Last Call for Kucinich in MA
Originally published in the Valley Advocate
Last Call for Kucinich
This candidate's "call to conscience" passes the progressive litmus test
by Maureen Turner - March 4, 2004
One thing was abundantly clear from Dennis Kucinich's appearance at UMass last Wednesday morning: He respects his listeners' intelligence.
There was no warm-up, no audience pandering, when the Ohio congressman and would-be Democratic presidential nominee took the stage at a campaign rally in the Campus Center Auditorium.
Kucinich immediately launched into his fast-paced speech, in short order calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, for U.S. troops to be pulled out of Iraq and replaced by UN peacekeepers, for the nation to restore its damaged international reputation -- and calling George W. Bush a liar for the claims he made in his zeal to send the country to war.
"This administration took us into a war that the U.S. didn't need to get into," Kucinich said. "Iraq had neither the ability nor the intent to attack the U.S. ... This administration led the country into war based on lies and for that reason alone should be kicked out of the White House."
Kucinich has the moral authority to condemn Bush's war record because -- unlike Sen. John Kerry, the front-runner in the Democratic race, and Sen. John Edwards, who's running a distant second -- he voted against giving the president the power to declare war.
That's not the only thing that distinguishes Kucinich from Kerry and Edwards. He advocates gay marriage, the U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, and the abolition of the Patriot Act. He proposes universal, single-payer health care and would cover the cost by trimming the staggering military budget.
Unlike his rivals, Kucinich told the UMass crowd, he can make such a bold proposal a reality. How? He put down the microphone, held his arms straight out from his shoulders and turned in several slow circles. "No strings!" he called out, as the audience roared its approval. "No strings! NO STRINGS!"
T his week's Advocate went to press on Tuesday -- primary day in Massachusetts and nine other states -- before the polls closed. But we're going to go out on a limb and predict that Dennis Kucinich did not win.
Such a prediction would not have been well received among the 1,000 or so people at last week's UMass rally. During the question-and-answer period after Kucinich's speech, one audience member prefaced his question with an acknowledgment that Kucinich, of course, would not be the Democrats' nominee; the candidate politely pointed out, to great applause, that no one in the race had yet secured enough delegates to win the nomination.
Kucinich supporters are not a delusional bunch. But they are optimistic. While Kerry, the hometown favorite, was sure to win Massachusetts by a landslide, Kucinich supporters were hoping to secure one, maybe two delegates, who they hoped could, come convention time, steer the party's platform a little more to the left than it's been heading in recent years.
And they saw Valley towns like Amherst and Northampton -- where Kucinich spoke the night before the UMass rally -- as likely spots to pick up votes, maybe from the many traditionally Democratic-leaning voters who in 2000 turned their backs on Al Gore and supported Ralph Nader's Green Party candidacy.
T his year, supporters say, if the Democratic party went with Kucinich, it could have a nominee who would appeal to those frustrated progressive voters -- some of whom will once again be drawn to Nader, who recently announced a last-minute campaign as an independent.
The problem is, Kucinich's candidacy has been virtually ignored by the major media, which inexplicably tagged the more centrist Howard Dean as the race's "progressive""early in the campaign season.
Kucinich calls his campaign "a clarion call to conscience." Unfortunately, that call has been so stifled that it's reached few ears.
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