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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
The lefty long-shot presidential candidate has found new fans because of his antiwar stance. He explains his "holistic candidacy" -- and past pro-life votes -- to Salon.
Mar 1, 2003 | Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, enters the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination with close to no money or name recognition. But he's been openly, vociferously, against the war with Iraq, and that's given his long-shot campaign an early infusion of energy -- one that has helped him expand his appeal a bit beyond the Common Dreams crowd.
It is not impossible that in the first-caucus state of Iowa -- where Kucinich kicked off his campaign and where he hopes to make some inroads -- his views will find some real support. For these he will no doubt get some stiff competition from firebrand Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, who also supports repealing the 2001 Bush tax cuts and prioritizing health insurance coverage for more Americans, and who opposes the war against Iraq (though in a far more qualified way).
The oldest of seven children, Kucinich first hopped on a national stage in 1977 when, at age 31, he was elected mayor of the city of his birth, Cleveland. It would be a short mayoralty; after Kucinich refused to sell the city's municipally owned electric system at the urging of the city's banks, the banks defaulted. In 1979, Kucinich lost his reelection bid. In 1984, he was elected to the Ohio Senate; in 1996 he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is known for being an outspoken and reliably liberal voice on every issue save abortion. He opposes free trade agreements like NAFTA and has spoken in favor of the formation of a Department of Peace.
As his diminutive profile has slowly begun to emerge to the public, certain key issues have arisen that will likely dog him -- such as his pro-life positions, and charges of racial political turf fights in his past. But he insists, in an interview, that -- his New Age-speak of a "holistic" candidacy aside -- he knows what he's up against.
"I'm not new to this," Kucinich says. "I did not just fall off the Christmas tree."
Kucinich spoke with Salon by telephone:
Do you really, truly think you have any chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination?
Yes. Because I'm the only candidate who has a message which encompasses international politics and domestic politics and shows the links between the two. I'm the only one. The only one who has a real economic platform for the United States; it's fair to say I come from the FDR school of the Democratic Party, which is a full-employment economy, to work for lower interest rates, to cancel NAFTA and the WTO, and return to bilateral trade conditioned on workers rights, human rights, and environmental principles, guaranteed healthcare for everyone, guaranteed Social Security.
A rival's campaign has brought an April 1972 Cleveland Magazine article to my attention in which you are accused of using racial politics. The story says that after you arrived in the city council in 1967 you began "playing confrontation politics with the city's black administration as if [you] had invented the game." Care to comment?
My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates. But race was not a factor in those debates. The debates were on issues, not about race -- there may have been differences of opinion. But they were never about race. When I was running for mayor I said that half of my major appointments would go to members of the African-American community, and they did. I could cite a long, deep connection with the African-American community. I have a very strong constituency in that community. So in the '60s was it possible that there were some differences of opinion? Yes. But it was never based on race. Never. Not a chance. Not even the people I clashed with in major ways would ever say that.
You've been in the House since January 1997. How many inroads have you made toward your presidential goals?
First let me tell you what I have done. I have been one of the leaders in challenging trade policies and globalization. I've organized members of Congress to beat back a couple attempts at passing an extension of NAFTA, though we eventually lost that vote about a year ago. I led the effort to get 114 Democrats to take a position that America's trade under NAFTA and before the WTO ought to have conditions on human rights, worker rights and environmental principles. A letter we sent to President Clinton on the evening of the WTO talks in Seattle ended up being very influential and turned that discussion on its head for at least a time.
Is there a reason why little of this was actually successful?
We are in a Congress where Republicans have resisted efforts to provide healthcare for all, where Republicans have helped to pass trade laws against the interests of our country.
