Democratic presidential candidate Kucinich to make Alaska appearance
Originally published in the Anchorage Daily News
Democratic presidential candidate Kucinich to make Alaska appearance
VOICE: Ohio hopeful hopes to influence party platform.
By PETER PORCO
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: March 7, 2004)
A candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president is coming to Alaska, according to his supporters.
It is not Sen. John Kerry, the party's presumptive nominee, but U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Cleveland.
Kucinich will be visiting Anchorage this week in advance of the Democratic Party's Anchorage-area caucus on Saturday, said Christine Reichman, a musician who said she's the local contact for the Kucinich campaign.
The candidate will arrive late Wednesday night and will spend Thursday in Anchorage before leaving for Kenai on Friday, Reichman said. He will fly back to the Lower 48 after that.
The plan calls for Kucinich to speak in Anchorage and to give people a chance to hear him and shake his hand, Reichman said. Details of those arrangements have yet to be made, she added.
The Kucinich campaign also is considering having the candidate return to Alaska the following week for appearances in Fairbanks and Juneau, which have their caucuses on March 20, she said.
Kerry, the last remaining major presidential candidate of his party, is considered by party leaders and others to have all but officially won the nomination. President Bush and his campaign managers also consider Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, to be the Democratic nominee and have begun attacking him as such.
Kucinich and Al Sharpton are the only others remaining from an original field of nine candidates for the Democratic nomination who have not ended their campaigns.
Why is Kucinich still running, and why is he coming to Alaska, which has only three electoral votes and has not voted in the majority for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964?
Kucinich continues to run, Reichman said, to give voice to causes like a new Cabinet-level agency devoted to peace and "to influence the (party's) platform, because he is picking up delegates as he goes."
In Alaska, "his presence will urge us to ... go to the caucus and support him," she said.
Reichman also said she assumed Kerry would be the nominee and she would vote for him come the November election. Kucinich, she said, has promised not to splinter the party and to support the party's presidential candidate.
The local caucus is 10 a.m. Saturday at East High School, Reichman said.
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