Kucinich building his case in Iowa
Originally published in The Morning Journal
Kucinich building his case in Iowa
MIKE SAKAL , Morning Journal Writer 08/18/2003
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich continued making a pitch for his field of political dreams throughout southeastern Iowa yesterday in his bid to capture the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in the 2004 election.
Or will it wind up his field of hallucinations?
In the late 1980s movie, ''Field Of Dreams,'' an Iowa farmer heard a voice: ''If you build it, they will come,'' referring to constructing a baseball diamond in a cornfield.
If Kucinich builds a strong enough case to win the nomination over favorite Howard Dean, Vermont governor, will the Democrats, liberals and those looking for as change vote for him?
''We're getting a good response here,'' Kucinich said yesterday on a break from the first of a three-day campaign stop in Iowa. ''The people out here seem to like me, and they're listening. I plan to bring out all the issues that need to be talked about and the need for a change in this country's leadership.''
By tradition, the Iowa caucuses that kickoff in January 2004 are the beginning of the presidential campaign races, and often are crucial for gauging Democratic and presidential favorites.
In fact, Scott County, where Kucinich spent most of his time making public appearances yesterday, made the difference for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore to carry the state in the 2000 election.
''This place is strongly Democratic and very liberal, but I love (Kucinich),'' said Matthew Sean Fitzsimmons, 36, who was dining in the Java Hut in downtown Davenport yesterday. ''Kucinich is a radical just like me. I support Kucinich as a Democrat, but I don't think he has a chance at being president. I don't even see him as vice president.''
Kucinich is the longshot candidate with a meager war chest (about $1 million, according to members of his staff), and on late-night talk shows, he has sometimes replaced the city he hails from as the butt of jokes.
Last week on ''The Late Show with David Letterman,'' Letterman had a makeshift book of ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.'' On the cover was a photo of Kucinich's face over one of the dwarfs.
Letterman quipped, ''He's the dopey looking one -- I wouldn't vote for him.''
But whether it was making an appearance at the Class A Quad Cities River Bandits baseball game to throw out the first pitch, making a raucous speech to about 500 people at a Scott County Democratic picnic at the Carpenters' Union Local No. 4 in Davenport, or talking to senior citizens at an ice cream social in Muscatine, people listened.
More than 2.6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000, Kucinich said, and that's too much.
Kucinich is saying all things Democrats -- and a lot of people want to hear.
This country needs to create more jobs, and he vows to repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement approved by President Clinton's administration in 1993 as his first act if elected president. He also wants to pull the troops
In the wake of the biggest blackout in U.S. history, now being blamed on FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, a company that serves his 10th district on the west side of Cleveland, Kucinich now is vowing a full-fledged government investigation into the company for not safely maintaining its electrical transmission lines and placing profit over its workers.
For the first time in 25 years, Kucinich threw out a first pitch at a baseball game, this time for the River Bandits, an affiliate for the Minnesota Twins, at John O'Donnell Stadium.
He was mistakingly introduced as ''The guest of honor, actor Ed Asner,'' nearly causing him to laughingly balk -- but his pitch got to the catcher on the bounce.
Asner, 73, of 1970s Mary Tyler Moore fame, is supporting Kucinich and accompanying him through Iowa.
Kucinich, a 56-year-old veteran politician, could've been having flashbacks to a time when he was the 32-year-old rookie Boy Mayor of Cleveland throwing out the first pitch of the Cleveland Indians' opening day at Municipal Stadium in 1978. Large banks forced the city into default when Kucinich made the decision not to sell off Municipal Light to the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. -- a forerunner of FirstEnergy -- not a popular decision at the time.
However, his appearance on the mound at John O'Donnell Stadium yesterday was different.
Kucinich was not wearing a bulletproof vest this time, there were no sharpshooting policemen ringing the roof of the ballpark or any burly cat calls from the stands, screaming, ''Kill the bum!'' -- and they didn't mean the umpire.
Sean Jamieson is an intern for the River Bandits who organized the event that brought Kucinich to the stadium.
At age 20, Jamieson wasn't born when Kucinich threw out that first pitch in Cleveland, but his parents, Frank and Marianne Jamieson, lived there at time. Marianne Jamieson's brother, Ron Czellah, lives in LaGrange.
''My parents told me how (Kucinich) didn't sell Muny Light when he was Mayor of Cleveland, and that it wasn't a popular decision,'' Jamieson said. ''But they told me at least he didn't set the river on fire.''
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