Muslims For Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich’s vegan lunch is getting cold. The meal sits untouched in a Styrofoam box at his feet. There is little time to eat in the middle of his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, especially since he’s been labeled unelectable. But one night in January could prove every pundit wrong and make the candidate’s “in this to the end” talk reality.

Today, he knocked on doors and held a town hall meeting at Creative Visions Human Services Institute in Des Moines. He’s on his way to the Islamic Center of Des Moines to make his next campaign appearance. He looks tired and there’s an unmistakable disgust in his voice that pops up when questions about his latest campaign setback are raised. About two weeks ago, ABC News pulled its embedded reporters from the Kucinich, Rev. Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun campaigns. This potentially campaign-crippling action came the day after a heated exchange between the Ohio congressman and ABC newsman and debate moderator Ted Koppel at a New Hampshire forum.

“I don’t need their permission to be president of the United States,” Kucinich says. “I’m not going to campaign any less, and I couldn’t campaign more.”

Kucinich sees this as another slight, evidence that the media are shirking their responsibility to not just get his message out, but also to outline the issues that separate the candidates.

“Americans don’t want their ballot boxes stuffed at any point in the process,” Kucinich says.

“It’s inappropriate for any media corporation to try to determine who the president should be. It’s not their role,” he says. “They have an affirmative obligation to the American public to provide information from all viewpoints in a presidential campaign. They’re not doing it. They’re just not doing it,”

If the campaign is focused on endorsements, polls and money, no one has to talk about what’s happening in Iraq or why 45 million Americans do not have health insurance or why an alarming number of children are not graduating from high school, Kucinich says.

“There are issues that the American people deserve to have a discussion on that are often ignored in the media’s desire to talk about polls,” Kucinich says. “In a way, this obsession with polls makes a mockery of an election because instead of waiting for what the people say in the election, polls attempt to guide the people toward certain choices. Then the polls become the news instead of what people stand for.”

What Dennis Kucinich stands for has been called extremely progressive – pulling out of Iraq, providing universal single-payer health care and withdrawing from NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. He is a believer – a passionate, deeply spiritual man with a sense of purpose. He believes his destiny is the White House. And he has a throng of supporters who believe in him.

But he’s growing tired. The campaign road is long and far from home, where he longs to be, but he’s not about to quit.

“When you believe in what you’re doing and you’ve connected with your purpose in life, it’s effortless,” he says with a bold laugh.

The long shot

Kucinich admits his chance of winning the 2004 Democratic nomination is a long shot. He punctuates it in a campaign video shown before his town hall meeting at Creative Visions. He says his entire life has been a long shot. But this is a nation of long shots.

Kucinich has been the underdog before – he’s knocked off incumbents before. And his speeches are full of possibility and belief. He doesn’t qualify his candidacy with ifs. With Kucinich, it’s “When I’m elected president …” He says it with the passion of a man who actually believes that on Jan. 19, he’s going to shock the world with a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses. It’s a philosophical requirement to run. All the polls that have him trapped in a spider hole with Moseley Braun don’t matter.

This is also the reason he and every candidate except Howard Dean refused to raise their hands at the New Hampshire forum when Koppel asked them if they thought Dean could defeat George W. Bush. Raising a hand would have been an admission of defeat. This is the reason Kucinich says, “When I’m elected president …” instead of “if.” If is fraught with doubt. It’s like hedging a bet, laying the framework for concession. If could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the candidate doesn’t believe he can win the presidency, then why should anyone else believe in him?

However, the polls say otherwise. Polls make the contest a horse race. The public knows Howard Dean is the front-runner because he’s topping the polls. In the last New York Times/CBS News poll, Dean led the pack with 23 percent. On the other hand, Kucinich received only 1 percent support.

Political analyst Eric Woolson says polls and news coverage feed off each other.

“If a candidate is low in the polls, they aren’t nearly as able to generate news coverage, and if they’re not generating news coverage, then voters aren’t hearing their message; therefore, they aren’t able to move up in the polls,” he says.

Adds Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University: “There’s a bias there, and that bias generally matches the views of the majority of people.”

