If Presidential politics actually worked like it does in the movies-or in the imaginings of patriots-the hot August night would have been one of those epic moments when everything starts to change.
Fifteen thousand trade unionists had packed into Chicago’s Soldier Field to hear contenders for the 2008 Democratic nomination make their cases. While the frontrunners drew their requisite rounds of applause, it was the scrappy working class Congressman from Cleveland who wowed the AFL-CIO activists. Dennis Kucinich delivered applause line after applause line-connecting with the crowd on ideological, political, and emotional levels that the other candidates could not begin to reach.
“I want to see America take a new direction in trade . . . and that means it’s time to get out of NAFTA and the WTO,” shouted the Congressman above the thunderous applause that greeted his promise of “trade that’s based on workers’ rights: the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike.”
So powerful was Kucinich’s presentation that even the moderator, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, shifted his line of questioning from the usual soft media inquiries about “reforming trade policies” toward a blunt demand that the candidates say whether they would “scrap NAFTA or fix it?” After Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and the others struggled to answer the question without offending either the labor crowd or their corporate donors, Kucinich won the moment by declaring, “No one else on this stage could give a direct answer because they don’t intend to scrap NAFTA. We’re going to be stuck with it. And I’m your candidate if you want to get out of NAFTA. Let’s hear it. Do you want out of NAFTA? Do you want out of the WTO?”
The steel, auto, machine, and construction workers were on their feet, cheering wildly. Again and again, on industrial policy, on health care, on each issue that arose, Kucinich owned the argument. And when the Congressman turned to the signature issue of his insurgent Presidential bid, ending the war in Iraq, he distinguished himself from the cautious contenders to his right by speaking the truth that has been on the mind of everyone who has watched the sorry degeneration of this nation’s system of checks and balances. Instead of promising to end the war as President, Kucinich declared, “We shouldn’t have to wait for a Democratic President to do it. The Democratic Congress needs to act now.”
It was a virtuoso performance. Mark Lash, a steelworker from Crown Point, Indiana, summed it all up when he said that of the seven candidates who were trying so hard to woo the workers, it was Kucinich who gave “the answers everyone wants to hear.” In one of those old Jimmy Stewart movies or maybe in a new John Cusack movie, something big would happen. Unions would have started going against expectations to endorse the underdog. The media would have started taking him seriously. A long-overdue political awakening would have begun-for the Democratic Party and for the nation.
But contemporary politics does not follow a movie script. The process unfolds along lines defined by money, polling, punditry, and the extreme caution of institutions-and even voting blocs-that are more inclined to deny possibility than to embrace it. The discarded-civics-book character of the process by which Presidents are selected is evident at every turn on the campaign trail that Kucinich follows, and it raises a fundamental question about the candidate and his hearty supporters. Will the Congressman be the Harold Stassen of the left, a smart and honorable perennial Presidential candidate yielding diminishing returns on Election Day after miserable Election Day? Or will he grab hold of the system that denies him and force something meaningful from it? Will Kucinich end his 2008 quest as an asterisk or as an irrepressible force agitating effectively against a dismaying Democratic Party and a dysfunctional democracy?
One thing is certain: Kucinich cannot expect anything more than cheers from many of those whose causes he has long and loudly championed.
Within weeks of that August AFL-CIO forum, unions began to make their endorsements.
The Machinists went for Clinton, arguably the steadiest proponent in the field of the job-killing “free trade” schemes that have decimated the union’s membership.
The Carpenters and the Steelworkers broke for Edwards, a newly minted populist who sounds good but still struggles to get the specifics right.
The Firefighters backed Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, an old-school liberal with a weaker record than Kucinich and no better prospects.
And what was the Congressman from Cleveland left with when the applause died down?
Nothing.
No endorsements from labor.
No backing from prominent Democrats.
No poll numbers of consequence nationally or in the essential early primary and caucus states.
There is something that is surely heartbreaking about the hand that is regularly dealt to Kucinich and his idealistic second bid for the Presidency. But the Congressman has chosen to play at the table of contemporary American politics, where not only the rules but the very premises of the process are stacked against him.
It is not merely the dominance of the monied elites and the party bosses, nor even the emphasis on image and style, that undermines a candidate who is actually referred to by supposedly serious reporters as “too short to be President.” It is the desperation of Democratic voters denied, voters who, after so many stolen elections and failed campaigns, have convinced themselves that the only thing that matters in 2008 is winning-and that the only way to win is by nominating not the candidate who is right on the issues but the candidate who seems, a la John Kerry in 2004, to have the right strategy or at least the right stature.
Yet, Kucinich keeps returning to the table and demanding to be part of the game. Almost alone, he argues that voters might yet embrace his “new vision for America” and that he can win not just the nomination but the Presidency. In Maine, or North Dakota, or Hawaii, he never fails to claim that local support is up from what he got when he bid for the nomination in 2004 and to suggest that: “If we can do well here, [the momentum] can spread to other states and parts of the country.”
Kucinich’s optimism is defined by nothing so much as the Congressman’s belief in magic-political magic. He clings to a faith that 2008 will provide an opening like the one that forty years earlier allowed an obscure Senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, to put questions of war and peace on the table and chase a sitting President from office, or like the one that actually made an unknown former governor of Georgia with a tendency to spout off about human rights the commander in chief.
To a degree, Kucinich’s limitless faith is understandable. He has achieved alchemy more than once. Elected on the basis of sheer hard work to the Cleveland City Council as a twenty-three-year-old “new politics” candidate in 1969, he was the city’s “boy mayor” by age thirty-one. But after tangling with the city’s bankers and utilities, he was a defeated political has-been at thirty-three. Ridiculed in Ohio and nationally, he lost comeback bid after comeback bid before finally disappearing into political Siberia and a quest for meaning that found him living, without income or prospects, in New Mexico.
Then, in 1994, a year when Democrats were losing everywhere, Kucinich returned to Cleveland, picked up the populist banner, and won a state senate seat from a Republican incumbent.
Two years later, he defeated a key lieutenant to House Speaker Newt Gingrich to claim a seat in Congress.
Redeemed finally after decades in the political wilderness, Kucinich could have settled into a comfortable tenure on the left flank of the House Democratic Caucus. Instead, he kept right on pushing the limits of politics, fighting Presidents Clinton and Bush on issues ranging from trade to militarism and finally emerging in 2002 as the most ardent Congressional critic of the rush to war with Iraq.
Kucinich’s “reward” for getting the war right was marginalization in the 2004 Presidential race, when the media portrayed a cautious war critic, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, as the peace candidate while dismissing the campaign of the genuinely anti-war contender.
The 2004 race yielded Kucinich no primary or caucus wins and just 1 percent of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Yet, the Congressman is running once more, mounting essentially the same campaign that he did four years ago. Kucinich is again bouncing around the country, creating the facade of a national campaign but never sticking around long enough to convert the enthusiasm of the crowds he draws into votes. And, as in the later stages of the 2004 race, when he stubbornly refused to acknowledge that he could not win a fight that everyone knew was finished, he refuses to entertain the notion that he might not be swearing an oath of office on January 20, 2009.
There is much to be said for the power of positive thinking, but in Presidential politics the practice can be futile-especially when more prominent and monied candidates are stealing your themes: economic populist (Edwards), anti-war (New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson), and time-for-a-transformation (Obama). In Kucinich’s case, his optimism borders on off-putting and out of touch. Indeed, if he continues on his current course, he runs the risk of falling short of the 643,067 (3.9 percent of the total) votes he scraped together by the end of his never-say-die 2004 run.
If that happens, it will be a political tragedy, because Dennis Kucinich is more right on the issues than ever: with his demand that Congress defund the war in Iraq, with his warnings about the dangerous machinations of the Bush-Cheney machine regarding Iran, with his courageous stance on nuclear disarmament, and with his increasingly ardent advocacy of impeachment.
Kucinich may be more necessary to the process of choosing a 2008 Democratic President than even he may understand. The front-loaded race for the nomination will be a blur for most Democrats, who will likely be told who the party’s candidate is going to be long before they actually have a chance to weigh in. At that point, the trailing candidates will be told by the money men who define American politics that it is time to start suspending campaigns.
More than two dozen states will select delegates after February 5. Many of them-Wisconsin, Washington, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Oregon-have Democratic voter bases that are ardently anti-war. If Kucinich were to commit now to mount a campaign that made no pretense of personal electability but rather promised to force the party to debate its direction-not just on the war but on the whole question of what a post-Bush America might look like-he could yet turn himself into the most effective protest candidate this country has seen in years.
What might the Congressman propose to the voters of later primary and caucus states, where the choice could well come down to Kucinich versus Clinton? By telling voters “this is your chance to vote for a peace plank,” Kucinich could-and should-promise to use whatever bloc of delegates he is given to fight for a clearly anti-war platform, to provoke floor fights over foreign policy and the domestic agenda, and to have his name placed in nomination in order to take his message to prime time.
