Democratic candidate thrills WWU crowd
Although it isn't getting much coverage in the news, Kucinich spoke at Western Washington University before coming to the Seattle rally. The Bellingham Herald reports
Kucinich cites blue-collar roots, says he'll beat Bush
Aubrey Cohen, The Bellingham Herald
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich knows that to have any chance of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president, he has to convince people like Judy Perry and Devon Fliss that he can beat George W. Bush.
"I'm struggling with that," Fliss, 25, of Bellingham, said while waiting for Kucinich to talk at Western Washington University Friday morning. "I don't think he can."
"I don't know," said Perry, 60, also of Bellingham. "That's a concern."
Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who came to Bellingham as part of a campaign swing through the state, has a quick answer for such doubters.
"I can win if people vote for me," he said while riding in a van to the university from Bellingham International Airport. "That's always the case. And I think that there will be many people voting for me when they find that I offer a real alternative."
As an example, Kucinich says he's the only Democrat with a strategy to get U.S. soldiers out of Iraq right away, and the only one talking about pulling the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.
Kucinich is one of nine Democrats hoping to unseat Bush. Washington Democrats will choose their presidential favorite in caucuses on Feb. 7.
Kucinich also has a long answer to the question of whether he can win. It's the first item on the "frequently asked questions" page of his Web site (www.kucinich.us) and has another page dedicated to it.
Kucinich touts his history of defeating incumbent Republicans in the swing state of Ohio, his blue-collar roots and his reputation as a fighter. The former Cleveland mayor lost a re-election bid to that office after the city defaulted on its debts, debts that banks called in after Kucinich refused to sell the city-owned power utility.
"I come from Cleveland, Ohio, that's middle America and I come from a working-class background," he said Friday.
"People I went to school with, played baseball with, ended up getting killed in Vietnam, for what?" he said. "And this (Iraq) situation is, as far as I'm concerned, even worse because it is so based on falsehood and based on fear."
Kucinich has a message for those who would support whoever they think could beat Bush, regardless of their positions on the issues.
"It's an abandonment of truth and the end of hope," he said. "We don't have to give up what we believe in."
The last U.S. House member to win the presidency was James A. Garfield, in 1881. Kucinich pointed out that Garfield also was from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and said he had other similarities to the president, who was shot after four months in office and died 80 days later.
"He was someone who blended principles of idealism and ethics which were also spiritually based," Kucinich said. "Garfield would have been an extraordinary president."
Enthusiastic reception
At Western, Kucinich repeatedly roused the capacity crowd of more than 700 people with his fiery denunciations of U.S. involvement in Iraq, membership in NAFTA and WTO, and his calls for arms control, a Department of Peace, universal health care, public child care and free college tuition.
"I'm almost in tears because it's like there's a voice out there for the hope that people want to have; I felt the same way about Bobby Kennedy," said Ginny Wolff, 52, of Bow. "I don't even know if he thinks he can get elected. I have no idea, but it's a voice for a position that needs to be spoken."
David Christopher, a 26-year-old Irishman living in Vancouver, B.C., came to the speech wearing a Kucinich T-shirt.
"I think he's right on all the issues," Christopher said. "He really seems to connect with people and have a really great sense of where America should be going - to heal the world and use all America's power for good instead of for bad."
At the end of Kucinich's speech, Fliss said she needed time to step back from the emotion of the moment and take a look at what other candidates are saying. Kucinich's speech clearly exhilarated her.
"He articulated exactly what I have been feeling about what's been happening in the United States," she said.
After his talk in Bellingham, Kucinich was scheduled to make campaign appearances in Seattle on Friday and today.
Where he stands
Here's some of what Democratic U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich had to say about issues when he spoke Friday at Western Washington University:
IRAQ: "The United States must end the occupation of Iraq. We must get the (United Nations) in and get the U.S. out. ... We have to acknowledge that the presence of our troops, the presence of our nation in Iraq, is in and of itself a force for destabilization in Iraq. ... We are in a disaster, which the longer we're in the deeper we're going to get in."
PEACE: "We must not believe that war is inevitable. We must believe that peace is inevitable and work for it. ... If we do not work to create a structure for peace in our time, the world will become a much more dangerous place and we'll be responsible for it."
FREE TRADE: "(The North American Free Trade Agreement) has opened the door for global corporations to move jobs out of this country. ... As president, my first act in office will be to cancel NAFTA, to cancel (the World Trade Organization) and to go back to bilateral trade. Everybody wants access to the U.S. market. We can set the terms.
"If you're going to do trade with the U.S., workers in your country have to have the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement. When you do that, then that takes away the incentive to crush industries here in the United States."
HEALTH CARE: "We have to recognize right now that insurance companies make money not providing health care. ... End health care for profit. ... We're paying for universal health care. We're not getting it."
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