Media outlets have to make news judgments because their resources are scarce, says Arthur Sanders, associate professor of politics and international relations at Drake University. Reporters look at polls, who’s raising money and who’s getting endorsements because “there’s only so much you can cover,” he says.

“If it’s true that Dennis Kucinich doesn’t really have a chance, and by all indications, he doesn’t really seem to have a chance, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for you to spend your precious resources … on these people who don’t have a chance,” Sanders says.

Sanders says Kucinich is stuck in the “if-only-I-could-get-my-message-out” cycle.

“From [the candidates’] perspective, the reason they can’t win is nobody will cover them, but nobody will cover them because they don’t have a chance to win, but they can’t possibly have a chance to win unless somebody starts covering them,” Sanders says. “And so they feel trapped.”

Kucinich probably thinks the American people would like his platform and policies if they heard them, but the major television networks, newspapers and wire services aren’t paying attention to his campaign, Sanders says.

“He may be right or wrong about that, but if people don’t get his message, he’s certainly going to lose,” Sanders says. “There’s no way for him to be proven wrong in his thought … if they don’t get his message.”

The cycle can be broken. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean escaped it to become the leader of the pack.

“It’s a very hard thing to do, but that was one of his successes,” Sanders says.

Other Democratic hopefuls John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Wesley Clark and John Edwards won’t be able to claim, “We lost because nobody paid any attention to us,” Sanders says. “They’re going to lose because they couldn’t make their message resonate with the right voters or caucus goers. Kucinich, my guess is, by the time it’s all over, will still be saying …, ‘If only people had heard me.’”

Kucinich vs. Koppel

Prior to the New Hampshire forum, ABC newsman Ted Koppel told The Washington Post: “How did Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun get into this thing? … Nobody seems to know. Some candidates who are perceived as serious are gasping for air, and what little oxygen there is on stage will be taken up by one-third of the people who do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the nomination.”

During the debate, Koppel brought up former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement of Howard Dean. Kucinich jumped in, saying talk of endorsements “trivializes the issues that are before us.”

Koppel then asked Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton point-blank when they would “drop out.”

Kucinich fired back with, “When I take the oath of office.” He launched into his positions on Iraq and the Patriot Act and NAFTA and the WTO before saying wryly, “I may be inconvenient for some of those in the media, but, you know, I’m sorry about that.”

In an interview with Koppel, Brooke Gladstone of National Public Radio’s “On the Media” asked him if the media are taking it upon themselves to narrow the field before the vote. Koppel responded, “It’s not up to me to narrow the field, but it is up to me to ask questions, and if the question cuts a little close to the bone, I can’t help that.”

Koppel was right to a degree about the bottom three cluttering the stage, Sanders says. If the final four will be Gephardt, Kerry, Clark or Dean, then voters would be better off focusing on them, he says.

“On the other hand, we’re never entirely sure what the choice is going to be, and so we want a process that’s fair,” Sanders says.

The day after the New Hampshire forum, ABC News pulled its embedded reporters from the Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton campaigns. The network characterized the move as “a routine coverage decision” made to concentrate its resources on the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

“I don’t think ABC should be the first primary,” Kucinich told the Associated Press. “The first primary should not be on a television network.”

Moseley Braun told the AP, “I think it is a terrible commentary, however, on the state of the media, frankly, if their idea of a democracy is only relating to those candidates who have the most money.”

NPR’s Gladstone asked Koppel if the campaigns should continue to get coverage by ABC News. Koppel replied, “There is nothing that obliges ABC News or any other news organization to have people on a daily basis traveling with a campaign when it does cost a fair amount of money, and when the conclusion has been reached that those three campaigns are not, at the moment, catching fire.”

Dean Borg, host of Iowa Public Television’s weekly show “Iowa Press,” says ABC News’ decision to pull embedded reporters from the campaigns is “perfectly defensible.”

“I think that it’s perfectly logical that the media would begin to concentrate on those candidates who have demonstrated an ability to resonate with the electorate,” Borg says.

Doing so better serves the public, Borg says, because the media have limited resources. Such a decision allows a news organization to “concentrate and expand the coverage of those candidates that are resonating with the electorate and show signs of being able to get the nomination,” he says.