In a one-on-one race, where the Kucinich campaign is about an idea rather than a man, he could turn the tables on the elites. By ditching talk about actually being nominated-which only strains his own credibility-and instead making himself the tribune of the peace and justice movement that is alive and powerful at the grassroots of the Democratic party, Dennis Kucinich could win hundreds of delegates to the 2008 convention. He could renew and redefine the debate in the later primaries and at the convention. He could force the eventual Democratic nominee to listen to the party’s neglected base-which polling suggests is now very close in its thinking to the self-identified independent voters who decide close contests in November-rather than to the Wall Street donors and Washington think tanks that invariably muddle the message once the pundits declare the nomination fight to have been settled. And, maybe, just maybe, Dennis Kucinich could make the Democratic nominee more appealing than a broken political process is supposed to allow.
The challenge for Kucinich is a real one. He can run according to the rules and be a Democratic Harold Stassen, or he can break the rules and make his campaign a redemptive force. To do the former, he need merely continue campaigning as he now is. To do the latter, he must level with himself and with the voters and offer himself up as a representative of the idealistic insurgency that both the party and the country so sorely need.
Dennis Kucinich:
“No Impunity”
“When you consider that this war was based on lies, when you consider that Iraq did not attack the United States, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, it is an urgent matter of national morality to determine what the appropriate response is.
“It is time for us to start talking about the legal responsibility of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and all the other war architects who built a case for the war based on lies.
“The very essence of America’s credibility in the world is at stake. Our highest elected officials should be held accountable for actions that resulted in the deaths of more than a million innocent people, particularly when those deaths were based on demonstrable lies.
“It is very important that we start to ask serious questions about accountability. Just as no individual has the right to take another individual’s life, no nation has the right to kill innocent people in another nation. No leader of the United States-in the name of the United States-should be permitted to wage aggressive war with impunity.
“I am preparing a resolution that requests the House meet in the Committee of the Whole to investigate the matter of civilian casualties as well as U.S. troop casualties that have occurred in Iraq. The resolution will recount that the war was based on lies. It will ask the House to consider action, including possibly preferring criminal charges against individuals who in the administrative conduct of office were directly responsible for the war and the consequent loss of life.
“A grave injustice has been done to the people of Iraq and the people of the United States. More than one million lives have been lost. Families have been destroyed. Social networks have been ripped apart. We have had many soldiers killed and injured. This must be acknowledged.
“On a deeper level, the inquiry I am proposing relates to who we are as Americans and what we stand for. I refuse to believe that the American people-people of intelligence and good heart-will not want to see justice done. There must be a measure of justice brought forward so that this deep stain on American history is removed. We must seek the truth, wherever it leads.” -September 19, 2007
* * *
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’”
©2007 The Progressive Magazine
Yes. Allow the popular support for Kuchinich’s ideas form the basis for a platform pushing block in the Democratic Party.
Kuchinich is short? So what - before the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate, appearance wasn’t a strong factor. Why should it be now? We don’t need a media pleaser to be president - we had that with Reagan…. Let’s have a president that believes that what we value has merit and is willing to deliver it to us.
It demonstrates how corrupt union leadership has become. America will get what it deserves in the end, no more.
Don’t be seduced by Nichols. He writes, “And, maybe, just maybe, Dennis Kucinich could make the Democratic nominee more appealing than a broken political process is supposed to allow.” That’s what Nichols wants to sell you on — he wants to make you believe the “broken process” can still work! That it can still yield good, just, & inspired results! Frank Capra lives!
Interestingly, the seductiveness of Nichols resembles the seductiveness of Kucinich. Both are playing the left-liberal market, trying to keep this group from bolting the Democratic Party for good. Both are trying to get this group to give the party “one more chance.” Both base their campaigns on offering a lot more truth than their competition. (For instance, Nichols admits the process is “broken” — even while trying to prevent you from giving up on it once & for all.)
At the article’s end, Nichols claims Kucinich has to do, er…, something or other, to “break the rules and make his campaign a redemptive force.” And what would that be? Why, “level with the voters.” And “offer himself up as a representative of the idealistic insurgency that …the country so sorely needs.” // Now what the hell does that mean? In what way is Kucinich not already doing that?
Nichols doesn’t want to face the fact that the Dem Party machinery will ALWAYS choose grotesque monsters like Hillary, and repulsive phonies like Kerry. Kucinich doesn’t want you to face the fact that his party is hopelessly corrupt (& would stick a knife in his back & destroy him overnight, if he ever started gaining in the polls).
Thank you RichM.
The media portray the crazy pattern of primaries as ELECTING the Democratic Presidential candidate. That is totally misleading. The primaries elect only delegates to the Democratic convention, and in most states if not all, any candidate who gets 15% or more of the vote gets a proportionate fraction of the delegates from that state. There will hardly be a state in which a candidate will “win” all the delegates; it is therefore essential that all candidates make clear that they will hold on to their delegates, and instead of the nominee of the party being crowned by the media the nominee will be determined by the convention. At the convention there will be a struggle of ideas and personalities among the elected activists — there will probably be a deadlock and the convention may turn to the best candidate for President, Al Gore. I say he is the best because he has the most GLOBAL view of what we are facing. It is not only global warming: it is what’s happening to the oceans, to regulation of world trade to serve the world’s population, to world standards in medical safety, anti monopoly, protection of women, children and workers, farming, genetic egineering, international finance, etc. The primaries do not lead to a global vision of all these issues that are really what matter to us — the candidates can run only on issues promoted by local special interests. As the the mixed delegations from the different states argue about these issues, they may coalesce around a candidate with a VISION, completely different from the cold war ideology that has ruined the sixty years that followed the hopes for a better world after the defeat of the most evil powers in WWII. And Kucinich may play a big role in the debates among the delegates because of his clear thinking on the real issues.
It is interesting that Nichols’ advice to DK on how to make his campaign more effective and truly relevant is to admit that he cannot win!
Does this signal a CHANGE in the tactics of Democrat apologists and enablers? Their argument was “…if we just work a little harder, if we avoid defeatism, if we make sure and vote then maybe, if not this time, then surely soon, we will nominate a REAL democrat and then things will really change.”
Nichols is saying “…if we just work a little harder and admit that we CANNOT WIN then maybe, if not this time, then surely soon, we can influence the nominee and then things will really change.”
It is certainly past time to admit that the REAL democrats today are Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel, et al.
That fact alone should send Progressives running to the nearest Third(Green)Party. RichM at 1220p nails it. The Dems are “hopelessly corrupt”.
Rich M’s post should be the article and Nichols’ piece a comment. Rich M provides an excellent insight into our current political situation. Our system is broke. With no capacity to fix itself. To survive in the future we will all have to be good Germans.
Hoa binh
Kucinich says all the right things, and I’m glad he’s saying them, but he ISN’T RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. As Nichols admits here, he’s running for a nomination he can’t possibly get, because the process is thoroughly rigged. (Thanks again, RichM).
Because of that reality, Kucinich is actually a stalking horse, out to keep progressives in a party that has long since discarded and disrespected them.
I have a question for “Progressive Democrats:” does it feel really good, beating your head on that brick wall?
If DK really wanted to run for President, he would join the Green Party and run for a nomination he could have. But he’s running out of time: others are getting in ahead of him, because they smell the political blood in the water and they sense a new opportunity. The Demublicans are bleeding out thanks to their own corruption, and next year, “third” parties will come into their own.
Sadly, I’m afraid Dennis needs his job too much to risk it on a party switch. Too bad: he’d be a wonderful president.
Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, etc. should finally realize what MILLIONS of people already understand. They should issue a call to found a new political party, in opposition to corporate controlled Democratic and Republican parties.
Millions support the impeachment of Bush/Cheney. The Democrats refuse to impeach or in any way seriously impede the Bush agenda, the Project for the New American Century, for unending wars for resources, hegemony, and profit.
Millions want the war in Iraq ended. Obama anc Clinton want to stay there forever.
Millions want steps taken now to end Global Warming. Global warming continues unabated. Bush refuses to do anything the threatens the profit of polluters.
We need to establish a PEOPLE’S PEACE PARTY.
A People’s party that refuses corporate funding but is supported by MILLIONS of individuals. A party that opposes PRIVATIZATION that is destroying the Federal Government, destroying essential social institutions needed by the people.
A people’s PEACE party opposed to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan. Withdraw the troops now! Cut the military budget by 50%, shut down most of the 700 foreign military bases.
A People’s Peace Party opposed to the massive shift in wealth from the many to the tiny few. A PPP that opposes the vast social inequality growing in the United States. Re-instate the tax cuts on the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Eliminate taxes for the poorest.
The candidates for the PPP can be drawn from the hundreds of activist groups against the war, against destruction of the envriornment, for national health care, quality schools, etc. The candiates would run at every level of federal, state, and local government.
