Dennis Kucinich for President A Doubting Republican's Hope for Genuine Difference and Debate in American Politics by Cory Allen Heidelberger

    For those of you who don't recognize the name, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich is one of the ten (as of this writing) Democrats seeking that party's nomination for the 2004 presidential election. He is consistently labeled in the mainstream press as a minor candidate. Time columnist Joe Klein regularly lumps Kucinich in with Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun as a "vanity" candidate.
    Among other things, Kucinich advocates universal health care, withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO, and creation of a "Department of Peace." Crazy, right? That should be the reaction of any good Republican (which is what I've been for the last twelve years). Interestingly, that also seems to be the reaction of the major Democratic candidates and the major media, who on the rare occasions when they acknowledge Kucinich consign him to the liberal fringe.
    Now most likely, you're thinking, "Oh, so this is one of those joke websites, some smart-aleck Republican trying to sabotage the Democrats by encouraging people to vote for a fringe Democrat who would never stand a chance in a national election." Those sites are out there (Republicans for Sharpton is a prime example), and, if you can stand the smell of political vitriol, such sites are good for a laugh.
    But I'm not interested in a laugh, or in sabotaging the Democrats. I am not some primary jumper looking to foil the Democrats' drive to unseat Bush by trying to nominate the weakest Democrat. I am interested in seeing genuine political debate in this country. I want to see real choices in the 2004 presidential election. Picking between George Bush and any of the Democratic frontrunners is like choosing between Pepsi and Coke: both drinks have their die-hard supporters and genuine differences in flavor, but they are essentially both brown fizzy drinks with too much sugar and caffeine. Bush and those anointed by the media as "top-tier" Democrats -- Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, maybe Clark -- have some important differences, but they are all products of the same political machine, beholden to corporations and unable to vote or think outside the conventional parameters of mainstream politics. If Bush is Pepsi and Dean is Coke, Kucinich is orange juice.
    Let me try to explain my politics. As recently as the 2002 mid-term election, explaining my politics would have been easy: pro-market, anti-government, neoconservative, registered Republican. I put my faith in the free market because it decentralizes the economy, leaving decisions about production and distribution in the hands of millions of individual builders, sellers, and buyers. I seek solutions for problems at the lowest level possible: keep as much power in the hands of local government as possible, and allow the state and federal government to meddle only when the problem is too big for the small-scale governmental units to solve. Perhaps inconsistently with my small-government inclination, I throw in with the neoconservatives like Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who believe that America should project its power overseas to propagate American ideals of freedom and democracy worldwide. Overall, I believe in maximizing individual liberty and, concomitantly, giving individuals as much responsibility as possible.
    Since 1992 I have declared myself a Republican, largely because I was of the impression that of our two main parties, the Republicans were closer to my philosophy of limited government. Sure, I saw inconsistencies, like the Republican advocacy of increased government intrusion in our lives with respect to abortion, but on the whole I viewed Republicans as more likely to defend my principles than the Democrats, in whom I have always sensed a greater inclination toward social control and moral relativism.
    Throughout the current Bush administration, though, I have found cause to question whether I really belong in the Republican Party. I see a Republican president promulgating the No Child Left Behind Act, an enormous intrusion of federal power into education, an area where control belongs in the hands of the parents, teachers, and their elected school boards. I see a Republican administration revoking various Constitutional rights with the Patriot Act and telling Americans that dissent may be treasonous. I see a Republican Congress approving massive tax cuts (which I don't mind, if the cuts are spread fairly and stimulate the economy) but refusing to show the fiscal discipline to make the complementary reductions in spending (and, hence, federal power) necessary to balance the budget.
    Most importantly, though, I've become concerned with the disturbing trend of corporate oligarchy. The Republicans are clearly beholden to the corporations, to their wealthy Chamber of Commerce and executive boardroom friends who help them rise through the party ranks and get elected in the first place. Their corporate loyalties lead to absurd policies like Bush's tax cuts for businesses that buy SUVs. A tax break that encourages businesses to buy Humvees for delivery vehicles may boost profits for the Humvee dealers, but why is that a priority over increasing fuel efficiency standards, decreasing pollution, building bicycle paths to encourage individual fitness and reduce traffic congestion, increasing worker salaries or health benefits, or any of a hundred other things I can think of that would make life better for many more people than a few Humvee dealers and their corporate executives? When Republicans do speak of the welfare of common workers, they seem to do so only as a justification for corporate welfare: "If we give wealthy corporations massive tax cuts, they'll have more money to spend on hiring more workers." Republican policies seem never to be aimed directly at the welfare of the vast majority of the population; the direct beneficiaries of Republican policies are the big corporations who fill the Republican campaign coffers.