Kucinich’s campaign Web site posted a petition calling for ABC to redeploy the reporters and use their reporting in coverage of the presidential race. The site also lists the names and phone numbers of ABC News executives.

The online petition, found at www.kucinich.us/petition_abc1.php, states: “This move, before any state’s caucus or primary, appears based on the belief that viable candidates can be predicted 11 months prior to an election, a belief that flies in the face of the historical record. Time and again, candidates dismissed as ‘fringe’ have wound up either with the nomination or with a significant impact on the convention and in the primaries.”

Sanders says, “He knows if they’re not following him around, then the amount of coverage that he is going to get is going to decline. Not that he’s getting a lot to begin with.”

The believers

The believers packed Ed Fallon’s River Bend home, waiting eagerly for Kucinich to arrive the night of a late November MSNBC debate.

There was Jim Wheeler, who said, “Kucinich makes more sense than most of ’em.” Asked about Kucinich’s media draught, Wheeler rubbed his thumb and index finger together, giving the money sign. “It always comes down to that,” he said.

Greg and Sue Skog, their 11-year-old daughter Chelsea and Jack Rossback drove from Minnesota to Des Moines to see the debate. They’ve made five road trips to see Kucinich. Greg and Sue wear his campaign buttons on their sweaters and peace symbol necklaces. They back the candidate because he stands for peace and they want a better future not just for their children, but all children.

“This is the grassiest of grass-roots campaigns,” Greg Skog said.

Three nurses – Annette Lee, Janet Naset-Payne and Katie Naset – said they believe in him because of his universal health care plan. They plan to attend a caucus for the first time on Jan. 19 to support Kucinich. “And we will get our 15 percent,” Naset vowed, referring to the minimum level of support a candidate needs in a precinct caucus to gain a delegate to the county convention.

Then there is Fallon, himself a believer. “There’s no doubt about it. I think he’s the right person,” Fallon said.

When he introduced Kucinich, Fallon told the people to “reject unelectability.”

When Kucinich finished his speech on the need to “get the U.S. out of Iraq and the U.N. in,” the room was full of believers.

Yet, even one of Kucinich’s strongest backers was still hesitant. “He’s too good to be president,” said activist Chester Guinn. “The American people aren’t ready. They want to be snowed.”

After he made his way through the swarm, shaking hands, posing for pictures and autographing copies of his book, Kucinich was whisked away to the next house party.

Reaching into communities

As the van pulls up to the Islamic Center, Kucinich says he’s reaching into communities the other candidates are ignoring. He thinks other candidates ignore these areas because the people who live in them are less likely to vote. He’s more optimistic.

“If you can inspire people to come out and vote, it changes everything,” he says. “Again, this is where I come from. I just happen to be one of the few who’s had a chance to come out of the neighborhoods. The person that somehow got lifted up.”

Door-knocking in the inner city and speaking at Creative Visions felt like home, Kucinich says. This is where he lives, where he’s from. These are his neighbors – all colors, creeds and sexual orientations.

“Did you see how beautiful that audience was?” he asks rhetorically about the multicultural group gathered at Creative Visions. “That audience looked like America.

“I love that. That’s the best because you really get a chance to see just how America is. See, it’s my connection with the diversity of this country, which is another reason why I can be the next president of the United States.”

Kucinich speaks about inspiring people with passion. It’s a reverberation of his spirituality. His religion is Roman Catholic, although he says he includes all faiths, beliefs and disbeliefs in his worship. He can inspire, he admits, because other people have inspired him. That, “and because spirit moves through all of us.”

“I learned about it by being with others who experienced it and others who have celebrated spiritual principles in their own lives,” he says. “When you’re in touch with it in your own life and you feel the power of spirit working with you and within you and through you, it’s amazing. It’s breathtaking.”

Believe in what you want to believe, Kucinich says, but he has “a very deep spiritual basis” in all things he attempts in life, his quest for the presidency is no exception.

“I view life as being a profoundly spiritual experience,” he says. “And that’s how I learn, too. I’m open. You keep open all the time and learn something from people because spirit speaks to you at all times through everyone.”

The van’s side door slides open, and he steps out. He’s off to inspire some new believers.