Dennis J. Kucinich
(Project Vote Smart)
Qualifications: Dennis Kucinich was a whiz kid, 30 years ago. He was elected to Cleveland's City Council in 1969, at the age of 23. He ran for Congress (and lost)as a Democrat in 1972, and as an Independent in 1974. He was Mayor of Cleveland for two turbulent years in the late seventies, and was tossed out in disgrace, his political future in ashes before he was old enough to qualify as President. And then, you know, the second act, which began slowly with a failed run for Congress in 1988 and another in 1992, and then (remember, he had been Mayor of Cleveland) finally winning an election as a State Senator in 1995. Then he finally, on his fifth try, got into Congress in 1996, and has won reelection four times.
What that comes down to is (a) six years in the US House, which is not a lot, and one turn as Mayor of Cleveland in the 70s, and (b) an amazing quantity of experience losing elections, which I would think would be, you know, a learning experience.
Strengths: Rep. Kucinich has the strength of his convictions. Not all of his convictions are coincident with those of the population at large, but they are, for the most part, seriously thought-out convictions stemming from a seriously thought-out philosophy. This gives him the advantage that serious thinking gives people: he can take issues as they come, compare the patterns with his philosophic structure, and make choices, not surely, because the universe is complex, but with conviction. He perceives both a resource-based and a morality-based frame, which allows him to keep his eye on the ball. More specifically, he has a good deal of knowledge and experience with what I think of as lefty issues: health care, energy, pensions, and human rights.
Weaknesses: Rep. Kucinich does not appear to be very detail-oriented. He is a Big Idea man, not an execution man. Also, his relentless attention to the resource frame the moral frame appears to make it difficult for him to compromise. He isn't terribly charismatic, doesn't speak particularly well, and has a lousy singing voice. Also, he evidently is a terrific ventriloquist.
Priorities: Rep. Kucinich has said, again and again, that his first priority is Guaranteed Single-Payer Universal Health Care. Now, how that would play out in a Kucinich White House isn't clear, but he does appear to be willing to put a lot of resources into it. His second priority is protecting Social Security, by which, by the way, he means protecting a retirement age of 65 as well as keeping the funds away from private investment brokers. He's a proud protectionist; he's against Free Trade in the NAFTA/WTO sense. He appears to want to direct foreign policy by an emphasis on human rights, rather than either a power-structure emphasis or an economic emphasis.
Coalitions : It's not clear to me that Dennis Kucinich has built lasting coalitions in the past, nor do I think he would be particularly good at it. I do think that he has the potential of actively leading those people who share his world-view, and persuading the persuadable to share his world-view. I don't know that he is capable of the compromise necessary to lead those with different world-views, who see their interests furthered by coming together on what common ground there is.
Legislative: Rep. Kucinich has been associated largely with noble losing causes in his years in the House. Labelling Genetically modified foods, Kyoto, enforcing the War Powers Act, opposition to NAFTA and the WTO, and some sort of fuss about Myanmar appear prominently. It's an important valuable position, gadfly; but it's hard to see it working from outside. That said, he does have legislative experience, and knows how the process works.
Executive: Rep. Kucinich has experience as a public executive, Mayor of Cleveland thirty years ago. Melvin G. Holli, in his book The American Mayor: The Best and the Worst Big-City Leaders (University Park: Penn State University Press © 1999), surveys a group of historians, biographers and urban studies people, and Mayor Kucinich shows up on the list of 10 worst mayors in America since 1820. He's pretty much the only person on that list who wasn't corrupt; Prof. Holli describes him as "abrasive, intemperate and confrontational". Dennis Kucinich was young then, and besides, he turns out to have been on the right side of some of those confrontations. Still, it's easy to imagine a Kucinich White House full of anger and confrontation, and short on compromise and achievement.
Judicial: In 1975, Dennis Kucinich was Clerk of the Courts for Cleveland. Seriously, he has no experience or track record here. He is not an attorney. There's no reason to think he would run into trouble here, but there's no pattern to spot, either.
Crisis: This is for sure: in a crisis, Dennis Kucinich would stick to his proverbial guns. It's very hard to imagine him caving in under any sort of pressure to do something he thought was immoral or short-sighted. In an emergency, he would very quickly choose sides, and stick with the side he chose. Also, because he would act on principles which are known, he would be predictable; you would always know which way he would jump.
Day-to-day: This is questionable. It's hard to know how much weight to give thirty-year-old complaints about abrasiveness and inability to compromise. We are none of us exactly who we used to be, and it is quite common for brashness to mellow with age. It is clear, though, that Dennis Kucinich is most comfortable when he's on a mission. I would expect him to have less control on the day-to-day matters outside the sights of those missions.
Leadership: Dennis Kucinich is neither a hedgehog nor a fox; he is a battering ram, fearless, certain, and resolute. He isn't charismatic, nor is he good-looking, nor articulate, nor is his thumb on the pulse of the country. He is a fighter, and a hell of a fighter, at that. He is certainly not a follower.
