Give Kucinich a Chance

On February 17, 2002, speaking before members of the Southern California chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich delivered an impassioned, poetic denunciation of the Bush administration's policies and a hopeful, progressive vision of American patriotism. Without his knowledge, the president of ADA afterward e-mailed friends a copy of the speech, titled "A Prayer for America," with Kucinich's e-mail address attached. The speech fanned out across the Web, and soon more than 25,000 enthusiastic fan letters flooded in, with requests to speak across the country.

Precisely one year later, Kucinich was at the Adventureland Hotel just east of snowbound Des Moines, announcing to a group of Iowa labor leaders that he was exploring a presidential run. The field of candidates was already crowded and is likely to grow even larger, including contenders who are better known and better funded than Kucinich. But Kucinich's long-shot candidacy was greeted enthusiastically by Iowa progressives, who hope his forceful critique of Bush's Iraq policy will shape the presidential debate over the coming year. Kucinich's outspoken leadership on Iraq, labor, health care, globalization and other issues has the potential to mobilize a movement to give him a very strong standing in next January's party caucus meetings, where progressives usually have a strong presence.

In the late '70s, Kucinich, the son of a poor, inner-city, blue-collar family, burst on the national political scene as the progressive "boy mayor" of Cleveland, duking it out with the city's establishment to save the municipal power company. He won that fight but lost the mayor's office, spending years as a college lecturer and TV reporter before returning to politics. Elected to the state Senate in 1994, he defeated a Republican incumbent in 1996 to win his congressional seat.

As co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus, Kucinich, 56, has been a leader in fights against unfair trade agreements, the USA Patriot Act, the war in Iraq and privatization of Social Security. He also has been a vigorous advocate of unions and workers rights as well as national health insurance. He has departed from a consistently progressive record mainly on abortion, where he has almost uniformly voted against pro-choice positions. He now says that he supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose, but expresses hope that education about sex and personal responsibilities as well as better social and economic policies can make abortion less necessary.

But beyond his leadership, voting record and forthright positions on a wide range of issues, including such political hot buttons as opposition to capital punishment, Kucinich is unusual in the way he links together foreign and domestic policy to a vision of America--and of a revived Democratic Party in the mold of FDR--which he expresses in a prophetic, Whitman-esque style.

Kucinich opposes war in Iraq on a variety of counts. He joined a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a war without congressional authorization. He argues that "the administration has not made a case to attack Iraq, but they set about a course of action that borders on fabricating a case to attack Iraq. The attack on Iraq derives from ideology more than facts."

Citing Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," Kucinich argues that immediately after September 11, 2001, the administration sought to use the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as an excuse for war against Iraq. The White House has opposed any inquiry into 9/11, Kucinich says, because it would demonstrate there's no link with Iraq. "I believe the country has a right to defend itself," says Kucinich, who voted to authorize Bush to respond to 9/11. "But the administration seized 9/11 as a way to run an agenda for empire."