Scrappy Dennis Kucinich Appeals To Angry Voters
Originally published in the Hartford Courant
Scrappy Dennis Kucinich Appeals To Angry Voters
August 21, 2003
By DAVID LIGHTMAN, Washington Bureau Chief
WATERLOO, Iowa -- The 300 union members from across Iowa had sat for three long hours, listening to Democratic presidential candidates. The last would be Dennis Kucinich.
He quickly got the tired throng on its feet cheering, and by the time he was ready to wrap up 20 minutes later, the crowd had interrupted him with applause and cheers 13 times.
So moderator Mark Smith had to ask the Ohio congressman a question he had not asked anyone else: Can you win?
Sure, Kucinich said without hesitation, in a quick, assured cadence born of a lifetime of fighting against more powerful forces who asked similar questions. He comes from Ohio, a state with lots of electoral votes. He's beaten Republican incumbents. And, he said, "I'm the guy who provides the sharpest contrast with the Bush administration."
The audience roared again, but the problem for Kucinich is that votes, not cheers, will determine the Democratic presidential nominee.
Kucinich, 56, is in the twilight zone of Democratic presidential candidates. The Cleveland resident is not in the so-called top tier that includes four U.S. senators, former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
But he's a notch above the "fringe" candidacies of the Rev. Al Sharpton and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who can still influence the race.
In Kucinich's case, his strong appeal to labor could cut into the constituency Gephardt is trying to sew up. Kucinich's bond with angry voters makes him a threat to Dean, the other angry man in the race. And the money he and the other fringe candidates raise is money others don't get.
What's frustrating to the top-tier people is that Kucinich seems to fit a long tradition of candidates who can shake up a race. They divert attention from others, force certain narrowly focused, often less mainstream issues to be debated, and make it harder for the eventual nominee to look moderate - a necessary quality in the general election.
Certain voters, usually those feeling disenfranchised and angry, love Kucinich types for all the reasons the political establishment does not. They liked how the Rev. Jesse Jackson helped frame the 1984 and 1988 debate by pushing his views on civil rights and social services, or how Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes did the same for Republican Christians in 2000.
In 2003, many Democrat rank-and-file voters like how Kucinich rips into President Bush with a brawler's ferocity, calling him a liar. They like how Kucinich has fiercely opposed the Iraq war and brandishes a gut-level feel for workers' worries about import competition.
But, as with earlier longshot efforts, many voters have trouble seeing a short, almost emaciated-looking populist, a man who has no hesitation about leading his audiences in song or shouting into microphones until his point is made, as United States president.
"He'd make a heck of a Baptist minister," said John Sprott, a retired mental health worker from Woodward. "He's got the right message. The only thing he lacks is charisma," said Chris Lauritsen, a retired union official from Mason City.
Kucinich has made some progress, inching out of the lower group in recent weeks with a combination of well-received appearances, particularly before labor audiences, and a surprising ability to raise money.
"He went from a few thousand dollars to a million in one quarter," said Smith, Iowa labor federation president. "If he does that again, he'll be in that top tier."
It's not far-fetched. He's on the air with two radio commercials featuring singer Willie Nelson, who also plans a Labor Day concert in Iowa with his candidate.
And he benefits from doubts about labor favorite Gephardt, who appears to be slipping because of an inability to raise large amounts of money and a buzz that he's yesterday's Democrat.
After hearing the candidates Wednesday, Rod Klein, president of the Southwest Iowa Labor Council, pared his list from four to two. He knocked off Gephardt, but kept on Kucinich and Dean.
Kucinich's ideas have clearly intrigued labor and other groups, but like proposals of other longshot candidates, they may not be grounded in political reality.
Kucinich advocates a health care plan that would have the government pay everyone's bills. Beyond his opposition to the war, Kucinich would create a Department of Peace to promote peaceful solutions to conflicts.
He has vowed to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement on his first day in office, and challenges others to do the same.
Kucinich, though, has suffered from the presence of Dean, who has sprinted out to the lead in polls and fund-raising among the "I've-had-it-up-to-here" crowd. The people angry at Bush, and the political establishment in general, see Dean, not Kucinich, as someone who can win.
Kucinich is a veteran outsider, a product of meaner streets, the son of a truck driver so strapped that the family moved 21 times during his childhood and occasionally slept in cars.
He's never lost that street touch, touting it to such an extent that, while it energizes some voters, it can alienate a lot of the establishment.
But that's how Kucinich has always operated. First elected to the Cleveland City Council at 23, Kucinich got national notice in 1977 when, at 31, he became the city's mayor.
He was elected to Congress in 1996 from Cleveland's largely white, ethnic west side, and once in Congress, began to build the kind of constituency he is now seeking nationwide.
Kucinich's voting record is very much orthodox Democrat. Where he has parted ways is on his leadership against war. He was one of about two dozen Democrats to oppose President Clinton's bombing of Kosovo, and as the Iraq war approached, he helped lead the effort to stop Congress from authorizing troops.
His image in Washington is one of an articulate progressive. In April, he got 46 co-sponsors for legislation creating a Department of Peace, which would include arms control, human rights and domestic violence agencies.
What hurts him is that voters sense a certain weirdness. Earlier this summer, he got so emotional as he spoke that he began singing "This Land is Your Land."
Kucinich has tried to look and act a bit more presidential lately. His late-60s Beatle cut is gone, replaced by a wavy, tame, middle-age adult haircut. When he visited Godfather's Pizza Wednesday in Waverly to talk to supporters, he wore the same kind of classy casual blue sport shirt that Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, another Democrat, wears.
Kucinich was low-key that day, even soft-spoken.
But he can't contain the old Kucinich. His belt was a good 3 inches bigger than it should have been and sagged over his waist. Everyone was offered packages of Iowa organic corn seeds with "Planting Seeds of Hope" printed on the package.
And as Kucinich finished his remarks, education consultant Kim Hawley gave the candidate a souvenir trash bag that listed things Democrats fight for.
Kucinich's eye went immediately to the first item: "Democrats support our troops."
"I say support our troops," he quickly snapped. "I say, bring 'em home."
And suddenly he was vintage Kucinich, tearing into the administration. "We could lose our nation because of fear," he said. "This administration is maintaining its power through fear."
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