Muslims For Kucinich

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich formally announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination last week, he wrote the latest chapter in a rags-to-political-riches story that began in a setting that makes Abraham Lincoln's log cabin sound like a country estate.

For the announcement, Kucinich returned to Cleveland City Hall, where he served two tumultuous years as mayor in the late 1970s. The Cleveland stop kicked off a four-day tour of 12 cities that included a quick visit to Austin and ended Thursday in Washington, D.C.

All that travel is nothing new to Kucinich.

By the time he was 17, Kucinich and his family had lived in 21 places, including a couple of cars.

"Everyone wants to connect with the American people," Kucinich said. "I just happen to come from circumstances that, shall we say, are a little bit different. You don't have to make things up."

Kucinich was the eldest of Frank and Virginia Kucinich's seven children. In a city where ethnicity mattered, it was a mixed marriage. Kucinich's mother was Irish, and his truck driver father Croatian.

Kucinich's greatest victory as mayor -- his battle to hold on to the city's Municipal Light System and provide electricity at the lowest cost possible to Cleveland residents -- was based on his experience growing up poor.

At his 50th birthday party in a bar in Cleveland, he recalled his parents sitting at their porcelain-topped kitchen table, counting pennies to come up with the money to pay their electric bill.

"People wondered why I fought so hard to save an electric system. . . . It matters how people pay for electricity. It matters how people pay for health care, and it matters that people have a secure retirement," Kucinich said.

At 31, Kucinich in 1977 was the youngest mayor ever elected in a major American city.

His support for organized labor also comes out of his own experience.

During a Chinese lunch while running for Congress in 1996, Kucinich put down his chopsticks and pulled out his wallet to flash membership cards from two unions, the Teamsters and a photographers union.

"These are my brothers and sisters," said Kucinich, before plowing back into his white rice and vegetables.

His rugged upbringing has helped to define his populist politics, said Tim Hagan, a Cleveland-area Democrat who has been both a friend and foe of Kucinich over more than a quarter-century.

"You have to give him high marks for overcoming what I consider a wrenching childhood, and I think that is at the core of his personality -- fighting back. `I'm going to prove myself. I'm going to overcome any obstacle,' " Hagan said.

As chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in the late 1970s, Hagan helped lead a recall effort that nearly turned Kucinich out of the mayor's office before his two-year term ended.

Hagan supports U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for president, but he has mended political fences with Kucinich, 57, and has voted for him in his U.S. House races.

"I think he's a good voice in the Congress. I respect him for that. He is the least encumbered by any special interests," Hagan said.

Kucinich has won re-election three times after defeating a Republican incumbent in 1996. In 2002, he got 74 percent of the vote.

"They believe he's a fighter. He's fighting for them," said Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman Jim Trakas, a state legislator.

Vision is clear

Kucinich's connections to Cleveland are clear. He carries a baseball card of former Cleveland Indians slugger Rocky Colavito in his wallet. There is a poster of Larry Doby, the former Cleveland Indians star and the first African American player in the American League, in the reception area of his congressional office.

Kucinich's positions in the presidential campaign -- many stemming from his congressional career -- are also clear. He wants to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. He wants to set up a universal, single-payer national health insurance system. And he wants to pull the United States out of both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.

He also wants to establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace.

His admirers say Kucinich, a vegan, takes a "holistic" approach to life and politics.

"He understands how interconnected social and political issues are," said John Borders, a real estate attorney who helped organize two events for Kucinich in Kentucky earlier this year.

"He understands, for example, that if you're concerned about environmental issues you have to be concerned with civil rights. . . . He understands that when you're talking about peace, that walks hand-in-hand with labor."

Kucinich is also friends with the Hollywood celebrity associated with "holistic" thinking, actress Shirley MacLaine. The Washington Post has reported that MacLaine recruited Kucinich as an interviewer for a series of Webcasts taped to promote a new book.

"Shirley and I are old and dear friends," Kucinich told the newspaper. He said that the actress is the godmother of his 21-year-old daughter, Jackie.

About their conversations, Kucinich told The Post: "When we get together, we talk about our present lives."

Kucinich says that as a presidential candidate he would broaden the Democrats' appeal.

"I can bring Greens, Natural Law (followers). . . . I can bring the blue-collar Democrats back who went with Ronald Reagan years ago. They perceive the Democratic Party (as) not being relevant," Kucinich said.

So far, however, he's barely registered in national polls among Democratic candidates and doesn't even lead the presidential pack in Ohio.

A national CBS New/New York Times Poll, taken Sept. 28-Oct. 1, ranked Kucinich last among the 10 Democratic candidates then in the race. He got 1 percent support. Since then, Sen. Bob Graham has dropped out of the race.

Kucinich dismissed his low showing in the polls. He said former Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton also fared poorly in early polls.

"We're getting more and more offers of help," Kucinich said. "People see that I have a message."

On the stump, Kucinich delivers that message with uncompromising rhetoric, and occasionally, a sense of drama.

