Candidate makes a push for peace
Originally published in the Austin American-Statesman
Candidate makes a push for peace
By Dick Stanley
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Critics called him Dennis the Menace in 1977 when the 31-year-old was "the boy mayor" of Cleveland. But he was elected to save the city's electric power system. He did.
Now, the 56-year-old congress member from Ohio, who was campaigning in Austin on Saturday, wants to be the Democratic nominee for president. He thinks he can wrest the presidency from George W. Bush.
"I'll be appealing to the basic courage of the American people," Kucinich said. "This administration is based on fear. They're totally manipulating the people of America."
Kucinich has been endorsed by Willie Nelson, based on a pledge to restore rural communities and family farms by breaking up agricultural monopolies.
The candidate was in town for a speech to the national convention of the Campus Greens at the Austin Music Hall.
He flew in from an appearance in San Francisco, plans to appear on CNN this morning from an Austin television studio, and will fly to New Hampshire in the afternoon.
"This election will be based on what happens on America's campuses," Kucinich said Saturday. "To rouse America to the cause of peace. Principal among that is eliminating the waste in the Pentagon and the programs that are preparing us for World War III."
He is the author of legislation to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace as a counterbalance to the Department of Defense and to establish nonviolence as a principal in domestic and foreign affairs.
"It's about challenging the underlying assumption that war is inevitable," he said.
Kucinich dismisses critics who say that after Sept. 11 a Democratic presidential peace candidate has about as much chance as Democratic president nominee George McGovern did in 1972 when McGovern lost 49 states in his race with President Nixon.
"To the contrary, I am the taxpayer's friend," Kucinich said. "What the Bush administration has done is scare the American people into believing we should passively accept a huge increase in defense spending."
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