Voting for your beliefs sure beats backing a winner
Originally published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
If I were a Democrat, I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich for president.
I'm not, and I won't. His politics and mine, for the most part, are polar opposites.
But if I were heir to the populism of Andy Jackson and FDR, of W.E.B. DuBois and John L. Lewis, well, the favorite son of this gritty, old steel town would be the candidate for me.
Why?
Because Dennis (and in this city, he'll never be known by any other name) carries the distilled essence of what the Democratic Party used to be about, and in which most rank-and-file members, down deep in their hearts, still believe:
Universal, government-sponsored health care.
A massive public works program to rebuild the national infrastructure and provide full employment.
Curtailed military spending.
Continuation of affirmative action programs.
Cancellation of NAFTA and a quick exit from the WTO.
Re-regulation of all things corporate.
Immediate with drawal from Iraq.
Now that's a list that would warm the hearts of practically anyone who carries a "D" on his voter registration card.
But, come a week from Tuesday, a lot of those folks will let pari-mutuel politics silence the cry of their liberal hearts.
Persuaded that, however much they agree with his platform, Dennis can win neither the nomination nor the presidency, they will treat their vote like a $2 bet at Thistledown: They'll plunk it down on an odds-makers favorite, regardless of how his voting record may conflict with creating the kind of America these Democrats want to see.
For too many voters of both major parties, backing the winning "horse" trumps every other consideration. That's the short-sighted tragedy of politics today.
And that's part of the reason that so many citizens are so disenchanted with the major parties. They've too often compromised their principles for pragmatism, then were shocked when the people they had helped elect didn't govern as they had hoped they might.
The bandwagon on which they tossed their franchise rolled by, leaving them, dust-covered, in the ruts of politics unchanging. Had they been true to their consciences, they might actually have helped instigate change.
Come March 2, they'll most likely do it again.
Democrats who hold on to their economic lives by their fingernails will go out and vote for a man who would become the third-richest president in U.S. history, were he to win come November.
Hard-working men and women who have seen their jobs disappear across oceans will cast ballots for a senator who helped make NAFTA the law.
Peace-loving, gentle people will give their assent to candidates who helped make the Iraq war possible.
Then they'll go home and look at themselves in the mirror, and try to convince themselves they've done the best thing they could do.
That ought to be a tough sell.
Dennis has been decried in some quarters for continuing his campaign in the face of what seems to be certain obliteration. He'll embarrass himself and his city, say people far wiser than I.
To that, the congressman shrugs:
"Once you've been mayor of Cleveland," he said, "you can't be embarrassed by anything."
Instead, the city's own Don Quixote, its Man of Fleet Avenue, continues daring to dream his well-neigh impossible dream: Not that a poor child can grow up to be president, but that his fellow Democrats will believe in themselves enough to believe in him.
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