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Jesse on Kucinich
Saturday, March 1st, 2003Jesse Walker weighs in on Kucinich, and concludes that his abortion flop disqualifies him as a legit anti-war candidate.
I beg to differ. I don’t think the anti-war movement, on whole, is principled enough to hold Kucinich accountable. So long as he’s pro-choice now, and promises to be in the future, I don’t think most in the war movement care about the opportunism. You can see it playing out already in the comments to Jesse’s post at Stand Down.
My feeling is that Howard Dean will emerge as the anti-war crowd’s prefered candidate. But not because of Kucinich’s flip — which is a symptom — but because they’ll soon conclude that Kucinich is a flake — which is the underlying illness.
Dean I think is also a flake. But he’s much better at hiding his flakiness than Kucinich.
My prediction? The final three left standing will be Dean, Kerry and Senator Handsome. It’ll be fun to watch Senator Handsome — a trial lawyer who made millions suing doctors — battle Dean, a dcotor. I say they cancel one another out, and Kerry wins the nomination.
He’ll then be slaughtered by Bush, mainly because he faces the same problem Gore faced — he’s an asshole.
And though he may be smarter, more qualified (minus Bush’s first term), handsomer and more articulate than Bush, he’ll lose. Because — consistent with my theory that the guy most Americans would most like to have a beer with is always the guy who wins the presidency — nobody wants to have a beer with an asshole.
The worst part about drinking with an asshole is they are usually pretty angry drunks too.
How do you explain Carter’s victory over Ford on the beer theory?
Or Bush over Dukakis?
you call kucinich a flake… but he is the only one calling for the type of corporate separation and big (fdr) style changes for the u.s. to reclaim its democracy.
i hope you will learn more on kucinich from visiting Flyby News
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http://WWW.KUCINICH.COM
The Worst Mayors (1820-1993)
Next, and seventh, is Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich (1977-79). Only thirty-one years old when elected, Cleveland’s “boy” mayor had failings that were not the sins of venality or graft for personal gain, but rather matters of style, temperament, and bad judgment in office. Kucinich earned seventh place the hard way: by his abrasive, intemperate, and confrontational populist political style, which led to a disorderly and chaotic administration. He barely survived a recall vote just ten months into office, then disappeared for five weeks, reportedly recuperating from an ulcer. When he got back into the political fray, his demagogic rhetoric and slash-and-burn political style got him into serious trouble when he stubbornly refused to compromise and led Cleveland into financial default in late 1978รข??the first major city to default since the Great Depression. That led also to Kucinich’s defeat and exit from executive office. Out of office, he dabbled in a Hollywoodesque spirit world and once believed he had met actress Shirley MacLaine in a previous life, seemingly confirming his critics’ charges that he was a “nut-cake.” After that, he experienced downward mobility, losing races for several other offices and finally ending up with a council seat; but more recently, he climbed back up to a seat in Congress. Bad judgment, demagoguery, and default also spelled political failure in the eyes of twenty-five of our experts, who ranked Dennis, whom the press called “the Menace,” as seventh-worst.
The American Mayor
The Best & The Worst Big-City Leaders
By Melvin G. Holli
The Pennsylvania State University Press
From:
Forward.com
FEBRUARY 28, 2003
Maverick Democrat Kucinich Says Iraq War Is ‘About Oil’
By E.J. KESSLER
FORWARD STAFF
The newest entrant into the 2004 Democratic presidential field started out as a distinct long-shot, and his first major salvo of the campaign isn’t likely to increase his odds of success. But Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is sticking to his, um, guns.
“Why is the U.S. going it alone? I say it’s about oil,” Kucinich flatly declared in a telephone interview with the Forward. “An overwhelming amount of evidence points to an interest in oil, but scant evidence points to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.”
Views like that have made Kucinich a popular figure to the anti-war left.
Since declaring his candidacy for president last week — the eighth Democrat to enter so far — he has made his opposition to war in Iraq a centerpiece. An appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday put his uncompromising dovishness in the spotlight.
For many Jewish voters, already skittish about the Middle East, Kucinich’s views can be alarming. “He’s a minor player who could be a major disaster for Democrats,” said New York political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
Kucinich describes his relations with the Jewish community as “friendly” and “an ongoing discussion.”
The relationship is a good deal more complex than that, however. It turns out that Kucinich is actually the second entrant in this year’s Democratic presidential field, following Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who observes kashrut.
The reason: his eight-year “friendship” with Yelena Boxer, a Croatian-born Jewish employment lawyer whom he describes as his “best friend.”
Indeed, Kucinich’s views of the administration are vitriolic. “I think they’re putting the world in jeopardy,” he told the Forward. “If the execution of the military policy is like the execution of the diplomatic policy, we could really be in danger.”
Compounding the nervousness is his record on Israel, which leans toward even-handedness. Last year he abstained on a House resolution backing Israel’s fight against terrorism and criticizing Yasser Arafat.
Some Ohioans note that his district has the largest concentration of Muslim and Arab Americans in the state.
