette
Ohio Congressman Kucinich campaigns in Beaver
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor
His candidacy barely registers in the national polls. His fund raising is dwarfed by his rivals. In introducing him, a local politician badly mangles the pronunciation of his name.
But undeterred, and, as ever, unintimidated by the big shots, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is running for president.
On a crystal summer day outside the Beaver County Courthouse, he seems to be having a pretty good time at it. Before long, a tiny crowd's applause starts to interrupt his fiery invocations of old-time Democratic remedies for the ills that have idled one factory after another here.
Kucinich takes his cue from the Courthouse bells that sound the noon hour."The bells have tolled for the American worker," he says.
But his administration, he promises, will restore the prominence of the factory worker in the nation's economy with a trillion-dollar-plus public works policy aimed at restoring the vibrancy of the steel, automotive and aerospace industries.
Following the example of former President Franklin Roosevelt, he says, he will establish a new W.P.A. to rebuild roads, bridges and buildings across the country.
Kucinich was speaking in one corner of Pennsylvania the day after other Democrats, meeting on the other side of the state, finished a weekend meeting in which they reaffirmed their prescription for centrist policies as the key for their party to return to power in Washington.
The Democratic Leadership Council, an organization known for its ties to former President Bill Clinton and its influence in pushing the party toward the political center over the past decade, warned against a resurgence of the "far left," within party ranks.
Kucinich is having none of it. The populist, former Cleveland mayor who fought the city's banks and presided over its bankruptcy during his controversial administration, unabashedly calls for a return to the spirit of the New Deal in arguing for universal, single-payer health care; a federal jobs program and an end to trade agreements that he claims have drained American jobs.
"You and I know how our trade agreements have facilitated a race to the bottom," Kucinich says. "My first act in office will be to cancel NAFTA and the [World Trade Organization.]"
Kucinich promises to cut Pentagon spending by 15 percent, while repeating his denunciation of the war in Iraq.
Kucinich stands apart from much of his party in the realm of tactics as well as policy. Many Democratic strategists would argue that his appearance in Beaver County at this point was a waste of time in that the Democratic nomination is likely to be determined long before next year's Pennsylvania primary on April 17.
"This race is going to go right to the convention," Kucinich insists
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