Kucinich says his priority is people
Originally published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution
Kucinich says his priority is people
Presidential bid officially launched
By WILLIAM HERSHEY
CLEVELAND -- Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich officially launched his candidacy for president Monday by promising to withdraw the United States from NAFTA and the World Trade Organization and to set up a universal, single-payer health care system covering all Americans.
He also said the United States could bring its troops home from Iraq by Jan. 1 by turning the situation over to the United Nations.
"I say support our troops. Bring them home," Kucinich said.
In a 48-minute speech at City Hall, interrupted more than a dozen times by applause and chants of "Run, Dennis, run," the former Cleveland mayor also promised to provide free college tuition for students at public colleges and universities and free pre-kindergarten classes for youngsters 3 to 5 years old, and said he would study reparations for American blacks whose ancestors were slaves.
He also promised to remember his roots.
"I want all of you to know that I remember where I come from . . . Cleveland is my home. Cleveland is where my heart resides," said Kucinich, 57, the oldest of seven children.
His father, Frank, a truck driver, and mother, Virginia, struggled to pay the bills, and by the time Kucinich was 17 the family had lived in 21 places, including, as Kucinich reminded the crowd, a couple of cars.
Five of his six siblings and his daughter, Jackie, 21, were in the audience, estimated at 700 by Kucinich aides.
What amounted to a campaign rally in the ornate City Council chambers kicked off a four-day, 12-city tour scheduled to end Thursday in Washington. Stops include Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa.
Kucinich, in his fourth term in Congress, barely registers in national polls -- 1 percent of likely Democratic voters supported him in a CBS/New York Times Poll taken Sept. 28-Oct. 1 -- but the crowd in Cleveland included enthusiastic followers who have been behind him throughout his 34-year political journey.
"He says exactly what I want to hear," said Clara Lacey, 76, who is retired from an auto parts plant. "He did today. On to the White House!"
Kucinich in his speech recalled his tumultuous two years as mayor, 1977-79, when he butted heads with bankers who wanted him to stave off default on the city's notes by selling the city's Municipal Light System to a private company.
Cleveland defaulted, becoming the first major American city to effectively go bankrupt since the Great Depression. But it still owns the light system and customers pay lower rates than those served by private companies -- a fact that aided Kucinich's political resurgence in the 1990s.
"I stand here ready to light up America," he said.
After the speech, he told reporters he would pay for his pre-kindergarten program by cutting the Pentagon budget 15 percent and use a portion of President Bush's tax cut to the wealthy to cover the cost of free college tuition.
"It's a question of what our priorities are," Kucinich said. "My priorities will be the social and economic welfare of the people. . . . My priorities are to break the shackles of fear that are causing this country to spend more money on military purposes and less and less money on social concerns."
He said he would create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace and work "to make war a thing of the past."
"America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace simultaneously," he said.
He said he would abandon multilateral trade agreements and develop bilateral trade plans that would allow the United States to protect the rights of workers in other countries while protecting American workers from unfair competition.
Monday's rally had an ecumenical flavor, with invocations from a rabbi, an imam and a Baptist minister.
Mimi Kennedy, a star of the television show "Dharma & Greg," added a Hollywood touch as she introduced Kucinich and other speakers.
Ohio political scientist Robert Adams, who in March said Kucinich's positions made him sound like a "stereotypical Democratic liberal wimp," said Monday that Kucinich has showed staying power.
"I don't think he's a wimp any more. I think he's a liberal dreamer. He hangs in there. He holds his own," said Adams of Wright State University.
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