The Peoples Peace Party to transition from corporate power to people power. We must transition the U.S. and the planet from an economy of profit to the few. We need to transition from an economy that profits the few to supplying the needs of the vast majority of people. We need to transition to a ecologically sustainable economy for the people and the planet to survive.
No matter what happens in November 2008, NOW is the time we must start to build this alternative to corporate fascism realizing that the struggle will only just begin in November 2008.
RichM, I understand your frustration but I’ve learned that saying “everything is corrupt” (w/ Dems and Repubs) doesn’t help to unite the whole. It may unite a fraction of progressives, but I’m concerned about unity overall.
Getting him elected as a Democrat is not impossible. And if that happens, he WILL help to revolutionize the entire system. Maybe I’m too optimistic in some people’s eyes, but I see it quite natural that any real change has to come from a uniquely honest and courageous individual (Kucinich) inside a major party that has any chance of winning an election. Americans as a whole would not choose anyone outside these two parties.
Wouldn’t it be something if we could forget about polls, who labor leaders endorse, or the MSM oligarchy, or Chris Mathews or whomever and we all get behind this wonderful little big man? This little Yoda?
As a Democrat contender he is getting as much press as he can. In the end, when the oligarchy selects their candidate, I hope he will run as a Green. Maybe in a Gore/Kucinich ticket that could actually win.
BTW jerry, the People’s Peace Party already exists. It is the Green Party, the largest, grassroots, fastest growing and international third party of peace. Check it out here:
http://www.gp.org/
and here:
http://www.greenparty.org/index.php
The Democrat’s big money pots include the Fortune 500 and the unions.
The Fortune 500 business model is simple: MAXIMIZE REVENUE
The Union I have been a member of for the past decade operates under the same revenue model. The union is just another business looking out for the best interests of the business. Its members exist only to pay dues. The members are chastised if they don’t agree with the union.
The Democratic Party operates under the same revenue model. They don’t care about voters. They care about contributions. They don’t even care about winning elections as long as the contributions keep flowing in.
Until a significant number of voters respond negatively to Fortune 500 - supported and union supported democratic Party candidates, the revenue model will continue to flourish.
The truth is RichM doesn’t offer a solution either, though I agree with him about the system being broken and wondering what the vague “solutions” offered by Mr. Nichols mean.
But I think there is an element of brilliance in the notion that Dennis should run for something other than president, at least he should have a contingent plan to make a REAL difference (or be the modern Harold Stassen, heaven forbid).
And Dennis doesn’t have to say “I won’t win, but if you join me, here’s what I’ll do.”
He can say, “I intend to win, and as president I’ll pursue the progressive policies I stand for.” AND he can add, “And if I don’t win, here is my plan . . . ”
And he can lay out a plan. That would give voters a chance to evaluate it so as not to risk wasting their vote on him should he lose the nomination, which is, of course, highly likely.
So what should his plan be? (And here is where we posters can make a difference here. We can list the elements of a real plan, a Kucinich Deal, to the primary voters.) I list them in the points to follow, not to be definitive, but to start a “thread” here to accumulate the elements of a Kucinich Deal to offer voters.
Rich M says Mr. Nichols’s elements to “break the rules,” “level with the voters,” and “offer himself up as a representative of the idealistic insurgency that the country sorely needs” are statements that don’t mean much without specifics. Okay. So let’s provide OUR specifics to the bold framework Nichols offers, following RichM’s lead. Here is my initial list:
- A new cabinet-level Department of Peace with Dennis as the officer
- A commitment to have Nader or Spitzer or other progressive as Attorney General
- A platform that includes a UNSC resolution that commits the United States to abide by international law
- A platform that commits the US to ratify the International Criminal Court (including adding “crimes against peace” to its jurisdiction when it comes up in 2009)
- A platform that commits to his plan for Iraq which includes a complete withdrawal of US military people, and their replacement by an international force whose composition is acceptable to the main resistance groups
- A platform for five standard, progressive electoral reforms: take all money out of elections through public funding; pursues a true multi-party democracy with a constitutional amendment to create proportional representation in the House of Representatives; eliminates the Electoral College (with another constitutional amendment) and substitutes a national popular vote for presidential elections; and supports an initiative and referendum process for constitutional improvement through amendments and conventions (like Sweden and many other nations).
(Others here can add to the list or criticize these.)
(And here is the kicker.)
AND IF THAT OR OTHER ACCEPTABLE DEAL IS NOT MADE AT THE CONVENTION HE WILL SUPPORT THE GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE (AND/OR MR. NADER) ACROSS THE COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY IN THE SWING STATES.
The choice would be the party’s choice to make.
This sort of Kucinich Deal, proposed now, would “break the rules.” It would “offer up himself as a representative of the idealistic insurgency that the country so sorely needs.”
And the specificity of this sort of set of requirements would make him serious; would set up a real challenge at the convention; would fulfill the framework Nichols so aptly lays out (absent these sorts of specifics); and would lay the groundwork for a Green Party-supporting, Al Franken-supporting, Cindy Sheehan-supporting campaign that progressives can jump into in 2008. For as RichM so eloquently said “the Dem Party machinery will ALWAYS choose grotesque monsters like Hillary.” Only something that REALLY breaks the rules has any chance.
I’ve listed six elements above along with the alternative to a the Dems accepting the deal.
Something like this would make me excited about working for Kucinich.
What should be the elements of the deal?
Feedback?
What should be the elements of the deal?
Dennis should join the Green Party and campaign for our nomination - which he could have, if he asks for it before someone else has it tied up. This would be the honest thing for him to do, and I think he’s an honest man. Please, everybody: write to his campaign and ask him to make an honest man of himself. I can’t do it alone.
And please, everyone: don’t re-invent the wheel. It may not be in good shape right now, but it’s there and all it needs is everyone getting on board. Yes, and thank you ezeflyer, it’s the Green Party, the only national peace party and the only progressive party. We can’t do it without you.
Sorry, Earthian, but I think we’re both just wishing: Kucinich is a “loyal democrat” - I heard him say so three or four times, at a town hall in my own community. He said it every time he sounded too much like a Green. (There were a lot of Greens in the audience - that’s who his real support is.) He knows all this; he actually campaigned to Greens in ‘04.
Anybody But Hillary. Let’s make it Edwards. I’m sure he’d run another annoying, cautious campaign (although not in Clinton’s league of pure political posturing) but a Clinton nomination is too depressing to comprehend. (and Edwards seems to have a pretty cool wife).
Earthian,
That sounds reasonable. I do not believe that anyone could label that approach as weak, ineffectual, irrelevant, deluded leftist sermonizing.
What about commitments to net neutrality and to preventing further media consolidation? Are all the Dem candidates currently committed to these goals? What about some commitments regarding transparency and openness in government?
Considering the dearth of success of third parties in US history, that the corporate media must be replaced as the main source of information before any third party could possibly gain viability, and that a Republican win in 2008 (when they are displaying clear fascist tendencies) could be tantamount to ending meaningful elections in the USA, it makes sense to try to pressure the Democrats to provide significant concessions to progressives.
Hmmm, once again, I can not see how someone like Mr. Nichols can still trumpet Mr. Kucinich as any sort of Left alternative within the DP, when Mr. Kucinich’s rolls; this election and last, is obviously (to me at least) around to lure the Left in to staying in the DP. Based on that, I think the only real question is; is he sincerely believing that the DP is a viable place for the left to organize and lead within (and the subquestion being is just a dupe?), or, is Mr. Kucicnich some sort of conscious agent befuddling some on the Left into enthusiasm for the DP?
kivals: There’s reason to believe the US is hitting a tipping point, a sort of 200 year political flood plain. It was clear to the abolitionists, the suffragists, the civil rights activists and the environmentalists that aspects of our way of life are unsustainable. There are numerous indications that the two-party hegemony is likewise coming to a close.
It may materialize if the center-right party (Democrats) splits apart at the seams, and produces a genuine progressive populist movement, bringing together a large coalition of people on the political downside — probably from both parties as well as independents in general.
The banner could very well be Green, but perhaps also a Progressive Populist party, or a charismatic independent leader. The Greens have problems of their own: in-fighting, have watered themselves down in Europe, too much of a granola/intellectual/urban/white image, etc. (This is constructive criticism here, not meant to damn that party.)
The wedges which have split apart populist left and right are sexism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia. If these wedges can be mended rather than widened as some would rather have it, or if class interests become sufficiently severe as to override other differences (history has produced such examples), the populist movement may gain traction and cause the corporate parties to fracture.
Dear Mr. John Nichols,
Thank you for stating the obvious truth about Mr.Kucinich and the possible direction he could take to make a difference. Also, for believing that their might be some way to affect the inevitable direction of power politics in the USA.
There is no doubt that the world cries out for a new and different America. One that embraces truth, integrity, and meaning. The America that embraces and supports issues based in enduring human value. Mr.Kucinich represents many of those values.
