A fish out of water
Originally published in the Guardian, a British newspaper
A fish out of water
Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich may have raised $4m but only 1% of Democrat supporters plan to vote for him. Matthew Wells meets a social democrat floundering in free-market America
Monday December 8, 2003
Twice-married Dennis Kucinich is looking for a new "first lady" to share the White House.
The leftwing Ohio congressman currently trails ninth out of nine candidates in the Democratic party race for the presidential nomination - but at least he now has a date.
The New Hampshire-based website for political junkies, PoliticsNH.com, organised a contest to supply Kucinich with a suitable dinner companion, after he joked about his single status last month on the campaign trail.
Gina Marie Santore from New Jersey was declared the winner with 54% of the popular vote, after 80 women put themselves forward. Slight problem: she already has a boyfriend.
Kucinich won't be all that surprised that her main objective, reportedly, is to meet for an exchange of ideas.
Refusing to be deflected from the main job at hand, he advertised for a woman who is "fearless in her desire for peace in the world and for universal single-payer health care and a full employment economy".
The underlying problem facing the wiry 57-year-old is that this moment of mid-campaign frivolity is the only story that has earned him national media attention so far.
Influential late-night hosts Leno and Letterman, have not been talking up his agenda for withdrawal from Nafta and the World Trade Organisation in their monologues.
His lack of exposure means that even politically savvy New Yorkers often ask, "Dennis who?"
Like all the candidates, he has gravitated towards the nation's cultural capital at regular intervals, but the main fundraising salons of the Upper East Side - organised by supporters of Dean, Clark and Kerry - are closed to him.
Instead, we meet at the end of a Q&A session with trades union officials in midtown. The enthusiastic supporters clapping loudly on the sidelines have a touch of the "Wolfie Smith" about them. In polling terms, his campaign is almost without a pulse. Only 1% of Democrat supporters say they intend to vote for him.
What springs to mind is just how marginal the entire platform is, for a candidate with a durable track record that in any country with a tradition of democratic socialism, would probably attract double-digit support.
Think back to the Tony Benn Labour leadership challenges of the 1980s, where he almost derailed Dennis Healey and the red rose makeover of Neil Kinnock. Dennis Kucinich is the same kind of politician, but in free-market America, he is nowhere.
"The Kucinich supporter is really a different breed," says ABC News campaign reporter, Melinda Arons. She is the only national journalist following him fulltime:
"I have seen people cry in his presence, they think he is the Second Coming, but they are so far away from the mainstream".
Leaving the organised labour love-in, I travel downtown with the candidate in a cramped minibus. Unlike several of the other trailing candidates, he has managed to raise over four million dollars: enough fuel to keeps a threadbare operation on the road across the country.
His track record smacks of idealism and stubborn conviction: unusual traits in modern American politics.
At the age of 31, he was mayor of Cleveland, when he rejected the demand of local big banks to privatise the city's electricity system.
In retaliation, the banks refused any more credit, and the city's finances collapsed. At the first home game of the Cleveland Indians baseball season that year, Mayor Kucinich had to wear a bullet proof vest.
He lost in a Republican landslide the following year, and spent 15 years out of office before returning to state, and then national political life in the mid 1990s.
"As I get more media coverage, my numbers are going to go up. The American people don't want to stay in Iraq, the people don't want to be captives of insurance and pharmaceutical companies," he says.
I suggest that he would be fine campaigning as a socialist in western Europe, but here, he's not taken seriously:
"I intend to win. Every election I have ever won, I was told, why bother? It took me five attempts to get into Congress. The D is for Dennis, but it is also for determination."
Does he see himself as a socialist? "Labels can be instructive. I am running as a Democrat. That's what I'm called where I come from ... My candidacy is aimed at transforming the Democratic party, so that it relates to jobs for all, education for all, retirement security for all."
It's clear that, given the chance, Kucinich would take the Democrats in the opposite direction that Tony Blair chose for New Labour. The only thing they have in common is that neither can quite bear to use the S-word.
He wants to create a new Department for Peace. He is a proud vegan, and is totally at home using Californian patois like "spiritual energy". Talking with his press aide about the evening restaurant arrangements, his one important question is: "is it organic?"
Despite the big-picture hopelessness of the cause, there is a ruthless honesty - almost nobility - to the Kucinich campaign. What other runner questioned by a reporter about New York as a poignant symbol of this already-bitter campaign to rule America, would describe it foremost as a "sensual" place?
Thanks to free-flowing traffic on Broadway, we arrive a little early at his next engagement by Washington Square. He is tickled that a Scottish radio programme had got in touch for an interview about his first lady search: "They didn't know that I am a devotee of Burns," he mutters.
"The question of the hour, is do we feel safer now, than four years ago? Many would say no," he concludes.
"What can we do to heal this country and the world, to construct a new era of world cooperation so we can bring about peace? That's the direction I intend to take this debate, and America."
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