Muslims For Kucinich

If Dennis Kucinich doesn't make it to the White House, friends should consider asking him to get into talk radio. He seems like someone who could be the long-sought liberal answer to conservative domination of the airwaves.
He takes no prisoners in the expression of his views. He's passionate, he's engaging - and he's likable.

Kucinich is slightly built, with a craggy face and flecks of gray just beginning to appear in his dark hair. He conveys bundled energy of the kind that makes it plausible that, as he recalled, he worked 80 hours a week in his youth to save money for college.

"This campaign is poised to be the surprise of the 2004 election season," predicted Kucinich. Why? Because, he said, he's the only candidate who offers Americans a clear change of direction. He's the only candidate to propose universal, single-payer health care, the only one with a plan for a quick withdrawal (in 90 days) of American troops from Iraq, the only candidate who would pull the United States completely out of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.

"My nomination will give people a profound choice of the direction of the country," said Kucinich, comparing the possibility to the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and the subsequent New Deal. "We need a new deal in this country, a new deal on health care, a new deal on jobs, a new deal on education, a new deal on agriculture, a new deal on reform of the structure of the economy.

"I'm ready."

The Ohio congressman is not as well known as most of the other candidates for the Democratic nomination, so he was asked to talk about his background and the things that shaped his views. His early triumph, followed by rejection, a long exile and eventual comeback is among the most fascinating stories in American politics.

Kucinich gained national attention as the "boy mayor" of Cleveland in the 1970s, but the city was plunged into default when he refused to sell the municipal electric utility, and he was voted out of office. "I incurred the wrath of the business community, of all the radio and TV stations, newspapers, of both political parties, and when I lost the election I couldn't get a job in Cleveland," he said.

He supported himself by lecturing and in other jobs, and lost various attempts to regain public office. "I scrambled for a long time," he said. "I came close to losing my home. My marriage broke up under financial pressures. Any of us who have been through tough years understands that to persevere might make you stronger, so I had the opportunity with the help of friends to become stronger and kind of go on a spiritual voyage on the nature of power and the question of choices that we make in our lives."

Kucinich was in California in the 1990s when the press in Cleveland began doing stories about the success of the municipal utility - the one he had refused to privatize. He returned, and under the buzz of "Dennis was right," was elected to the Ohio senate and then to Congress, both times defeating Republican incumbents.

"Having been through the situation of basically being shattered and then putting your life back together, I understand what a lot of people go through," he said.

Kucinich indicated his views were largely shaped by his childhood in Cleveland. He was the oldest of seven children and lived in 21 places "including a couple of cars" by the time he was 17. Most apartments wouldn't accept more than one or two children, he said,"so we'd end up going to a place and my dad would say we have two children, because we needed a place. We had drills. We'd hide in a closet or run down the stairs if the landlord was coming and hide behind parked cars until he left. Somebody always figured out there were more children, so we had to keep moving."

The childhood experience of dislocation and insecurity, he said, has a lot to do with the way he looks at the world. "I have sympathy for people working to make ends meet," he said. "Sympathy for people who have needs for housing, sympathy for people who are trying to feed their families, who are trying to hold down jobs, who are trying to find some stability in their lives, who want their kids to go to good schools."

Why did he get into politics? Kucinich said he recalls when he was in the ninth grade hearing John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and "felt this sense of calling, I really did." More important, perhaps, was his father, who served in the Marines in World War II and was wounded at Bougainville. "My dad was growing a family of Marines," he said. "Semper fi was part of the language of the family. We were either good Marines or not. . . . This idea of service to country was kind of drilled into us from the time we were kids."

He added, "I believe our lives don't belong just to ourselves."

Kucinich said working people like those he knows in Cleveland are doing most of the dying in Iraq - a war he strongly opposed. In making an issue of the war and the possibility of a renewed draft, Kucinich said people who hear his message "are going to find out that they have one candidate who gets it and who challenges this whole rotten system that put us there."

He also challenges the system of world trade, saying he'd pull out of NAFTA and the WTO and return to bilateral trade relationships. An America-first position on trade, however, doesn't carry over to other international relations in which Kucinich stressed the need for cooperation. "We cannot secure this nation going it alone," he said. He ticked off virtually every international treaty - including nuclear non-proliferation, the biological weapons convention, the chemical weapons convention, the small-arms treaty, the land-mine treaty, the international criminal court and the climate-change treaty - saying he'd sign them all. "I believe that we already are in a new world," he said. "America has to participate in it."

Challenging the system was a recurring theme of his remarks, and he mocked Democratic rivals who, in "a kind of warped pragmatism," won't challenge the private-sector control of health care. As if addressing the other candidates, Kucinich asked, "You want to be president of the United States, and say, "Well, you know, we have to face it - we can't really challenge this industry"? Oh, really? And what else can't you challenge? Can't challenge the energy monopolies? Can't challenge the military-industrial complex? What other challenges can't you take on, Mr. President?

"It's always instructive when I see candidates who look at the practicalities of Washington and what we can and cannot do. I started in politics a long time ago, and I know that if you appeal to people you can change things."

Dennis J. Kucinich

BORN: Oct. 8, 1946, Cleveland, Ohio.

EDUCATION: Attended Cleveland State University; B.A. and M.A. from Case Western Reserve University, 1973.

CAREER: At various times, he has worked as a sportswriter, clerk of municipal courts, lecturer, consultant, television reporter, video producer and radio talk-show host. Elective offices include service on the Cleveland City Council, 1970-75, 1983-85; mayor 1977-79; Ohio state Senate 1994-96; U.S. House of Representatives since 1996.

FAMILY: Divorced. One daughter, Jackie.

From Dennis Kucinich

On energy policy: "President Kennedy called this nation forward to put a man on the moon. [Similarly,] we need to direct the technical and capital resources of this country into new energy technologies and renewable-energy technologies and toward sustainability. . . There's a whole new economy waiting to be created."

On trade protectionism: "If we don't protect ourselves, who will?"

On Iraq: "We have to go to the United Nations with a new resolution. . . . We've got to give up any interest in oil, in privatization, in contracts. Such a resolution would, I think, indicate to the world community the United States has taken a new direction, and thereby can create the conditions for complements of troops from member nations to help stabilize Iraq and rotate those troops in and get our troops out. This could be accomplished in a matter of 90 days."

On health care: "My plan is Medicare-for-all, a single-payer system, universal, and it covers everyone from cradle to grave."