We are trapped inside a two-party system that doesn’t remotely represent either the interests or the views of the vast majority of the people. Many things trap us: the Major Media lock on what the people are allowed to see and hear, the steady dose of disenfranchising and demoralizing ideas which permeate our country’s conversation, the dependence on favor with our “representatives” to get us what we need from Washington, the vastness, completeness and apparent permanence and inevitability of “the system”.
But most of all there is the winner-take-all election system which forces us time after time to choose between the fascist and the “realist” branches of the ruling class, with real issues of war and social welfare at stake for the people.
As the economic and social system is increasingly strained by growing inequality and corruption, the two-party system gets more and more out of touch with the people, less and less able to deliver on the people’s needs. Sooner or later this system has to break, as the two-party structure did in 1856 and 1860. When it does it will open up new possibilities (and new dangers no doubt). The Green Party, with leaders like Ralph Nader, is pushing from the outside to make this happen. If the situation were ripe, if the two-party lock on the process could be cracked from the outside, it wouldn’t take Kucinich’s leadership to make it happen.
In the meantime there is a niche for a fighting progressive Congressman to organize and build a movement within the Democratic Party. There is no more need for Kucinich to admit this won’t work and walk away than there is for Ralph Nader to do so.
The future won’t look like the past. As the political, economic and social situation becomes more unstable, the unexpected will happen, unexpectedly. Those Greens, Progressive Democrats and leaders of unions and other peoples’ organizations who are on the ground leading and organizing, and who are flexible and open enough to see new possibilities and responsibilities as they arise, will be able to give leadership to the people in this new situation. People will need to know when the time comes whom to trust and listen to. They will choose first from among the people they know, those who have already spoken the truth to their hearts, who have already led them.
If we’re not ready when this time comes, with leaders the people know and a vision for a way forward, the ruling class can be counted on to provide dangerous demagogues to divert us and “turn the herd”.
We have an opportunity to advance a peoples’ agenda with the Kucinich campaign, and we have in him a champion of the people to give us a voice from a national platform. It is hard to judge in advance how long it will be fruitful for him to carry on his fight within the Democratic Party and when or whether he should lead his supporters out of it. But consider this. Right now, as a Green candidate, what would Kucinich be adding? Whom would he have access to? What platform would he have in Congress? What bills could he file and advocate for? What witnesses could he subpoena? What access would he have to the media? Who would speak the truth at the Democratic debates, and would he even have been invited to speak at Soldier’s Field?
And does not the Green Party have able leaders of its own? Whom would Kucinich displace if he came over?
There are no easy answers. If there is one “right way”, it won’t become apparent what that was until many years later. If you agree strongly with what Kucinich is saying and you see hope and possibility in his campaign, get behind it, throw your heart into it and support it. If not, do something else. To paraphrase the old folk song, we are all branches of a great “river of the people”, and we will all meet at the sea.
Paul Bramscher,
As Naomi Klein in “The Shock Doctrine” points out, generally far right programs (touted as “free market” but Friedman’s ridiculous economic theories only serve as a fig leaf to justify plunder and economic polarization) are not implemented through elections, but usually through military force. In the US, the general population probably will not willingly give complete power to the far right (and by “far right” I do not mean the deluded Christian useful idiots, but the fascists serving the corporate oligarchy), so the far right would have to take power by other means.
You are right that we are at a turning point, and the fascists and corporate oligarchs are aware of that as well. That is why a Giuliani victory will likely mean the end of meaningful elections in the USA. There are currently four fascists on the Supreme Court, who believe in the “unitary executive,” i.e. dictatorial powers, and he just needs one more, which he could even get with a Democratic Senate as he could appoint a fascist who is pro-choice and the Democrats would cave.
I think the only way a third party could arise is with the demise of the Republican Party. I have been a socialist since I was 18 in 1975 and I was a bit of an activist for those causes as I expected the Republican Party to fold and for there to be an opportunity for a new party to the left. But then Raygun was elected, and the counter-revolution of the fascists began, and it has been all downhill since then.
But I do agree with you that if a third party is ever to be viable, it will have to find compromises on the social issues.
BTW, I think Ralph Nader was saying that the two corporate parties aren’t going to represent our interests and that voters should start\switch to a new party that can be built to represent their interests around about 1996 when he first ran for President as a Green Party candidate.
Cindy Sheehan is pretty clear today about the Democrats not being an answer as she runs for Congress as an Independent.
‘the end of meaningful elections in the USA’
Does this imply we have meaningful elections in the USA today?
the economy is collapsing. in order to be rational, every area of political endeavour and debate must take this as primary reality.
And the one thing you can count on is that the Republicans are going to be there. If you are going to wait until the demise of the Republican party to start a party that represents the people, then hell will freeze over first. In every political system I’ve ever seen there is always one party that represents the interests of big money. That’s the Republicans today. And that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The problem in the US today is that we have a ‘two-party’ system and both parties currently represent big money. What we need to do is either to change the election laws such that we aren’t so limited to just two parties in winner-take-all elections. Or we have to work to make one of the two parties actually represent the people of the country instead of big money.
There are two basic ways to do that. One is to reform the Democratic Party from within. The second is to build another party to the point where the Democratic Party is destroyed and this other party takes its place in the two party system.
I’ve seen people trying to change the Democratic Party from within from the days when Clinton and the Democrats were passing NAFTA, WTO and Welfare Reform. It ain’t working. And its plain that the post-McGovern era rules and structure of the Democratic Party are designed to make sure it doesn’t work.
That leaves building another party. And it must be very, very clear that the first goal of this other party is the destruction of the Democratic Party. If there is only room for one challenger to the Republicans, and if the Democrats can’t be the party of the people, then the only possible action is to work to destroy the Democratic Party.
This can be done. The one thing we can certainly do is to ensure the defeat of Democratic candidates across the board by voting for 3rd parties and independents. And if the Democrats plainly can not win elections, then they won’t be able to raise money and the careerist politicians who don’t have any values and just want to win will leave that party as well. At that point, it might be possible to rebuild the Democrats as a party that represents the people. But if we’ve built a new political movement to the point where we have that level of success, then we might as well just carry on with that to the last step of taking the place in the political system as being the 2nd party in the system. The difference will be that we will be at least back to the New Deal era days where the 2nd party in the system actually represents a coalition of various American voters instead of just being a 2nd big money party like the Democrats.
Face it, our goal must be nothing less than the complete destruction of the Democratic party and relegating them to the history books next to the Whigs.
The monied powers want Hillary, hence the Republicans naming her time and again, and the corporate media touting her as the Democratic nominee already. But just because they say so: the well-known propaganda bandwagon affect, doesn’t mean it HAS TO BE SO! Congressman Dennis Kucinich and those of us who claim our right to choose the next presidential candidate in the 2008 election, don’t have to roll over and stop our efforts. The stakes are much too high. With Hillary Clinton assuming the royal throne, we continue the dangerous move toward WW III and the interests of the richest few will take priority over the needs of the country.
I say keep going DK, and the more he is being ignored by the DEMS and made fun of by the media, the more we know that his presidency will bring real change and stand the status quo on its head, and that is exactly what Americans want and need at this critical point in American and world history.
Where’s Daniel David? Is he feeling okay? He should have put out a plug for Killary by now.
As a reminder,………
In June, Media Matters published “The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth” which is based on nonpartisan data collected by the University of Michigan (American National Election Studies), and the University of Chicago (General Social Survey).
The research shows:
+ 67% of the public believe we need a strong central government to handle complex economic problems [as opposed to the conservative mantra of small government, Norqvist’s drown-it-in-a-bathtub government]
+ 58% believe the government should be doing more, not less.
+ 43% believe the government should provide more services even if it means more spending, where only 20% believe we should cut services and spending
+ 69% believe the government should help care for those who cannot care for themselves
+ 54% believe the government should help the needy even if it means more debt
+ 47% believe the government should work to reduce income differences, where only 35% believe the government should not work to address income differences
Etc. On and on, we could go down the line on the traditional differences between conservative and liberal / progressive, or between the platform of Kucinich and everyone else.
Essentially, Kucinich represents the public better than any other candidate. Shocking, isn;t it, that he is ruthlessly portrayed as a quirky little fringe candidate who caters to the hard left fringe.
There is absolutely nothing fringe about Kucinich. He is exactly the opposite, squarely in the middle of where the public is.
kivals: The end of elections would be a godsend to the progressive populist cause.
Far worse is if they might continue the charade of elections, schill/enabling opposition, etc. for decades more.
The power (and risk) to end elections is greater than the power required to simply monkey wrench/co-opt the other party when money talks.
Nichols’ advice is repugnant. The primaries haven’t even begun. Nichols, here’s my advice to you: stop writing and go away. Admit that you have no influence on anyone and your opinions aren’t valued except by a few odd-balls who talk left and vote right. We don’t need your help. Kucinich has the right to run and, just like any candidate, to do so with the expectation of winning. This country, in the final analysis, is NOT completely controlled by the corporate elites even though they have undue power.