Your Humble Blogger received the following email from a Kucinich campaign volunteer.
Changes to consider:
The City of Cleveland was virtually bankrupt when Dennis became mayor. He did exactly what he promised to do: He kept the municipal electric company, saving millions for customers over the years, rather than turning it over to the banks. The banks refused to go along with it, and Cleveland had to default on some loan payments. He knew that this was political suicide when he did it. And the City of Cleveland has since (1998) recognized him as one of their greatest mayors for having the courage to do what he did.
In both economics and foreign affairs, Dennis is basing his approach on people, not institutions. NAFTA has cost millions of Americans their jobs while lining the pockets of large corporations. This has not been in the best interest of the country. Likewise. Our troops today are pulling escort duty in Iraq, and laying down their lives to protect convoys of American companies – that are there only to make money. (Halliburton, Exxon, Bektel, and Carlysle – spelled Cheney, Rice, Schultz and Bush) He has been the most visible of the opponents of the war.
We have, to the best of my knowledge, only been in one war in my lifetime that was solely and completely based on human rights, and in several instances, we took sides with ruthless criminals against relatively humane legitimate governments or sided with ruthless dictators rather than genuine populist fronts. Dennis desires to prevent wars by preventing the injustices that start them.
He is far less abrasive than he was 30 years ago. And he has changed sides on issues, but only after lengthy observations and learning more about the issue. (The charge that his change on the position of abortion rights was politically motivated are just hog wash. The change came over a long period, and he was pro-choice years before he decided to run for president.)
Yes, he has lost elections, but he has also won elections in which he was given no chance, facing opponents that had 4 times his financial resources. He has truly represented his constituents, even not appearing in campaign activities if they would interfere with votes in congress.
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Overall, I would tend to agree with much of what you said, about both his strengths and weaknesses. But that is just my personal opinion. I am a volunteer, I am not speaking for the campaign, or for Dennis.
Ray
Your Humble Blogger thanks Ray for his comments. I have passed them along without editing; I am still thinking about them in light of my original research.
I’m grateful that someone from out in the wider world has seen fit to respond to V’s presentations, and I hope that’s a sign that many people will be finding their way to V’s work, as it’s useful and timely.
I wonder if there’s more to be learned from Rep. Kucinich’s record in the House. Given that he’s been in the minority, even within his own party, since he arrived, it’s not surprising that he has made his mark primarily by championing noble losing causes. Since he has generally turned out (as I see it) to be correct in his stands, I’d like to see him in a position where he could more effectively work for his position.
I’m not sure, V, why you find it hard to see the “gadfly” role working from outside, because, if he were in the White House, he would not be outside but on the inside. The gadfly role is a non-issue. Congress would have to reckon with him, and with the Presidential veto power, as well as the manifold powers the Office has to shape legislation.
Now, one might argue that a President who is too ready to use the veto would not develop a healthy relationship with Congress, and that may be true. But as I see it, we need a president who is going to stand up to the banks, as it were, and Kucinich has shown that he can do that.
As I think about Kucinich’s record in this regard, I’m wondering if there mightn’t be another aspect of Executive, or perhaps another category, having to do with how candidates would deal with the vested interests that have such influence, not to say control, in government.
Lieberman, to take a handy example, appears as in favor of “pro-growth management of the economy,” but where does he stand on the government’s role in managing the economy re Big Business? My sense is that he has drawn a lot of support from Big Business, has backed NAFTA, backed the legalizing of fraud that helped lay the groundwork for the big meltdowns of the early 2000’s, and in general favored the de-regulation that financial institutions and corporations wanted.
Maybe Lieberman is on the same page as most other candidates on this — I bring him up because I know more about his history in this respect than I do about say, Bob Graham’s (who? 🙂 . But I’d like to know more particularly how beholden these candidates are to Big Business, and how likely they are to have what it takes to stand up to them and call them to account, if necessary.
Chris (and Gentle Readers all),
By outside, I meant outside Congress; having a gadfly in the White House is very different from having one in Congress. Whether a gadfly in the White House would be a Good Thing I’ll leave for you to decide; I am certain (for myself) that a gadfly in the Congress is a Good Thing.
As for your main point, the relationship of the candidates to Big Business, I think that’s too tricky and multifaceted in some ways for me too attempt here. Yes, Lieberman (like Clinton) gets along well with Big Business, but he doesn’t get along well with the entertainment or the gaming industry. Which would be a big, big difference.
The most I would feel comfortable doing is my Jack Snow test; I could easily imagine Gephardt, Graham, Kerry or Lieberman appointing a Jack Snow. Less likely would be Dean or Edwards. Moseley Braun, Kucinich and Sharpton fall in to the No Way category.
Redintegro Iraq,
-V.