Kucinich defends his abstention, saying the resolution on Israel wasn’t evenhanded. “It’s important to acknowledge the suffering of both the Israeli people and the Palestinians,” he said. “If our brothers and sisters are in this fight to the death, shouldn’t we declare solidarity for both?”
Boxer, who lived in Israel before immigrating to the United States at age 5, uses the same term to describe Kucinich.
Ohioans interviewed for this article said she is known locally as his girlfriend.
“We have shared most of our holidays, including Passover,” Boxer told the Forward. “He probably knows most of the Haggadah by heart…. He can recite the blessings over the wine and bread.” And, she said, the two of them keep to a vegan diet, which she adopted because of kosher laws.
A former mayor of Cleveland — where he’s remembered for plunging the city into default in 1978 rather than sell off city assets to balance the budget — Kucinich entered the House in 1996 and has emerged as one of its most liberal members.
Son of a truck driver and grandson of Croatian immigrants, he’s an antiglobalist on trade, a staunch environmentalist — he was one of the few Rust Belt lawmakers to back tighter EPA air-quality standards — and firmly pro-labor.
He serves as co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, a 55-member group of arch-liberals founded by Independent Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Paradoxically, he was also firmly pro-life until recently, changing his views, he said, “after a lot of thought” and not because he was running for president.
Kucinich is also one of the leading doves on Capitol Hill. He’s not just against the Iraq war; he voted against the Clinton administration’s plans to bomb the Serbian forces in Kosovo, siding with a handful of Democrats and 187 Republicans.
Some Clevelanders defend Kucinich’s abstention on Israel last year, arguing that given his district’s large Muslim population, abstaining was an act of courage.
“He could have voted ‘no,’ but he didn’t do that,” said Anita Gray of Shaker Heights, a former chair of the community relations committee of the Cleveland Jewish Federation. “If all politics is local, that could have been characterized as a bold move.”
The district also contains the largest mosque in Ohio, the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland. The imam there, Palestinian-born Fawaz Damra, was linked to terrorist suspect Sami Al-Arian in a federal indictment handed down last week. Damra also made waves last year, when The Cleveland Jewish News uncovered an 11-year-old tape of him calling Jews “sons of monkeys and pigs” and allegedly soliciting money for a terrorism-linked charity. Damra, who recanted those remarks on television, did not return a call seeking comment.
Kucinich visited the mosque a year before the disclosure of the Damra tape, when the center was attacked by vandalism shortly after September 11, 2001, but he has not visited there since, according to Boxer, herself a prominent Democrat.
Kucinich declined comment on Damra’s troubles, saying it was “a criminal justice matter.”
He added, however, that his work in Cleveland “tries to create bridges” and foster “cultural exchange and religious dialogue” and that he employs both Jews and a Jerusalem-born Muslim on his staff.
Gray, the federation activist, said Kucinich “is not anti-Israel by any means. He feels an affinity for Israel.” She called him “a good guy” whose presence will make the Democratic primaries “even more colorful.”
Rabbi Alan Lettofsky of Beth Israel-The West Temple, a Reform synagogue that is the only Jewish institution on the West Side of Cleveland, said he has seen Kucinich several times in recent years at High Holy Day services. Lettofsky described Kucinich as “an astute and committed public servant” and said that attributing any pro-Arab sentiment to him because of last year’s abstention would be “simplistic.”
Boxer, Kucinich’s “friend”, called the lawmaker “ecumenical” and “open and accepting.” She said that she and Kucinich don’t attend the Reform synagogue in his district much because she was raised Conservative and prefers a more traditional service. They have attended a Passover Seder at the home of the local Aish Hatorah rabbi.
Kucinich also likes to light Chanukah candles and “knows all the kashrut laws.”
“I keep kosher,” she said. “He changed his diet to mine — it’s a vegan diet, with no dairy and no meat.”
Kucinich loves to nibble on matzo, particularly the handmade “shmurah” kind, Boxer said. “I told him, ‘Matzo is the bread of oppression. You shouldn’t like it so much.’ But this man likes matzo.”
Kucinich has authored legislation to establish a Cabinet-level “peace department” that would “endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights… and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution,” according to information on Kucinich’s congressional Web site.
In today’s atmosphere of international uncertainty, views like that seem likely to keep Kucinich at the rear of the Democratic pack.
“I wouldn’t hock the house on his being the nominee,” said Sheinkopf, the New York consultant. Kucinich’s views “put him on the left of the party, a political position rejected by the electorate.
He hurts Al Sharpton’s chance of getting white progressive voters. He probably takes a piece of [Rep. Richard] Gephardt.”
Still, Sheinkopf said, “If he’s vocal about it, he moves the party to the left, which is bad for the general election.”
http://WWW.KUCINICH.COM
I agree,Kerry is an ass hole !!
the only positive thing about him
is that he is a veteran and former
p.o.w.
Joe Lieberman is the only Democrat
I could vote for.
i could vote for
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