    But Democrats seem no better. Both parties, in their quest for political power, seem to enslave themselves to big campaign donations. To protect their political viability, the candidates of the major political parties then become beholden to certain political ideas that their corporate friends share. Few Democrats or Republicans ever suggest any significant change in the economy, because they don't dare create any kind of disruption that would upset corporate profits or trigger any massive shifts in employment. The Democrats and Republicans all too often seem to fight over power, not ideas, over control of Congress and the White House, not over truly distinct directions for the country.
    Dennis Kucinich responds to my concerns. He strikes me first of all as a man of principle. Kucinich's stand as mayor of Cleveland in 1978 against the banks to protect the municipal power company demonstrates a willingness to resist corporate pressure in favor of the public interest. His advocacy of universal health care shows a willingness not to waste time with band-aid solutions to argue for big ideas that would benefit the cast majority of the Americans at the expense only of a few vested corporate interests (most notably, big insurance companies, who currently run the most logically contradictory businesses possible: they take your money only so long as you don't need their services, then drop you as soon as you actually need the services they've promised you and that you've paid for for years, just because they can no longer make a profit off you). His vote against the Patriot Act in 2001 (not just rhetoric now, two years after the September 11 attacks, but a vote on the record during the immediate reaction to that disaster) shows a willingness to put principle over expediency -- in this case, commitment to liberty over fear of terrorism. His argument for establishing water as a fundamental human right shows a deep concern for individual well-being and the proper distribution of essential resources (and certainly not a concern for corporate campaign donations, since free water for everyone doesn't exactly rouse the corporate donors).
    Kucinich offers all sorts of ideas that are not simply modifications around the edges of the political and economic system. Kucinich does no Clintonesque triangulation, staking out policy positions for the sole purpose of maximizing support among big campaign donors swing voters to get into office and cling to power. Kucinich identifies certain core principles -- most importantly, respect for individual lives and liberty -- then offers significant policy measures that would embody and promote those principles. Kucinich is a thinking man's candidate, and a straight-up campaign between Kucinich and Bush in 2004 would give the whole country the chance to think and talk about deep differences and significant choices in values and policies.
    That kind of significant discourse has been lacking in American politics. It was lacking in my own inner discourse for the last decade; I voted Republican more by default than through any clear analysis of what the main banner-carriers of the parties were offering. I'm not sure that I'm ready to become a card-carrying Democrat. (I might be gravitating toward something I would label socialist libertarianism, but that warrants a whole 'nother essay!) However, I am ready for national politics to offer us some real differences and real debate, not just calculated maneuvers for power to benefit corporate interests.
    I'm not sure that universal health care is the best solution, but the proposed permutations of the current system seem to serve no one but the insurance companies. I'm not sure that water should be a fundamental human right, but letting multinational corporations buy up water rights for their big manufacturing operations and pricing local citizens out of drinking water is not right. A Department of Peace may not be an efficient use of tax dollars, but overreliance on military force drains valuable resources as well. I don't know if Kucinich offers the best solutions for our problems, but he does offer the best opportunity for the broadest possible debate on our nation's priorities. A debate between Bush and Dean or Kerry would probably boil down to differences in dollar figures and image; a debate between Bush and Kucinich would pose voters with a clear, unmistakable, and frankly fascinating difference in values and vision.

Cory Allen Heidelberger is an English teacher, writer, and painter from Lake Herman, South Dakota.
Questions? Comments? E-mail the author: coralhei (at) hcpd (dot) com.

Find perhaps the most detailed coverage of the Kucinich campaign from the congressman's home turf: Cleveland's The Plain Dealer

Kucinich vs. Dean: compare Kucinich's positions with one of the media-anointed "top-tier candidates."

Kucinich, electability, and media coverage: an interesting article on who picks our candidates, from the Cambridge Chronicle (Massachusetts)

Ralph Nader likes Kucinich!

Studs Terkel likes Kucinich! Read Terkel's article in the Nation recalling an interview with Kucinich in 1978 and offering some thoughts about why Terkel sees Kucinich as the best candidate to represent working-class America today.

Read a Kucinich endorsement letter making the rounds on the Internet from Ed Asner, Ben Cohen, James Cromwell, Ani DiFranco, Barbara Ehrenreich, Elliott Gould, and Mimi Kennedy.
 

Willie Nelson likes Kucinich!

Ani DiFranco likes Kucinich!

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essay text ©2003 Cory Allen Heidelberger
last updated 2003.10.12