I don’t trust the electoral process, I’m not necessarily a Kucinich supporter. But he makes the most sense of the candidates running in my view. If he has no chance, then let that be a marker of the death of a democracy and its transformation into puppet state of the corporate elites.
mirf59 November 1st, 2007 4:57 pm
“Essentially, Kucinich represents the public better than any other candidate. Shocking, isn;t it, that he is ruthlessly portrayed as a quirky little fringe candidate who caters to the hard left fringe.”
Even the debate moderator tried the other night to portray Kucinich as a fringe candidate by asking him if he had ever seen a UFO. An utterly silly question in what should be a serious debate. No such questions were asked of the other participants.
For the record he said that he had. Also for the record there are thousands of billions of stars in the universe and we already know that planets orbit around many of them. To believe that we are the only intelligent life in the universe is completely arrogant. It is also quite plausible that life could have started somewhere else before it started here. Far enough in advance that they may have already mastered space travel.
Lobo Gris
This stuff about Kucinich being an agent to lure leftsts into the Democratic party is just illogical nuttiness. No Kucinich supporter is going to support a mainstream presidential candidate.
Earthian–Sorry, but Spitzer is no progressive.
After reading all the comments, it’s very clear many put much thought and effort into trying to make sense of what to do in the face of an artificial, engineered/manufactured process that has nothing to do with real people’s aspirations and concerns–the realization the system is broken and beyond repair that promotes the alienation held by the many lurkers not commenting–more than half the electorate doesn’t/won’t vote. I don’t have any answer when millions of people vote against their own selfinterest by not voting or voting for the duopoly’s candidiate. The example of union members endorsing candidates explicitly against their interests illustrates my point. I think Greider’s analysis was right in “Who Will Tell the People” that the only way to overcome the broken system and install another in its place is through intense grassroots action. Look at what Vermont and Miane have accomplished on Impeachment.
The future holds a heap of trouble in store for the country and its citizens. The wars are a part, but not nearly the whole, which I describe as Business as Usual (BAU). Documented in numerous polls, a majority for quite some time now says BAU is going in the wrong direction. But it’s BAU the very small minority must at all costs continue, for their power flows from it. All Republican candidates, excepting Paul, along with Clinton and Obama are BAU advocates; some would include Edwards, I don’t. Gore promised BAU; Kerry promised BAU; and both pursued insipid campaigns that motivated none of the non-voting majority to vote; thus the elections were easily stolen. Even a platform touting many non-BAU aspects will be ignored/eviserated by a BAU supporting candidate–Clinton/Gore 1992/1996 are concrete examples of such deceit. Pelosi embodies the same today.
The candidate to support is one willing to state BAU is not viable and must change. Kucinich is best at this and has programs and ideas about how to accomplish such a goal. As others have noted, Nichols seems to want BAU, but disguises his true feelings. Few non-voters read or listen to Nichols; they do read/listen to MSM, which is why they’re non-voters. Only grassroots flyers, billboards and bumberstickers are going to inform the non-voters they have a viable candidate to vote for. Only by getting non-voters to vote will we ever have a shot at changing BAU and the political/media system that suppoerts it. It’s really the 2000 election all over again, but with higher stakes.
Envision the economy in 3 months, with oil at @120/bbl and the dollar at .62/1 Euro and the Dow in a big swoon. Which candidate is going to be more credible–The BAU advocates or those saying we must change BAU. Envision the economy by March as the downward spiral continues while prices continue to escalate–Stagflation. Envision the economy by Convention time. H.W.Bush would have won in 1992 were it not for Perot’s excellent presentations showing dramatically that it was “The economy stupid,” thus allowing BAU supporters Clinton/Gore to salt their message with some progressive ideas they immediately reneged on to gain the presidency. The Duopoly and MSM colluded to ensure that wouldn’t happen again, thus Nader’s media blackout in 2000 despite strong nationwide grassroots backing.
Yes, this comment is disjointed, which reflects our efforts. I believe the future economic condition and outlook will provide the empetus to get non-voters to vote for a non-BAU candidate, and that best candidate is Kucinich. I think it immaterial now which party–Green or Democrat–he’s currently in come election day. As the overall situation worsens, he becomes the only one with well thoughtout ideas and responses that really differentiate him from the pack.
To echo PJD
As a Kucinich supporter, I know of nobody who thinks like me that will continue to support the Democratic Party once Kucinich is out of the race.
I have long thought this, and glad that someone has released a study to prove it.
– In June, Media Matters published “The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth”–
Perhaps Tuesday’s debate question should have included “Do you believe in the Conservative America Myth?” rather than, “Have you seen a UFO?” which has a greater probability, since a UFO is nothing more that an unidentified flying object. Who in the world today, can deny that they have ever seen something in the sky that they could not absolutely identify? (Besides Chris Matthews and Jon Stewart, of course)
That’s why today, society feels so strangely other-worldly — we live in a tale spun by the spinners, and although we know it isn’t true, the public discourse has been set by the corporations which have the same rights as a citizen, and no body or soul. Eerie, and necessitating we elect someone who is authentic and speaks to us and our needs, and whom isn’t afraid to call a President and Vice-President — the purveyors of lies and illusion — on the Impeachment Carpet.
More than ever we need honesty, probity, rectitude in government
“… a war chest now worth over $80 trillion, with which the globalist élite intends to impose its so-called New World Order. Sufficient finance has been assembled, managed out of Brussels, to bribe every politician, policymaker and intelligence operative in the entire world for the whole of the 21st century.”
http://www.worldreports.org/aboutworldreports
Kucinich is right on the important issues and, from what the media allows me to see and hear of him, he seems pretty honest and not beholden to those who are determined to destroy our country and the world.
Arrogance + incompetence = self destruction
Kucinich is the world’s last chance at correction.
“Dennis Kucinich…increasingly ardent advocacy of impeachment.”
“On a deeper level, the inquiry I am proposing relates to who we are as Americans and what we stand for.”
The time is ripe for an American Renewal - a re-confirmation of the American Spirit and Ideals: this time inclusive - no races, genders or classes left out; no schizophrenia of humanitarianism in public and war mongering behind closed doors - the call and process of impeaching will culture this re-confirmation of the US Constitution.
Join Kucinich in re-confirming what it means to be American, join Kucinich and ardently advocate impeachment.
@PJD, off22: It’s certainly true in the narrow sense that characterizing Kucinich as a Democratic Party stalking horse, an anchor or magnet for progressive Democrats, seems illogical and spurious.
I assume that such progressives support Dennis precisely because of the things that set him apart from mainstream, centrist, politics-as-usual Democrats. Thus, logically, if Kucinich drops out and/or expresses support for a “top-tier” non-progressive nominee, his base is turned off and presumably switches to Plan B.
BTW, since I’m sympathetic to those who’ve felt betrayed or put off by Kucinich’s habit of supporting the party nominee, I’ve always wondered if his endorsement is at all effective in securing votes for the nominee. As you suggest, it’s much more likely that supporters would feel like voting for anyone but the nominee after being let down (again) by the candidate.
All that said, I think the view of Kucinich as magnet/anchor is valid on a broader level. As the House Maveric, he’s like the urine and musk spread by hunters to attract game. The lure of a non-conformist, visionary, capable progressive politician with real standing and power in the present duopoly is irresistible. So hundreds and hundreds of progressive deer begin streaming in out of the woods and into the Democratic meadow, in the rut and dying for some action.
When, for whatever reason, the horny progressive deer figure out that there’s no there there, and they’re not gonna get laid, some leave in a huff. But that scent still hangs in the air, and some deer remain– because where there’s musk, there’s the prospect of action. And even though the object of their passion is not to be had, and the moment is lost, the lingering scent is much more attractive than the fetid stench of the Republic swamp, or the remote Green dogpatch. And there’s not much happening out in the woods. So there is a net gain of critters in the Dem meadow, IMO.
So much for Fun with Metaphors: I believe that Kucinich has chosen to serve as a stalking horse to enhance the Democrat’s vestigial, and unmerited, image as a progressive-friendly party. Or at least recognizes that he fulfills this purpose, and accepts it. (But he needs to break ranks this time, or he may as well wait for the Mother Ship to return and pick him up.)
Oh, so now we get the ‘platform’ canard from the Democrat apologists like Nicholls.
Face facts. 1) The party platforms have been completely ignored for many campaigns now. So, even if Kucinich were to get some plank into the platform, knowing him it would be that silly Dept of Peace idea, big @#%@#% deal. Even before the convention is over all the printed platforms would be in a dumpster somewhere and everyone ignores them completely. And 2) the party platform process has been completely under control of the nominee now for the last several conventions. The committees that write the platform are completely controlled and unless Kucinich had a majority of delegates capable of making him the nominee in the first place, he’s not breaking through this. And floor fights and debate on the platform are completely verbotten in the modern conventions that are nothing but an infomercial for the nominee. No way would the Hillary campaign let a debate of a platform plank make it anywhere near the convention floor.
