Muslims For Kucinich

Rumney, N.H.- Dennis Kucinich is lost in the woods.

A small caravan of cars carrying the congressman, staff, volunteers and reporters has gone up a snowy road in the foothills of the White Mountains and back, making several U-turns and finally stopping in the dark. Aides to the presidential candidate know they must be somewhere near the rustic home that's holding a house party - a casual meet-and-greet event - for arguably the most liberal contender in the Democratic field.

Kucinich, ill-dressed for the mountains in a pin-striped suit, blue print tie and black dress shoes, joins reporters on the road plotting a possible snowball fight. But before things heat up, a stranger's car approaches, and the driver asks: "Are you going to the Eckleins'?"

Well, yes. And so Kucinich jumps in, before the driver seems to realize that a man running for president of the United States is now riding shotgun in her car.

Once he was lost, now he's found.

That moment Wednesday night is in a way emblematic of the Kucinich for President campaign: out in the wilderness compared with operations like President Bush's and Howard Dean's, and headed off the beaten path.

His is a campaign preaching world peace, health care without insurance and education for all.

It is a campaign by a little- known Cleveland congressman whom many in mainstream politics write off as incidental.

His own assessment: "I think I'm the only Democrat who has a chance of beating George Bush."

Kucinich traipsed across snowy New Hampshire last week using lines like that, dining on vegetarian sushi and soy crackers in the middle seat of a rented Ford van speeding to event after event. Yet, this day, he was not incidental - he was in demand - thanks to his performance at Tuesday night's Democratic debate at the University of New Hampshire.

ABC's Ted Koppel, noting that Kucinich and fellow underdogs Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun lack money, big political endorsements and support in the polls, asked: "When do you pull out?"

Kucinich was offended and fired back, accusing the newsman of focusing more on the process than on the ideas of the candidates. "Now I may be inconvenient for some of those in the media," he said, "but, you know, I'm sorry about that."

Newfound notice

The audience loved it, and Kucinich's performance was mentioned at every stop of his swing through the Granite State, which ended Thursday.

"Qualitatively, it may have launched my campaign," Kucinich said later, biting forkfuls of nondairy chocolate cake - he avoids all food from animals - as the van sped through a cold rain. The public "saw a candidate willing to stand up and address the issues."

The impact might not last, but Kucinich clearly was reveling in it. Could he spare a minute to join Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala in CNN's traveling bus studio in Concord? Of course. Could he get to a Manchester TV studio by 5 for a Fox News interview?

He tried - "I want to do this thing," he told Paul Costanzo, his deputy campaign manager and security chief, emphatically. But they were headed in the opposite direction because an audience of health care professionals was waiting for him at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.

Meantime, he had reporters from The New York Times, Boston Globe and The Plain Dealer, among others, following him around, though their trips had been planned before the debate.

In other words, Dennis Kucinich - already with a staff and volunteers to drive him, feed him while en route, make calls, schedule his travel, pack his bags - had a campaign in earnest.

His audiences, though, remained small.

At Derek Owen's 200-acre farm near Hopkinton, about 25 people from the Northeast Organic Farming Association were asking for his positions on agribusiness, government-mandated testing in schools and marijuana.

He told Owen, 73, that he would use the Justice Department to enforce antitrust laws so corporations no longer controlled agriculture.

He told Ted Whittemore, a middle school teacher from Claremont, that he would enlist the help of teachers to create a system that taps children's creativity and de-emphasizes "this harsh and rigid approach to testing."

He told a man with a leather cowboy-style hat and wide eyes the same thing he had earlier told students at Memorial High School in Manchester: "Marijuana ought to be decriminalized, period."

New Hampshire audiences can be diverse, from laid-off mill workers to college students to rural recluses, and the up-close politicking requires candidates to answer questions face-to-face.

Picking issues

Whether at a high school or college, farm or living room, Kucinich, 57, worked the audience Oprah-style, using no prepared text, and often holding a microphone in one hand while the other alternated between his pants pocket and gestures to make a point. His suit coat was always buttoned, his hair, combed to the side, always in place.

He emphasized two issues above all: A need to leave Iraq immediately and the need for health care for all. Not health insurance for all - he says other candidates' plans would have premiums, co-payments and deductibles - but government-paid health care.

"I'm not running for insurance salesman-in-chief," he tells audiences everywhere. "I'm running for president of the United States."

Kucinich's answers can sound simplistic, even naive, as if he is choosing to ignore the compromises, hostilities and failed preceding efforts of others in public and foreign policy. On Israel, for instance, he told the 30 people at the Eckleins' house party that he would "bring together the leaders of the Israelis and the Palestinians," demand an end to Palestinian terrorism as well as new Israeli settlements, create economic activity like road building and insist on a sharing of water rights.

On saving energy, he proposed incentives for wind and solar power and even new technologies for light bulbs.

But Kucinich's candidacy is appealing to idealists who believe that if a leader changes priorities - if he thinks positively - new solutions will follow. "All of the positions he has, we hold dear in our hearts," said Marcosa Santiago, a child psychiatrist who held the house party with her husband, David Ecklein.

Waiting his turn

Though Kucinich insists he's running to win, Washington observers believe his goal is to secure a national following among progressives and gain a bigger seat at the table. Otherwise, events like his appearance Wednesday at the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Hall in Hooksett would be demoralizing.

While he waited off to the side to be introduced, somebody said into the microphone, "I understand Gov. Dean is in the hall." A minute or two later, a phalanx of TV cameras swept through the hall, surrounding the doctor and former governor of Vermont - the Democratic front-runner - as he made his way forward.

"That's OK," Kucinich said of the delay, listening to Dean's short speech from a doorway. "He may have been scheduled be fore us."

The union hall had not been on Dean's daily list of campaign events. Dean wrapped up, and most of the camera crews left. Kucinich finally was introduced.

Quickly, he had the audience in his hands with his talk of workers' rights and his plan to end the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"I have stood in parking lots . . . where they used to make steel," he said. "Where they used to make bicycles. . . . Where they used to make, where they used to make, where they used to make."

The applause was sharp - and if clapping is a barometer, Kuci nich got the better of Dean.

But did he win labor votes for the state's primary Jan. 27?

"He was great," said Pat Long, an iron workers union member from Hooksett. But Long, like many in the hall, was already wearing a button of support - for Dick Gephardt.