Why?
Originally published in the Chicago Tribune
Top query to also-rans: Why?
Sharpton, Kucinich defend campaigns
By Kirsten Scharnberg
Tribune national correspondent
February 27, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- In the opening minutes of Thursday night's debate, Larry King zoned in on the two candidates sitting at the far end of the table and asked them each a pointed question.
"Rev. Sharpton," he said, "why are you in this race?"
"Congressman Kucinich," the CNN host asked a few moments later, "why are you here?"
The two long-shot Democratic presidential candidates had ready answers: That they each added alternative voices to the public debate, that they represented constituencies not traditionally represented, that both hailed from outside the political establishment. Dennis Kucinich, ever the optimist, went so far as to answer, "I'm here to be the next president of the United States."
But King's question--though perhaps annoying to two men who have campaigned exhaustively for the past several months--addressed exactly what many viewers at home may have been wondering: Why are debates at this stage in the race still including candidates who seem to have no realistic chance at ever winning their party's nomination?
Kucinich's campaign seemed to try to answer those questions earlier this week, sending an e-mail pointing out that the Ohio congressman had placed second in Hawaii's caucuses, with more than double the vote count of Sen. John Edwards.
Regardless of how realistic their bids for the White House may be, Al Sharpton and Kucinich raised new issues--and added plenty of levity--to Thursday's discussion.
Almost every answer Sharpton gave drew laughter, such as when he suggested affirmative action be used to determine how many questions each candidate got to answer and, later, when King ribbed him for staying in the best hotels on the campaign trail.
Sharpton, whose campaign has raised less than $300,000 in recent months, has made news in the past week for spending $7,000 for three nights at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles and for paying $3,200 for one night at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.
Lighthearted moments aside, Sharpton and Kucinich addressed the issues with answers sharply different from those given by the front-runners.
Kucinich vowed that his first act as president would be to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade deal that Sen. John Kerry and Edwards criticize but stop short of saying they would dismantle.
"I think the American people will be well-served if we can describe why, for example, Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards are not for canceling NAFTA and the WTO [World Trade Organization], as I would do, because that is how you save the manufacturing jobs," he said.
For his part, Sharpton questioned whether either of the top candidates had "urban agendas" that would deal with problems in the large cities in California, New York and Ohio, states that will vote on Super Tuesday.
And, at one point, the New York civil rights activist turned questioner, asking Edwards about his position on the death penalty.
"Sen. Edwards," he asked, "are you saying, since you agree that there's a lot of problems in the death penalty--and no one has mentioned the racial disparity about those on Death Row--that, therefore, you would suspend your support of capital punishment until we dealt with those problems?"
Throughout, the tone of questions posed to Sharpton and Kucinich was notably different than of those directed at either Edwards or Kerry. King routinely addressed the underdog candidates as "Al" and "Dennis," while beginning questions to the senators with a polite "Sen. Edwards" or "Sen. Kerry."
When Sharpton or Kucinich seemed to be taking too much time with their answers, King grew visibly impatient, once interrupting with an exasperated, "Al ... Al ... Al ..."
Hard to get a word in
One exchange went like this: King: "Al and Dennis want to comment..." Sharpton: "What I think ..." King interrupts Sharpton almost immediately: "Sen. Kerry wants to respond." Kucinich at one point raised his hand in an attempt to get a chance to answer a question posed to another candidate. Later he seemed to subtly point out the differing treatment he was getting from King. As Kucinich was replying to a question, when King's eyes began to wander around the room, the congressman stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, "Larry?"
"I'm paying attention to you, Dennis," King replied. "Dennis, I can hear you and look over there at the same time."
In the end, one statement by Sharpton may have said all there was to say about why he and Kucinich remain insistent that they be included in such debates.
Sharpton has said for weeks that he hopes his candidacy--at minimum--will have gained enough national attention to influence the party's platform at the Democratic National Convention in July.
"I think that's why we have to have a convention and delegates," he said. "We have to keep these guys honest."
Subscribe to this blog's feed