Kucinich in Trouble: Strapped for Cash in Re-Election Fight

Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 11:38 AM on February 21, 2008.

Dennis Kucinich might be in trouble for re-nomination to Congress, if fundraising is any indication:

Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman raised nearly five times as much money last year as incumbent Dennis Kucinich in their 10th Congressional District race, according to financial disclosure reports filed Thursday.

Kucinich, who has spent the past year running for president, raised $47,000 - a third of which was raised in the last three months of 2007. The filing period runs through Dec. 31.

Most of Cimperman's $228,000 in contributions came from lawyers, developers, bankers and business associates. Forest City Enterprises' Ratner family contributed $11,000, and $13,800 came from the Goldberg family, who are affiliated with AmTrust Bank, the former Ohio Savings Bank. About 40 people gave Cimperman the maximum amount of $2,300, including Scott Wolstein, head of Developers Diversified Realty Corp. and lead developer of the Flats East Bank neighborhood; Legacy Village developer Mitch Schneider; event promoter Mike Belkin; and Republican investor Jeff Jacobs.

I don't really know anything about Kucinich's main opponent, Joe Cimperman, but most of his donations do appear to be from large donors with corporate connections. It would definitely suck if Kucinich were to lose against a corporate challenger, potentially canceling out the momentum we gained from Donna Edwards last week.

At the same time, it needs to be said that the main criteria for a successful primary challenge is for the incumbent to not take care of his or her district. If the member of Congress being challenged is home a lot, stays connected to activists on the ground, listens to voters, and conducts good constituent services, that member of Congress will be virtually impossible to defeat in a primary no matter the ideological differences s/he has with the voters of the district. Given that he decided to engage in a second quixotic run for President instead of taking care of his district, Kucinich might be in some real trouble. Kucinich brought the opening for a primary challenge upon himself by running for President again.

Second, it should also be noted that over the past year Kucinich has actually raised way, way more money than all of his primary challengers combined. According to his most recent FEC report, Kucinich's presidential campaign raised $4,319,601 through January 31st. This far surpasses the cumulative totals raised by his seven primary challengers, who collectively did not surpass $600,000. Kucinich clearly has the ability to raise money, and if he had not ended his presidential campaign with a net financial deficit of $400,000, he would be able to swat all of these challengers like so many flies. Instead, he has only $13,383 cash on hand.

In other words, while it would be terrible for Kucinich to lose to a corporate challenger like Joe Cimperman, or to Iraq Bush Dog in waiting Rosemary Palmer, he has brought both the opening for a serious primary challenge, and the financial deficit he faces in that campaign, on himself. As such, while I have tremendous sympathy for the plight of a progressive Democrat targeted by corporate interests and Bush Dogs, I do not have a huge amount of sympathy for Kucinich himself. Presenting a series of good policy papers and having a decent voting record in Congress are extremely important, but they are not the only necessary factors for being an effective progressive. It is also necessary to be smart politically, and to have an actual strategy to achieve your legislative and electoral goals. Politics is not just about sending a message, or making a statement. There will never be a progressive governing majority in this country unless we pursue effective political strategies and execute them with the proper level of organizing work. Frankly, I don't think that Kucinich is doing this, and it is really annoying that he has made himself so vulnerable to right-wing challenges because he wanted to grandstand at a few debates.

Kucinich would have been far more effective for the progressive cause if he had taken care of his home district, and used his national fundraising profile to help other progressives, like Donna Edwards or Mark Pera, get elected in primary challenges against conservative Democratic incumbents, open blue district seats where we can make meaningful progressive gains in Congress, and in Republican-held districts where progressives have a real shot in the general election. That would have actually been an effective way of spending nearly $5,000,000. Instead, he throwing even more progressive money into his own personal sinkhole, and creating a potential to erode all of the hard work actual progressive movement types put into the Donna Edwards campaign. As A few months ago, Matt wrote that Kucinich is a distraction for the progressive movement, and the predicament Kucinich has put himself in demonstrates Matt's point. I hope Kucinich wins, but more than that I hope he starts making smart political decisions and working to build up a movement rather than just himself.

Black Agenda Report has a different take on this campaign.

Tagged as: kucinich

Chris Bowers was a full-time editor at MyDD from May 2004 until June 2007. Some of his projects have included the creation of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, the first scientifically random poll of progressive netroots activists, the Use It Or Lose It campaign, the nation's most accurate forecast of Democratic house pickups in 2006, and the 2006 Googlebomb the Elections campaign.