This is totally selfish. But if you ask me, Dennis Kucinich can’t declare his carpetbag candidacy for Congress in Washington’s 1st District soon enough.
The super-liberal congressman from Ohio is likely to lose his seat next year due to redistricting, and one of his top backup plans seems to be moving here. The latest sign: Kucinich was in Shoreline on May 22 to make organic vegan pancakes for the locals as part of a hype-building weekend.
Asked if he was planning to set up shop in Washington, Kucinich said: “I’m not at the point of making decisions. It’s a big decision. Do I like this area? Of course.”
Come on, Dennis! Say yes! I mean, what more could a reporter hope for?
Just think of the stories.
This is a guy who talked in a 2007 Democratic presidential candidates’ debate—on national television—about having spotted a UFO right here in Washington State. (Obviously, I’d need to take a road trip to that spot, hang out under the stars, and see if I can re-create the experience myself—for the sake of journalism!)
Kucinich has also said he believes that “the interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self.” (I’ll be working up a sure-to-be-amazing fact-check piece on that one.)
Oh, and then there’s Kucinich’s paradoxical voting record. He may be the tiny little lion of the far, far left these days, but he was raised Catholic and voted against reproductive rights for much of his congressional career, making himself a darling of the National Right to Life Committee.
Nowadays, Kucinich describes himself as pro-choice, but in any race for Congress in this state, all those anti-choice votes from his not-too-distant past would need some thumbing through. (A brief tour: Kucinich voted to prevent anyone but a parent from taking a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion; he voted to ban late-term abortions completely, with no exception for the health of the mother; and he voted to make it a crime, punishable by up to two years in prison, for doctors to perform late-term abortions. That’ll take a bit of explaining!)
Which is not even to mention his bombshell wife, who stands six feet tall without heels and towers over her tiny little lion at campaign events. The Daily Show, major newspapers, late-night comics—just about everyone has tried to figure out how it works between Elizabeth Kucinich, who is in her early 30s, and Dennis Kucinich, who is in his mid-60s. It clearly does work, but people will want to know more, and we’ll need a local to investigate!
So, Dennis, stop dragging your feet.
This story writes itself, but only if you stop leading us ink-stained, pixel-addled assholes on. Declare already!
Thanks in advance,
Eli
Picking a representative because he might be funny is like getting a tattoo of the Three Stooges for the same reason. Eventually, both will be painful, more puzzling than funny and something you’ll regret for a long time.
Having Dennis run would be good for silly but interesting news. But I remain a little mystified why he thinks he’s electable in the Pacific Northwest? I can see him getting elected in the 7th, honestly, but not in any other D-leaning district in this state. Northwest Democrats are cut from a different cloth than Midwest Democrats, and Kucinich seems not to get that.
Oh, I hope he comes to Washington. I’ll get the popcorn popping right now….
@2 – The 7th has at least a 100 locals* lined up for when McDermott leaves his seat(probably feet first). That’s going to be a blood bath! DK would have no chance there either. However that isn’t stopping DK from letting his national supporters believe he is running in the central Seattle district, not a rural/suburban district to the north.
*Is Ed Murray still the favorite? Time for the Stranger to make a list again. I think some have aged out or moved to administration positions.
It’s everyone’s right to do dumb stuff like this. God bless America.
I have no problem with carpetbaggers. May the best representative win. I think Hillary carpetbagging in New York was beneficial to her and the country. While I don’t agree with everything that Dennis says, I do like a lot what he says, and I should have the opportunity to vote for him if I want. If this is the sleaziest thing that he’s done in his relatively principled career, then he’s quite clean compared to most politicians. Even politicians that I like are sleazy, but that’s just the nature of the beast.
“the tiny little lion of the far, far left”
huh? I fail to see what is far, far left about DK’s agenda.
Figured out who Greg Palast is yet, Eli?
Eli, who in the fuck are you kidding calling yourself a “reporter”?
You’re a whore for the pro-war, pro-wall street, pro-everything you claim the republicans are for Democratic Party.
Judith Miller of the New York Times lied for Bush to start the Iraq War. Eli Sanders lies about the Democrats.
Obama’s real constituency
Three years of Obama have clarified the role of the Democrats in a two-party system.
April 26, 2011
BARACK OBAMA is back on the campaign trail. But this is not 2008. This time around, he will need a different set of slogans. “Hope” and “change” have effectively been emptied of any content over the last three years.
Three years ago, Obama won the presidency because millions of people believed that his election would bring about profound changes. Predictably, people who needed things to change the most voted overwhelmingly for Obama–the greater the need, the greater the votes.
Some 95 percent of African American voters pulled the lever for Obama–so did 66 percent of voters under the age of 30. According to the Pew Research Center, Obama won 60 percent of voters earning $50,000 a year or less. Among voters who said that they were worried about being able to afford health care, 65 percent supported Obama.
So how are these constituencies doing? Are things improving for young people? For people of color? For those making $50,000 a year or less? For those worried about being able to afford health care?
During the last three years, by and large, if there has been any change for these voters, it has been for the worse. Unemployment for African-Americans persists at nearly twice the rate for whites [2]. The Obama administration has actually stepped up the rate of deportations of immigrants [3]. And those who are worried about paying for health care have even more to worry about now that the health care legislation Obama signed into law will mandate tens of millions of people to purchase insurance from private companies–which are planning to raise their rates [4]!