Didn’t we hear this same crap about why we should support Kucinich in 2004? And, the result was what was described above. A platform that completely conformed to Kerry’s wishes and no democratic debate on it in public in a highly undemocratic Democratic party. Then Kucinich endorses both the candidate and the platform that are very much opposed to what Kucinich believes in.
Will someone, anyone on the left admit the obvious. Kucinich is already done and beaten. Look at this way. Compare the current strength of the Kucinich campaign to the strength of the Dean campaign in 2004. Dean was a front-runner with what seemed to be a very strong campaign at this time in 2004. And he still got steamrollered by the undemocratic Democratic party and his campaign was beaten by the pick of the party bosses and big money.
Given that Kucinich is far, far weaker now than where Dean was in 2004 at this time, Kucinich is done, history, toast.
So, will people please quit wasting time, money and energy on this beaten campaign who’s only real result has always been to divert time, money and energy into a blackhole where it will have no chance in heck of changing anything in this country.
We know Kucinich is going to lose what was a rigged game in the first place. And we know he’s going to endorse Hillary here in Denver next year. That’s the outcome. Write it down.
Put the time and energy and money into building an independent political force in this country that can truly represent the people.
“The steel, auto, machine, and construction workers were on their feet, cheering wildly. Again and again, on industrial policy, on health care, on each issue that arose, Kucinich owned the argument.”
Kucinich has “owned” the argument from day one. That’s why the corporate-controlled media has done everything in its power to keep him on the back burner, out of sight. NO ONE in this campaign has been more honest or more correct on the issues than Dennis Kucinich!
He is the only Democrat worthy of my vote.
$383.83. I hope you know what that means.
By the time my state has a primary, the horse race will likely be over. The Democratic Party elites and the corporate media in all likelihood will prevent Kucinich from having a chance, like in 2004. And I expect that Kucinich will endorse the pro-war Democratic nominee in the end again. This country is in on a highway to hell, and the Dems would rather slow down the pace than change directions. I have no more energy to campaign for Kucinich like I did in 2004. I’m looking forward to a Green or independent who can represent my values as a small-d democrat.
The landscape you are about to encounter is unlike any you have seen before. You can forget the usual staid political strategies, nuances, counter-contrarian concerns etc….they will not apply. nor matter in the slightest; and Kucinich, the man of conviction, will convict ‘em. The best chance this nation, (and the world), has at correction, rests with this man Kucinich at the helm. The best thing that can and will happen is when the other candidates step aside and commend Kucinich’s primacy.
COMarc confesses his vicious purpose:
> “The one thing we can certainly do is to ensure the defeat of Democratic candidates across the board by voting for 3rd parties and independents.”
Admitting that your objective is to elect Republicans, damn the consequence, is bad enough. But the truth is, this evil scheme can’t succeed “across the board.” Most people have a better sense of responsibility - to themselves, their children, the world - than that. All this hateful scam can accomplish is to defeat SOME Democrats and elect SOME Republicans, helping the latter to keep on screwing us all, and pushing the former further to the Center-Right.
Okay, Question:
Why does it matter that Kucinich picked up no union endorsements, no major-political-figure endorsements, and did not build any strong campaign organizations?
If there is such a huge silent majority of would-be Green or Commie partiers out there, just waiting for COMarc to get offline and come out to lead them marching in the streets singing the International, why then can’t Kucinich persuade more than a few percent of even DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY VOTERS to give him their vote?
I don’t know the answer. But one thing I know for sure is that winning the Democratic presidential nomination for Dennis Kucinich, by organizing the masses at the grassroots level, door-to-door, blog to blog, school to school, shopping center to shopping center, has got to be a whole lot easier to accomplish than organizing an entire new political party the same way and bringing it to the point where it wins elections and the Democrats fall apart.
What prevents Kucinich from winning? What keeps the Progressive Caucus in Congress so small? Why have the Greens never won a single Congressional or statewide office? Why did Nader win only a few percent? And how is this going to change so that these Instant Revolutionary Voting fantasies can be realized?
The pat answers from COMarc and the rest of the Damn-the-Democrats chorus, about corporate money and sold-out or corporatist, ruling-class Democratic politicians and so on, blah, blah, explain nothing.
I challenge any of you guys to explain what you would do to organize a third party and what prevents you from doing the same things to organize a progressive movement whose candidates win Democratic primary elections.
They can fight you, of course. But they can’t keep you off the ballot and, if you win, they can’t keep you from becoming the Party’s nominee.
To claim that this doesn’t work within Democratic primary elections, but is somehow magically going to work “outside” the two-party system to win general elections, is pure demagoguery. It’s Nader’s snake oil, it’s consumer fraud. It’s a plain damn lie.
COMarc raises valid points, except that Kucinich could consider bailing.
1) An independent grassroots movement won’t be under the thumb of the DLC who demanded Liebermann (a crypto-neocon, now out of the closet) as Gore’s running mate in ‘00.
2) As others have indicated, many states require people to register as Dim, Rethug, or Independent. There are make-or-break issues for progressives. Iraq/Iran are two of them, and Hillary isn’t the candidate to unite progressives and center-right capitalists/Democrats.
3) 150+ years of the Democrats and what do we have to show for it today? Coherence of platform, high standard of ethics, ability to capture the grassroots mood?
But beyond this, what if the country had a few more terms of ultra-right Republicans, the worst scoundrels of the batch? The Dems then won’t be able to offer another Clintonian placebo. The further the Rethugs bring this country to ruin, the better and more genuine the opposition. The MSM won’t be able to proffer another crypto-neocon on us, the stretch will be too much, nobody will accept it, the jig will be up then.
The time to take that risk is now. The country will vote for the Green or independent ticket of Kucinich/Nader (or vice-versa) or it will vote for more ruin. The way out now may be easier now if the bottom falls out.
In the U.S. nothing will thrive unless inflated by hyperbole and gilded with a fine coat of fraud. Money knows that Americans can be persuaded to view something as genuine, graceful, bright, or facinating when that something is actually phony, clumsy, witless, untalented, vacant, and boring. -Paul Fussell
The Onion covered that topic here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31049
Good idea Earthian. I would delete Spitzer and include an end to the WOD.
oregoncharles:
Maybe Earthian’s idea would work if the Greens made a pact with DK that they will wait until after the Dems nomination to name a candidate. That way Dennis could become the Green’s candidate if the Dems won’t play ball. I’m still hoping for a Gore/Kucinich Green Party 2008 ticket.
When Kucinich doesn’t win the nomination, for all the reasons stated many times in this thread, I wonder what Nader2000’s encouraging words will be to stick with the Dems thru thick and thin. If DK should pull a rabbit out of the corrupt Dem Party hat and somehow seize the nomination (O perfect world!)then I’ll gladly and happily eat my words and COMarc’s as well. But for anyone still convinced Nader caused Bush to take office, by theft no less, there is probably nothing imaginable that might make them abandon the Party. For someone who says it’s “demagoguery” to insist we start putting time and energy into forming a viable 3rd party, with all the failures and capitulations of the Dems staring us in the face every damn day, their utter cowardice to either impeach or get us the hell out of Iraq being but one example, little wonder he hates Nader and any hint of deviating from the current one-party system. I’m all for DK and will vote for him in the primary, but I’ll be fully aware of its being little more than a protest vote, just like when I voted for Nader in 2000. I’ll write Kucinich in, in the general election, for the same reason. No way I’ll vote for HRC, unless I become a good Republican, since that’s her real party anyway. How to finesse unending absurdity: that’s the real challenge we pwogwessives face in the coming year.
Help! I’m dizzy from all this round and round arguing. We’re doomed folks! We can’t agree on one damned thing and we insist on EVERYTHING! I give up! As long as being right is more important than making our country and our world a better place, we’ll be sitting in our own excrement for the rest of our lives. STOP ALL THIS POLORIZING TALK AND START BUILDING BRIDGES, NOT WALLS. I thought we had some common dreams…guess not.
Kucinich is a very important player in the charade known as the Democratic Party. He keeps idiots like the ones we see posting daily on Democratic Underground energized and hopeful.
Of course, this is the only purpose of his campaign, to keep the base in the party. Like Kerry in 2004, he’s not running to win. He knows he’ll lose and at the end he’ll support a pro-war corporatist Democrat like he did in 2000 or 2004. His clueless voters will follow him and vote for either Killary or Obomber.
The only way I’d take him seriously is if he resigned his corrupt party TODAY and ran as an Independent. He’d have a better chance to get somewhere anyway. The Democratic Party is rotten to the core as much as the Republicans, they have an incurable and inoperable cancer, known as greed for war cash, just like their Republican clones. There’s nothing anyone can do for them.
