Kucinich running under the legacy of FDR
Originally published in the Portsmouth Herald
Kucinich running under the legacy of FDR
By Shir Haberman
PORTSMOUTH - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, started slowly, using measured tones and short phrases to describe his candidacy.
However, by the time the hour-long interview with the Herald’s editorial board was finished Friday, Kucinich was animated, quoting liberally from everyone from Lincoln to Francis Scott Keyes and fully engaged in describing the America he says his candidacy represents. Tied for dead last in the last both the New Hampshire and national polls, he appears to believe that is the way his campaign will go.
"We organized from West to East," Kucinich said. "The polls simply reflect mass media awareness.
"We’re putting together a campaign city by city," he said. "Our campaign hasn’t emerged yet."
And he is optimistic about his chances to capture his party’s nomination. He said there is still volatility in the electorate and pointed to the recent emergence of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as the front-runner over Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry as proof.
"I want to give the people a broader choice," Kucinich said.
And that is exactly what the Ohio congressman’s entrance into the primary race represents.
Kucinich is a Democrat in the FDR tradition. He truly believes the federal government is capable of doing a better job of dealing with the major issues that confront this country than the private sector and the current administration. Nowhere is that more true than in the area of health care.
"With respect to health care, the market has failed," he said. "Health care for profit leads to moral decline."
Kucinich not only supports, but has filed federal legislation calling for the country to convert to a single-payer, universal health care system. It would be paid for by a 7.7 percent payroll tax on employers. The federal government would pay for every illness, preventive medicine and dental care for every American.
He noted that employers who offer health care benefits are currently paying an 8.5 percent tax on their payrolls and are still suffering from monumental increases in health insurance premiums.
"There is no cost containment as long as the private sector runs the system," Kucinich said. "It’s not that we don’t have the money, it’s how it’s allocated."
However, Kucinich says he is no apologist for big government and recognizes that health care systems run by government, such as Medicare, have their share of fraud and abuse. However, he contends that Medicare is workable, if it is properly funded and HMOs are left out of the equation.
"Medicare is being suffocated (by Bush administration policies)," he said. "As a concept, it’s workable."
The real waste in federal government is in the Department of Defense, said Kucinich, who serves on the House Committee on Government Reform. That committee is charged with investigating government waste.
"The majority of waste is in the Pentagon - that’s where the real problem is," he said. "The fraud going on in the Department of Defense makes everything else pale in comparison."
That is part of the reason why he is so opposed to the continuation of the American occupation of Iraq, he said. Kucinich noted that while fellow candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri led the fight for the war, he led the opposition.
As to what to do now, the Ohio congressman has one answer:
"We’ve got to get out of Iraq," he said. "George Bush has to negotiate a agreement that brings the United Nations in and gets us out."
That agreement has to be based on the concepts that the UN would handle the distribution of Iraqi oil and the disbursement of the revenue to the people of that country, that the UN would handle the task of rebuilding Iraq without any of the "sweetheart" deals such as those President Bush made with corporations he or members of his administration have ties to, and that the UN would do the work necessary to rebuild Iraq’s government, he said.
"Our men and women are just targets," Kucinich said. "We are in a quagmire."
He said Bush made many mistakes along the way, but the first and most far-reaching was pushing other countries away after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"They were with us then; their hearts were open to us," he said.
If he becomes president, Kucinich promised to sign the treaties the U.S. has refused to sign in the past, including the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the Kyoto treaty and the land mine treaty.
"I want to work with the rest of the world," he said. "I want to bring America back into the world community."
Kucinich was highly critical of the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security to protect the United States.
"Those efforts should be local," he said. "Local people know best what’s needed.
"President Bush’s economic policies have deprived the states of the ability to fund security efforts," said the Ohio congressman. "It should be home town security."
He pointed to an article that appeared on the front page of the Herald on Friday, concerning mercury in seafood. Kucinich said the recent decision by the Bush administration to support an EPA rule change that allows fossil fuel-burning power plants to upgrade to produce more power without the requirement of adding addition pollution controls is another indication the federal government is in the pocket of the big corporations.
"Seafood is part of the wealth of this region," he said. "The corporations have stolen your wealth!"
Asked how he would get some of his programs through what would most likely still be a Republican-controlled Congress, Kucinich dismissed the premise on which the question was based.
"FDR asked the American people to support his policies and they gave him 88 members of Congress to help him," the Ohio congressman said. "I’m going to ask the American people to support candidates who will work for peace."
Kucinich said he believes his candidacy is important, whether or not he wins the nomination and the election.
"My candidacy will present the sharpest contrast between the other Democrats and the incumbent," he said. "I believe the mass of Americans are looking for another choice.
"My presence will make a difference in this campaign," he said.
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