Kucinich rallies troops, envisions party of peace
Note: Didn't anybody notice how incongruous the two parts of the headline are? Wouldn't it be better to say "rallies supporters"? Originally published in the Oregonian
Kucinich rallies troops, envisions party of peace
The presidential hopeful tells voters in Portland his continuing candidacy can sway Iraq policy and Kerry's platform
03/27/04
JEFF MAPES
Dennis Kucinich brought his presidential campaign to Oregon on Friday night, telling voters they have a chance to push the Democratic Party toward sharper opposition to U.S. policy in Iraq.
Although Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has locked up enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, Kucinich said he is continuing to campaign in the remaining primaries with the hope of influencing the party's platform and how Kerry lays out the issues in the fall election against President Bush.
"With your help, we're going to help the Democratic Party stand for peace," Kucinich told 800 supporters gathered at Lincoln High School in Portland. "We won't have Democrats asking us to exchange a Republican version of the war in Iraq for a Democratic version of the same."
Kerry has said he would work more closely with other countries and the United Nations to help rebuild Iraq, but he also has said the United States needs to increase its worldwide troop strength by 40,000 as it grapples with the occupation of Iraq.
Kucinich, an Ohio congressman who unlike Kerry voted against giving the president authority to invade Iraq, told cheering supporters he wanted to "reach out to the world community and let U.N. peacekeepers in and get (U.S. troops) out of Iraq."
He has said he wants to remove U.S. troops within 90 days of putting Iraq under U.N. supervision.
Kucinich began a four-day swing in Oregon that also will take him through Salem, Corvallis, Eugene, Roseburg, Ashland and Medford. Aides say Kucinich will return to the state for several more days of campaigning before the May 18 primary, where he hopes to do well enough to force Kerry and the party leadership to pay some attention to his issues.
Although Kucinich finished far back in the pack in most of the early Democratic primaries and caucuses, he is the only candidate still running against Kerry.
His support is centered in the progressive activist community that was well-represented at his appearance Friday night. Before he spoke, the crowd heard from sponsors of measures promoting public power, tougher logging restrictions in the Tillamook State Forest and tight limits on campaign spending.
In his speech, Kucinich also called for cuts in Pentagon spending, an end to free-trade policies, universal health coverage and the repeal of the Patriot Act.
Sporting a blue suit and yellow tie that set him apart from the casually dressed audience, Kucinich paced the stage as he tossed out lines alternately provoking laughter, cheers and hisses at targets such as the Republican president.
"We have $10 billion for a missile system that can't pass a test," said Kucinich, referring to the proposed missile-defense program, "and yet we tell our school districts that if the children don't pass tests, they're not going to get funded. . . . Figure it out -- no missile system left behind."
Kucinich argued that the United States spends enough on health care to provide coverage for everyone in the country -- if it adopted a system similar to Canada's in which the government finances medical services. Kucinich said this would strip away the costs now spent in the United States for marketing, corporate profits and other expenses he said take too much away from health care. However, when asked how such a system would be funded, he glancingly answered by saying that businesses that provided health care for their workers would generally pay less.
Highly paid health insurance executives came under his verbal lash, as did corporations he said are on a continual search for cheap labor by moving their operations overseas. He said the United States should have the ability to put tariffs on imports to help preserve jobs here.
In addition, Kucinich said he wants to create a massive public-works program to "put millions of people back to work."
He ended his speech with harsh criticism of the Patriot Act, which was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It gave the federal government new powers to investigate and detain people suspected of criminal activity.
"The administration has been trying to hold this country in fear," said Kucinich, arguing that Americans should hold onto their civil liberties even more tightly during wartime.
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