SOLUTION: Vote Sheehan, support her campaign by sending money. The defeat of Pelosi might very well cause a domino effect, destroying this corrupt, phony party.
“When Kucinich doesn’t win the nomination, for all the reasons stated many times in this thread, I wonder what Nader2000’s encouraging words will be to stick with the Dems thru thick and thin.”
“Kucinich is a very important player in the charade known as the Democratic Party….the only purpose of his campaign, to keep the base in the party….at the end he’ll support a pro-war corporatist Democrat like he did in 2000 or 2004.”
Hey guys, words of REALISM. Here’s how it works:
You put your guy forward, you support him, you do your best to win the Party nomination. Maybe you win, maybe you lose. If you lose, the guy who wins is still closer to you than the guy from the other party, and you want to be taken seriously as a player and have influence in the party, so yeah, you support the nominee of your party.
Don’t like that? Okay, please explain HOW YOU ARE GOING TO WIN THE GENERAL ELECTION IF YOU CAN’T EVEN MUSTER ENOUGH VOTES TO WIN THE NOMINATION OF YOUR PARTY.
Why is there room for only two parties? Because there is only one winner. And there are lots of interest groups. What they do is form coalitions to gain access to power. Most issues have two sides. Each side joins one coalition.
Either you play the game, or you lose. There are lots of ways to lose, and lots of ways to opt out of the game. But there is only one game, and there are only going to be two parties.
No, the Democratic Party is not progressive, but of the two parties it is the one that stands to the left. Progressives can access power through the Democratic Party. No other way.
I’m not saying this is how it should be. I’m saying this is how it is. We want to change America, change policies. Trying to change the number of parties is irrelevant and futile.
Here some real thinking is going on. Bravo to Earthian’s Kucinich Plan. This is great stuff. Not that it’s the answer, but it’s an authentic and promising effort. This campaign - the progressive campaign - has to bust out of the box if anything new is going to happen AND IT COULD!!! Does it make less sense than the status quo or alternatives? What alternatives? Are there any? This is it, folks. Kucinich is the alternative, so what are he and we gonna do about it? Let’s begin by rejoicing that there IS an alternative, then let’s get busy. There are some smart people in our midst, so let’s not be stopped.
The problem isn’t that there are only two parties, it’s that neither of them represents an alternative to plutocracy. If we sincerely want democracy, then busting the monopoly is an essential start. If reality doesn’t undergo a transformation here, we can’t expect to see the change we’re seeking. As Gandhi said, we have to become that change. So,don’t believe what the MSM tells you about Kucinich’s electability - they have their own vested interest in status quo. And what’s at stake here is much bigger than one brave individual’s candidacy. Work for his election and work with him to make sure progressive aspirations don’t die with a failed run for the Democratic nomination. We cannot be saved by one human being, however wise, principled and heroic.
Practically everyone, no matter who they are, wants change constantly in life. It is a matter of what change and to what degree, but the point is; change is always on the table.
If we accept that change is part of the basic equation, then why rally behind change that won’t change anything? That is foolish.
The solution is not embracing a two party system that provides little change.
The solution to the election process is to provide equal funding to multiple candidates, discontinue private funding, have multiple parties/candidates, have paper ballots, have a popular vote, and have a runoff in the end.
It is very simple, and it is the only way any election could be considered free and democratic. If you want to ‘change’ things, hammer your representatives over and over for that!
Unless and until there are ‘free’ elections, any change will be minimal or miracle.
GORE: 1)clotted blood, 2)a tapering or triangular piece 3)to cut into triangular form 4)to pierce or wound with a horn or tusk.
Al Gore - clotted, finished (as a candidate for office), triangulating (as a Clinton in office), cut in triangular form,(always changing to espouse views he believes he needs to talk about to gain support yet never actually acting on those supposed beliefs) wounded by an elephant tusk in 2000.
Gore - not a bad fella overall, good job bringing global warming home to those who recently woke up from a twenty year nap - not remotely a progressive - not worthy of being on the same ticket as Kucinich - NOT A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT NOW AND NEVER SHOULD BE AGAIN.
Some of you folks are just plain crazy.
KUCINICH: Great guy, Great ideas, - not enough $$$$$ to be invited to the auction.
HILLARY: The next president of the empire - I’m sad
DEMOCRATS: A lost and confused peoples, relegated to wander aimlessly in the deserts of corporate money, world banking, oil interests, AIPAC and war. - waiting for Moses to show up with the 10 commitments (more likely to just be committed)
I must echo dolkar by saying we must become Venezuelan, Bolivian, Ecuadoran, etc.–actors on steroids in participatory democracy–and thereby motivate the majority of non-voters to vote, for that is the only way a progressive can win. And sorry to say, but the ongoing economic downturn will help our cause.
This is the best battle cry I’ve seen yet: dolkar: ” Let’s begin by rejoicing that there IS an alternative, then let’s get busy. There are some smart people in our midst, so let’s not be stopped.” A fundamental condition for non-voters is they aren’t registered to vote and provided pre-election material, such as a sample ballot and voters issues booklet.
Having said what I did about election reform, I want to also say that I second what dolkar said too.
The polls and MSM are not infallible. Kucinch CAN win, both the nomination and the election. He can. And I think, if Dennis becomes president, he may be the one to actually bring election reform about.
Anything is possible and we must all fight the good fight for the sake of future generations, if not for anything else, but there are a million reasons. Choosing between the lesser of two evils is not fighting the good fight.
What was that line?… “Give me liberty or give me death”. That is called commitment and that is called the good fight. That is pulling out all the stops. That is called passion!
Frankly, I don’t think that any of the other candidates can beat a republican. That is the tricky little horror that most people are overlooking. I think Dennis is the ONLY candidate who actually CAN win. If it were between Kucinich and any of the repubs, Dennis would win. The other Demo candidates, I doubt it.
And besides, the other candidates are just bushlite anyway.
Time to turn up the passion.
Kucinich should quit the Democratic party. It stands for nothing, and it’s corrupt to the core. Kucinich should get on the ballot as an independent. Nichols also should desert the party. Sticking with this discredited organization amounts to the abandonment of principle.
Kucinich will never raise enough money to be invited to the political table. In the end, it’s money that talks and money that wins, and if you don’t have that, you have nothing, even if you speak the right message. Money rules everything anymore, sadly, and it’s what has permanently corrupted our political system and has removed the people’s voice from their elected officials, who only speak with the voices of their biggest donors, those usually being the super wealthy.
Those of us ordinary people have lost our voice in a wash of Big Money and I think things have gone so far as to never again be able to gain back our say in things. I think things have gotten too far gone to be able to fix them. God bless Dennis Kucinich - I absolutely agree with everything he’s saying and I’ve campaigned for him and talked him up to a lot of people, but…..the only names on people’s lips these days are Obama and Hillary. They’re the ones raising the big bucks and who have the handlers and alliances to get them where they are, that being the two front running mainstream candidates. And even Obama is seriously lagging behind Hillary in the poll numbers.
People seem to want the Clintons back in the White House because they remember how good times seemed when they were there in the 90’s, but what most people don’t realise is that much of that wealth that people were making back then was all smoke and mirrors and it came crashing down in the big dot.com bust in 2000. So things may have seemed good on paper, but when it all came down to it, it was a sham, an illusion, cleverly created by some speculators who saw the Internet as the Next Big Thing but who failed to create real brick and mortar companies that had something to show for themselves.
I see a big repeat of the 1920’s and 30’s going on right now. The 90’s were much like the 20’s - massive speculation, soaring stock prices, credit out the wazoo, sham wealth, and then the bottom fell out in 1929, just like we’re seeing now with the sinking real estate market from the subprime meltdown, massive manufacturing layoffs like the ones announced yesterday by Chrysler, occasionally scary stock market mini-crashes like yesterday when the Dow Jones Industrial slid some 360 points….signs are pointing strongly to a repeat of the 1930’s, maybe not as severe because we have safeguards in place now, but…..I see a big economic downturn coming and we’d all better be prepared for it.
And frankly……Kucinich has been right all along about so many of these things, but no one will give him a serious listen. He’s a Voice in the Wilderness. And that’s sad, because he’s been right time after time on so many issues. I’ll continue to support him and I hope that he bolts the Democratic Party for the Greens. He’d be much better suited there, frankly, and might even get a fair hearing from the rest of the country if he did that.
Last year my heart and head told me to vote for Kucinich. But I yielded to the big player, John Kerry. I won’t let that happen again. I will be proud to cast my vote for Kucinich. He makes sense. He speaks plainly. And you get the sense that he really cares about this country and its future.
I too will change my designation as unspecified to democrat to cast a vote for Kucinich in the Iowa caucus. I will constantly bring up his name. I will endorse his proposed policies and ideas as I did in 2004.