Campaigning in Lexington, Ky., in March just after President Bush gave former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face attack from the United States and its allies, Kucinich wrapped himself in the American flag to protest the looming war.

"It's our flag," Kucinich told a downtown anti-war rally. "It needs to be connected that patriotic Americans oppose the war. People who love this country oppose the war. People who would die for this country oppose the war."

Earlier, before a crowd of 800 in the Kentucky Theatre, he started singing in a soft but sure voice: "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. Of thee I sing."

Kucinich began a second song and the crowd sang along: "O, say does that Star Spangled Banner . . . "

Their voices filled the old theater again as Kucinich went for the patriotic trifecta: "America, America, God shed his grace on thee . . . "

For many of those gathered in the theater, Kucinich was the candidate they had been waiting for.

"I was amazed. He had a sense of urgency about the moral questions that have been raised. . . . Maybe this is a guy who can weave patriotism and our own American nationalism into a progressive idea," said Gene Williams, a restaurant owner.

Won't be dismissed

Most political analysts are less sanguine about Kucinich.

Political scientist Robert Adams of Wright State University dismissed Kucinich as a "niche candidate" and said that his positions make him look like a "stereotypical Democratic liberal wimp."

Despite his standing in the polls, Kucinich said that he is in the race to stay.

His campaign said that he raised more than $1.6 million during the quarter that ended Sept. 30, more than the nearly $1.1 million he had left in his campaign treasury at the end of the last reporting period, June 30.

Singer Willie Nelson has endorsed Kucinich and has said he plans to do concerts to benefit his campaign.

"I am endorsing Dennis Kucinich for president because he stands up for heartland Americans who are too often overlooked and unheard," Nelson said in a statement on Kucinich's campaign Web site.

The rigors of the presidential campaign trail, moreover, hardly compare with the challenges in his two-year term as Cleveland mayor from 1977 to 1979.

He had campaigned on a promise to fight on behalf of everyday people against the city's banks, utility companies and giant corporations.

"I don't think there was any question that he was at war with the business community per se," said former U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes, a Democrat who retired from Congress in 1999 after serving 15 terms. The city then was divided sharply along racial lines, and Stokes said that he was the only black elected official who supported Kucinich when he ran for mayor.

Kucinich's crusade against the establishment gained national attention on Dec. 15, 1978, when Cleveland defaulted on its loans, becoming the first major city to effectively go bankrupt since the Great Depression.

Republican George Voinovich, now a U.S. senator from Ohio, defeated Kucinich in 1979 after Hagan and members of his own party led the unsuccessful recall attempt. The city council president, a Democrat, once shut off the mayor's microphone when Kucinich tried to address the council.

However, Kucinich's stand against the establishment later paid political dividends. As mayor, he had refused to sell the city's Municipal Light System to the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. He said that was the price the bankers wanted him to pay for rolling over the city's notes and avoiding default.

The city still owns the light system, and customers have paid lower rates than those served by the private company. In 1996, Kucinich wore a lapel button shaped like a light bulb and won his first term to Congress on the slogan "Light Up Congress. Elect Dennis Kucinich."

His comeback had started two years earlier when he won election to the state Senate, the only Democrat to replace a Republican incumbent in a year in which Republicans captured control of Congress and won every statewide race in Ohio.

Kucinich's views hadn't changed, but the sharp edges had been sanded down.

And while Kucinich has remained consistent with the urban populist views that helped elect him mayor, there has been a shift on one issue. Long known as an opponent of abortion, he said that he "remains opposed to abortion but I'm also for choice." He said he looks at the issue "holistically."

"I think the way you do it is to defend the rights a woman has under the Constitution . . . and at the same time work to make abortion less necessary," he said.

Recently, Kucinich also changed his hairstyle. For years, a thick mane flopped down over his forehead. Now he's combing it straight across his head.

"It kept blowing in my face," he said.

Dennis John Kucinich

Age: 57

Born: Oct. 8, 1946

Education: Bachelor's degree in speech communications, Case Western Reserve University, 1973; master's degree in speech communications, Case Western, 1974.

Political experience: Cleveland City Council member, 1969-75, 1983-85; Cleveland mayor, 1977-79; Ohio state Senate, 1994-96; U.S. House of Representatives, 1997-present.

Other experience: Clerk of Cleveland municipal courts, radio talk-show host, lecturer, media consultant, TV reporter, copy editor at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer and The Wall Street Journal, surgical technician at Cleveland's St. Alexis Hospital.

Family: Twice divorced; adult daughter from second marriage.

Military history: None.

Net worth: $2,000-$45,000

Religion: Catholic

Web site: www.kucinich.us

Kucinich's Texas support

Texas state campaign organizer: Sheril Smith

Central Texas contact: Dennis Dadey

Money raised in Texas: $84,000

Texas notes: Kucinich may not be the Democratic front-runner, but he does have a Texas legend on his side: Willie Nelson. Ronnie Dugger, the former editor of the Texas Observer, is another of Kucinich's supporters.

Kucinich has been in the state three times, including last week during his formal announcement tour.