Underdog candidate draws crowd
Originally published in the News-Miner
Article Published: Saturday, March 20, 2004
Underdog candidate draws crowd
By DAN RICE, Staff Writer
Don't tell Dennis Kucinich the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is over.
The Ohio congressman and little-known presidential candidate visited Fairbanks Friday to tell supporters and casual observers alike that he will continue his campaign despite Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's march toward the Democratic nomination.
Kucinich has no choice but to continue, he said, considering he's the only candidate to take a consistent stand against the war in Iraq, the only Democrat to offer an exit strategy to bring United States troops home and the only politician who represents an independent voice not influenced by special interests.
"Absent my participation in this race, people would have every reason to wonder what the Democratic Party stands for," said Kucinich, speaking at the Carlson Center before a rally that attracted an estimated 400 people.
A short and skinny man with tie-dye "Got Kucinich?" campaign postcards, Kucinich spent much of his time criticizing the Bush administration, Congress and even Democrats for the war in Iraq.
"Leading Democrats said there were weapons of mass destruction. What did they know?" he said. "They just parroted what the administration said."
The capture of Saddam Hussein did not justify the war, he said. Bush never used removal of the Iraqi dictator as the reason for going to war, Kucinich said, and many of his cabinet members had been "holding hands" with Saddam only 14 years ago.
"We're still at war; they have Saddam Hussein," he said. "So it must be about something else. Could it be oil?"
Kucinich said his solution to the problems in Iraq is to immediately withdraw all U.S. troops and replace them with United Nations personnel who would take up the reconstruction effort.
Every day troops stay in Iraq, causalities continue to mount and the United States risks further alienating its allies, he said.
Kucinich, whose platform includes creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace, also advocated for a fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy.
The policy, he said, should be "one not of dominion, but one of cooperation."
In between rebuking the Patriot Act and calling for health-care reform, Kucinich also offered favorable comments about Alaska, calling the state's potential enormous because of its wealth.
He said his visit to Alaska--Kucinich met with Democrats and visited high school students in Juneau Thursday--is part of his goal to visit every state during the campaign. His Alaska stop comes as Fairbanks-area Democrats hold their caucus today and Democrats throughout the state meet.
"In 1983, I came this close to moving here," Kucinich said. "I was attracted by kind of the ruggedness and the spirit of individualism that's out here--kind of matches my politics."
Kucinich said he opposes allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For one, he has questions about whether the oil would make a substantial profit.
On a broader level, he said, the nation should focus more on developing alternative energy sources than expanding traditional sources such as oil, coal and nuclear power.
The traditional sources come with the hidden costs of damaging the environment, said Kucinich, who added that he wants the nation to have an energy portfolio that features at least 20 percent alternative energy by 2010.
"By the way, there's money to be made in a sustainable approach," he said. "There's incalculable wealth."
Despite his environmental stance, Kucinich said he belongs in the Democratic Party and not the Green Party.
"While I consider myself to be a green Democrat, I think there has to be someone with the ability to attract greens to the Democratic Party," he said.
Kucinich drew mostly praise from the locals who packed into a room at the Carlson Center for a rare visit from a presidential candidate.
"Just about everything he says is what I think on my own," said Fairbanks resident John Haverlack, who has supported Kucinich since the start of the Democratic primary season.
Haverlack said Kucinich's stance against the war in Iraq was the main issue that attracted him to the candidate.
"He stood against it from the beginning," Haverlack said.
Stan King, a Santa Clara, Calif., resident, timed his visit to a friend in Fairbanks with Kucinich's campaign stop. King said he also agrees with Kucinich's position against the war in Iraq and supports his overall message of more global cooperation.
"He's a vegan; I'm a vegan also," King added.
Local Howard Dean supporters Abel Bult-Ito and Anne Biberman also attended the rally, but passed out fliers urging the crowd to vote for Dean rather than Kucinich. Dean, former Vermont governor, has stopped campaigning for the Democratic nomination but remains on the ballot.
Bult-Ito said he agrees with many of Kucinich's positions but supports Dean because he was able to appeal to a wider range of Democrats.
"Although (Dean's) not going to be president this year, he has made it likely that we can have someone beat Bush," he said. [ed. note: this makes no sense]
Subscribe to this blog's feed