Then I will watch as the MSM dismisses him, the DNC ignores him, progressives turn their backs on him to race to the “electable” alternatives, and I will once again go back to my own work to bring down the two party system, destroy the concept of corporate personhood that allows this to happen, advocate against Industrial “Agri-Terrorism” (my own term for what passes in my home state as “Agriculture”) and work to build stronger communities to bring people together in solidarity for issues that affect us all.
May the government of the U.S. fall precipitously and may the people rise up out of the ashes of empire and build a true community that respects life, justice, and the rights of all creatures to enjoy a healthy, sustainable future.
Paul Bramscher and COMarc,
I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusions. I think we all agree that the Democrats as well as the Republicans are corporatists, but I disagree strongly with those who argue or imply that somehow the Democrats and Republicans work together as part of the same team.
I see the two parties as similar to two rival Mafia gangs. They are both criminal, and self-serving, and engage in similar activities, but that does not mean they work together. On the contrary, they are battling for the same turf and are blood enemies. As the Democrats have become more corporatist, the two parties have become more redundant, and one has to go.
I strongly prefer the one to go to be the Republicans. They are bigger risk-takers, willing to risk world-wide nuclear war and human extinction in their drive to subjugate the peoples of the so-called third world. They are more brazen and bold in their attempts to polarize society as they do not fear revolution and are not concerned with social unrest. They will seize total power through fraudulent elections if possible, as with the exception of the pabulum they serve to the truly dimwitted, they make no pretense at believing in democracy or the constitution. If given the opportunity, they surely will further limit the Bill of Rights and remove any ability of the Internet to serve as a forum for political discussions or organizing.
And many articles have recently appeared signaling a possible divorce with the Religious Right is in the works. And the Republicans have never seemed so incompetent and ignorant, including the anti-science nonsense. So, if there is going to be just one corporate party going forward after 2008, why can’t we help the corporate elites choose the Democratic Party as the one to survive to serve their interests, enabling us to build one to the left of it?
Comparing the Rethugs and the Dems to competing Mafia families seems fairly illuminating. I agree, that’s a good way of describing our vaunted and loathed political parties. So they’re both criminal and self-serving, interested only in money and power, the extension and making permanent of US hegemony throughout the world. And while the Dems may still take advantage of a remnant of populist rhetoric, pretending they care about everyday people, etc., nobody believes it since it’s been a transparent ruse for 30 years, and only those who’ve been asleep that long still fall for the sales pitch.
But somehow we’re expected to forget all that and cling with purblind stubbornness to the Dems as our only “real” alternative. The thing to remember about the Mafia analogy is that while the competing families may be engaged in turf wars and have a long history of grudges, they are equally committed to insuring that La Cosa Nostra remains “their thing,” that nobody else intrudes in their criminal business venture and that it stay on top of the power struggle, laughing all the way to their private resorts aboard their private jets at the shmucks who still think they’re going to change their little game “from within.”
It’s like all the idealistic law students from the ’70s and ’80s who were convinced they’d change the legal profession from within. Didn’t happen, the profession changed them, or they were driven out, and neither will progressives change the Democratic Party by submitting to be absorbed by it. Kucinich himself is living proof. He’s not changing the party, so how the hell do we powerless bloggers think we’ll do it?
Ephraim,
It is a long difficult slog for progressives to exert any power within or outside the Democratic Party. I think too many are seduced by the illusion that a new party offers some never-before-seen transformation of the political landscape, and that all the difficulties involved in changing minds in the Democratic Party will not be present with the new party.
In any case, I believe the best chance would be to start a third party after the Republicans have become irrelevant. Otherwise, a third party to the left could enable the Republicans to take total and permanent control of the government. They have come so close, and they have so many in the federal court system supporting them, particularly the Supreme Court, which has four fascists and one conservative Republican.
However, if the left completely abandons the Democrats and they become irrelevant and the Republicans take total control, only a completely naive ditto-head could believe the Republicans will ever relinquish power to a progressive party to the left without a tremendous amount of bloodshed, regardless of election outcomes. These people have shown time and again they could not care less about democracy or the constitution and they are prepared to spill a great amount of blood, American and other, to ensure total domination of the planet by the corporate oligarchy.
Though corporatists, most of the Democrats do appear to at least have a scintilla of humanity and concern for the fate of the country and the human race. The Republicans do not.
By the way, I was one of those idealistic law students and I still am an attorney.
It is not what Kucinich SAYS. Any dime a dozen political liar for hire to the highest bidder will obviously say whatever is needed to ensure maintenance of the corporate criminal regime status quo;
It is what Kucinich DOES that matters now;
1. Publicly renounce and revile the other wing of corporate crime representation for what it is.
2. Publicly renounce and revile those complicit lackies to corporate criminal interests, otherwise known as “congressional representatives” for their open and willing support and sustaining of the crimes being commited by their masters.
3. Publicly announce the formation of the new party, The Whole Earth Party (whatever), based on global unity, cooperation, disarmament, ecologically sound practice, equitable distribution, and inalienable human rights.
4. Publicly call for the immediate arrest, incarceration, trial, and certain conviction of mass murder, treason, torture, and willful deceit against the current administration as well as all those congressional representatives who willfully continue to support the crimes being commited against the innocent.
5. Publicly state that the American people will immediately commence reparations to the fullest extent to the wronged peoples of Iraq.
6. Publicly demand the immediate retraction of illegally stationed US armed forces from the sovereign nation of Iraq.
Unless DK takes steps similar at least to the above, he is either a mere bit player, a provincial American stooge to forces he cannot comprehend, or else he is an outright liar in the services of the enemy to human brotherhood in order to, as so rightly stated earlier here, keep the uncertain in the ranks.
As for any institution such as “organized” (make me laugh) labor, et al, any fool is aware that those bodies are long since controlled by servants of the criminal corporate oligarch. Their selections of whom they will support as legitimate representatives of truth, justice, and the will of the American people more than prove this.
“In Kucinich’s case, his optimism borders on off-putting and out of touch.”
As a black man in Amerikkka, I’m constantly inundated by whites who “think” such positive thinking is The Answer to EVERYTHING — particularly when it comes to finding a living wage job. “Oh, you’re being too negative,” and so forth.
From this moment on, I NEVER want to hear another goddamn thang from some New Age liberal/hippie about how I have the power to change my reality. IF I DID, Kucinich would’ve been nominated in 2004 and would ALREADY be in the White House!
Either the evil D.L.C. steps aside and nominates Kucinich or I will NOT vote next year! The commies are right: There’s NO difference between the donkey and the elephant — no matter what lawyer-sounding writer from The Nation magazine claims.
Propping Hillary and Obama up on pedestals in order to CON the public into “thinking” the Democrats are left-wing JUST BECAUSE one’s a woman and the other is black … Oy Vey! Look at their platforms, people! LOOK AT THEIR PLATFORMS!
Kucinich in ‘08 or bust!
Saab,
“Propping Hillary and Obama up on pedestals in order to CON the public into “thinking” the Democrats are left-wing JUST BECAUSE one’s a woman and the other is black … Oy Vey! Look at their platforms, people! LOOK AT THEIR PLATFORMS!”
Hell yeah. If you ain’t looking at platforms and voting records, you’re going by impression. May as well be reading tea leaves - scratch that, tea leaves are more effective. If all these DLC bots fucking read Clinton’s platform in 1992, things may have been different.
To the DLC supporters:
Look. You don’t get anywhere by compromising your rights away. If you don’t start evaluating your principles very carefully, one of two things is going to happen:
1. The same ol’, same ol’ - which means that a republican - a neo-con republican in all likelihood - will be elected again; quite possibly not in 2008, but definitely soon. Why? Because that’s the system that you seem hell-bent on protecting, even as it pulls the rug out from under you.
2. A revolution.
So enjoy your sleep while it lasts - I prefer to be awake, myself.
The author, John Nichols, need to retract a statement made in his editorial because it is not true:
“After Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and the others struggled to answer the question without offending either the labor crowd or their corporate donors….”
It is extremely important to note that Obama has no corporate donors. Obama takes money only from individual donors.
Just THINK how much better off the world would be now if DK had been elected the first time he ran for President. Just THINK how much better off the world will be in the future if he would be elected THIS time. Support Dennis Kucinich any and every way that you can and PRAY like all get out that Americans wake up and vote for the BEST candidate THIS TIME around!
Don’t be suprised, its an old story: When a country is
on a toboggan to lose power, wealth, international
standing, etc. it inevitably loses integrity & respect
for the basics that made-up that country
We will be lucky in Bush and The Dick don’t get us into
another military bummer before they leave. But, then by
God, what can we do if they decide not to go? Scary
thought.
With great good fortune Dennis, Cindy and a few other
Dems may be endorsed by the Green Party ’cause that’s
where I’m going. Have a peculiar loathing for funerals.
To Pelosi, Hoyer and their ilk: fool me once shame on
you, etc.