I’ll have to think about ways to work out how the candidates would deal with various factions within Big Business. For me that’s the nub of the issue, as even matters of war and peace are substantially influenced by business interests.
i wonder how much longer stateside businesses will profit from military adventures. though not as severely as thailand or mexico we’re clearly vulnerable to foreign investors’ doubts. and i don’t feel like we have any good information about the post-cold war impact of war on our economy or business affairs. afghanistan was a prevention of further attacks on wall street, iraq was a killing blow to prey we effectively shot twelve years ago, the others were “police actions.”
if we fight more in the middle east, that could be a real mess, crisply demonstrated by current iraqi politics.
if we fight north korea, it seems like china has all kinds of economic leverage now they didn’t have in the ’50s.
so i’m not sure which kinds of relationships with business make war, and which don’t. even for oil men these must be troubling times.
I imagine these are especially troubling times for oilmen, or they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to get one of their own into the White House to help secure their interests.
I am consoled when I think about the Bush Presidency and all the horrible things that are being done that time is running out for the fossil-fuel barons. If you take account of futures of more than 30 years, they have none. The environmental impact of global warming will only become clearer and more devastating, and the resources they depend upon for their profits will not last. This presidency is a holding action against a rising tide of change. Sensible national energy and economic policy would respond to the changing world and prepare prudently for the future. Our leadership instead is using its immense powers to build dikes of sand to hold back that tide. This is mere folly.
If I am consoled by thinking in that in the long run the current energy and economic policies of the U.S. cannot be sustained, I am greatly saddened to think of all the unnecessary damage to people and to the environment that will be done in the interest of preserving the status quo.
To bring this ramble back to Dennis Kucinich, I currently support his candidacy because he’s the only candidate, to my knowledge, who has both the knowledge and the courage to address directly these problems. A centrist Democrat would be better than the foolish, narrow-minded, power-mad administration currently in office, but a centrist is unlikely to _lead_ the country to begin to change itself.
In reading this, I noted you think Congressman Kucinich “doesn’t speak well”. I have to ask what speeches have you been listening to? No offense but he’s one of the most articulate, influential and inspring public speakers I’ve ever heard!
Being a campaign volunteer, I spend a lot of time listening to him speak, as well as watching him in action on the House floor. It never ceases to amaze me that his floor speeches don’t garner as much support as I expect them to. Granted he doesn’t speak like a Harvard or Yale graduate, but he speaks to the common man or woman in language and form that we can understand. From all I know of him that’s not surprise and in all honesty it’s probably his best chance of winning the primaries and the election. What people in America tend to forget is that it’s the common man, the low man on the totem pole that really drives our society. Unfortunately the low man on the totem pole seems to have forgotten that as well.
Further I disagree with your assessment that Kucinich is not a “detail man”. If you take a good look at his positions on the issues you’ll note most of them have some sort of plan outlined to execute those changes. I don’t believe Congressman Kucinich would throw out a promise without a plan to carry it out already in his mind or written up. That just isn’t how he works. I’ve seen enough of his presentations on the House floor to discover he doesn’t make proposals without being thoroughly educated about the subject and having thought out a reasonable compromise or amendment.
I appreciate your giving people a reason to look at Congressman Kucinich more carefully and I would strongly urge you to do so as well. I suspect these assessments may be your initial impression of the man and if you were to delve a little deeper into his work you might come to different conclusions.
Diamondsoul/Dee
Diamondsoul/Dee,
Well, I’m sure I’m wrong on a bunch of stuff about all the candidates. That’s why I put this stuff up. Thanks for chipping in.
I went to the campaign’s website and downloaded the Imagine America speech (and I think another one) and listened to them pretty carefully, and I’ve heard snippets of others. I’ve also read excerpts of some more speeches, including a few floor speeches. I don’t find him particularly good at the theater of speechifying, the rhythm and structure of it. I’ll grant you articulate, and I admit that the whole business is a matter of taste, so perhaps I oughtn’t have put it as baldly as I did.
As for not being a detail man, I didn’t mean to say that his plans lack details, but that he would not himself administer those details. I contrast this to Gephardt, for instance (despite his current performance in the House), or Gore, or Clinton. And that’s mostly based on newspaper reports of his tenure in the House and various reports of his mayoralty; they may well be inaccurate (or I may have interpreted them badly). Also, of course, it’s not necessarily a good thing to have a detail man micromanaging in the White House; it’s a factor to consider, with the others.
Thanks again for bringing up your points. I did a fair bit of research on each of the candidates, and have been hoping for further information to come out in the discussion. So far, I have more about Rep. Kucinich than anyone else, which in itself makes me happy about him and his campaign.
Redintegro Iraq,
-V.
Oh, and if you have an example of a terrific Kucinich speech, I’d love to read or listen to it. Even if it’s a floor speech, I have pretty good access to Congressional Record stuff; I’m particularly interested in political rhetoric (in the good sense), and would enjoy reading any speech you recommend.
R.I.,
-V.