Kucinich campaigns in Tucson
Originally published by KGUN 9 News
KUCINICH CAMPAIGNS IN TUCSON by Craig Smith (1/16/04)
Craig Smith
Candidates naturally hope for a warm welcome. By some estimates seven to eight hundred people came to see Dennis Kucinich at Muse Friday.
Since the Arizona Primary is part of a cluster of six primaries early next month, our election could be part of knocking out part of the field of eight candidates.
Kucinich says the race is more up in the air than people think and our primary won’t cut him out.
"This race is going to go all the way to the convention,” he says, "There will be ballot after ballot and a nominee will emerge after quite an involved process. I know that a few months ago there was speculation that the race was pretty much over with before it began."
Kucinich says he’ll steadily pick up delegates and eventually have enough to prevail at the Democratic convention.
As a Democrat stronghold in what’s perceived as a Republican state Tucson is an essential stop for any democrat who hopes to win.
Martin Bacal is a member of the Democratic National Committee. He’s not committed to any candidate right now.
He says Arizona’s number of registered Democrats is so close to the number of registered Republicans that the right candidate can swing the state to the Democrats if that candidate carries Pima County with a strong margin.
"We’ve seen this happen twice in recent years," says Bacal, “Governor Napolitano, who was elected statewide with an 11 thousand vote margin carried Pima County with 30 thousand votes. In 1996 former Pres Clinton carried Pima County by about the same margin and carried the state because of his margin in Pima County.
Kucinich says he’ll win with his call to turn Iraq over to the United Nations as soon as possible.
And he says he’s counting on a strong corps of avid supporters to get him to the White House.
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