And just when you thought we had hit bottom, along comes the budget battle. Now we have a $38.5 billion cut in spending that must be imposed in just the final months of the current fiscal year that finishes at the end of September. There are drastic reductions in social programs that Obama’s constituents desperately need–for example, a $3.5 billion reduction in federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
HOW CAN this be explained? Why would Obama agree to screw his core voting base? We’re told that it has to do with the principled struggle between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans stand for policies that benefit the rich, and the Democrats stand for helping the working class. Therefore, for better or worse, we who are not fabulously wealthy are obliged to vote for the Democrats. If the Republicans seem to dominate, we’re told to chalk it up to temporary weakness or strategic moves by “our” party.
But this explanation doesn’t make sense unless you’re prepared to believe that the Democrats, year after year, happen to be a collection of professional weaklings, nincompoops and nitwits.
Here’s a better explanation: The Democratic Party’s real constituency is the American rich. And it’s not just that the Democrats are funded by the rich. At the highest echelons of the party, they are the rich. The apparent “weakness” of the Democrats in the face of Republican attacks is not “spinelessness” or lack of negotiating savvy, but a logical consequence of the reality that they serve the interests of the wealthy, while struggling to maintain the appearance of doing the opposite.
According 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, a clear majority of Americans–61 percent–don’t want governments to cut social spending, but rather, to solve the deficit problems by taxing the wealthy. Obama has made some faint noises in this direction. But he has done the opposite of raising taxes on corporations and the rich in actual practice, and he just “negotiated” devastating cuts in government spending–the opposite of what a clear majority of people wanted.
Did he ever really consider a different outcome? After all, to wage a real campaign for taxing the rich would mean opening up a can of worms–for the rich. It would require a campaign of mobilizing popular forces behind the administration’s proposals, and a strong public relations campaign to expose the unfairness of the current tax system.
Now, the Democrats read the same poll data that you and I do. They know that such a campaign would be immensely popular, and would help them in the elections. But there is another, overriding concern–the interests of their real constituency. An aggressive “tax the rich” campaign would mean biting the hand that feeds them–or, more accurately, biting their own hand. So don’t hold your breath.
Many people suffered under the illusion that the horrors of the Bush years (illegal war, torture, attacks on immigrants) flowed somehow from Bush’s personal nature–ignorant, nasty, etc. Surely, if he were replaced with someone different, then the policies of the White House would change.
In so many ways–some superficial, some less so–Obama seemed to be a profoundly different person. Bush could barely speak a complete sentence, and Obama was a college professor. Bush was a silver-spoon incompetent, and Obama was a bootstrapping person of color.
But instead of profound change, we have experienced profound continuity. The wars continue and are even expanded. The detention and deportation of immigrants continues and are likewise expanded. High-stakes testing in our schools has continued, and the stakes are raised higher.
What does this mean? It means we are not so much governed by particular individuals as we are by institutions. The Democratic Party, the White House, the Congress–these have always been institutions of a particular class…and it ain’t the working class!
Understanding the class nature of these institutions helps us make sense of the profound continuity from one administration to another–even when there are very different personalities in charge.
Consider the 2008 financial meltdown. After years during which we were told that there was no money to rescue people from dire circumstances, a crisis emerged, and suddenly, trillions of dollars–literally!–were made available to rescue people.
Did these trillions subsidize food for the hungry? Did they pay mortgages and prevent foreclosures? Did they forgive medical debts or college loans? Were trillions of dollars mobilized to alleviate the suffering of anyone who makes $50,000 or less?
No, the trillions were made available to alleviate the “suffering” of banks and of bankers–people who were already fantastically wealthy. This rescue was George W. Bush’s policy, and it was continued and expanded by Obama.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
DIE-HARD defenders of the Democratic Party might concede all of the above. To get your vote, however, they have one last resort’–the Republican bogeyman (and this time around, given the rise of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, it might be more appropriate to say “bogeypeople”). Surely we must admit that the Republicans are a genuinely frightening bunch of bigots! Isn’t that reason enough to support the Democratic Party?
Yes, the Republicans are terrifying. But once you understand who the Democrats really are, and whom they truly serve, it becomes apparent why the Democrats need the Republicans. After all, without the Republicans, there would be no one to hide behind.
There is no better evidence of this reality than the fact that whenever Democrats win, the first thing they do is act like they lost.
After the 2008 election, the Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress. There was no need to compromise with the Republicans on anything. Yet Obama went out of his way to try to reach out to Republicans on every issue, from foreign policy to stimulus spending to the budget.
Why? We were told at the time that Obama was operating according to a high-minded ideal: bipartisanship. When it came to health care legislation, for example, we couldn’t have single-payer health care because we couldn’t build a new system “from scratch” and because Republicans would never agree. But without the Republicans involved in the debate, Obama’s real position–loyalty to the powerful health insurance companies–would be much harder to defend to his constituents.
The Republicans now say they want to repeal Obama’s health care law. However, as industry whistleblower Wendell Potter has pointed out [5], both sides of this “debate” are funded by the same health care industry giants.
Since the law requires Americans to purchase their product, insurance companies don’t actually want the bill repealed–though they’ll be happy if they can further restrict and undermine any of the new regulations that are supposed to be applied to them. “The court challenges and repeal efforts are, in reality,” Potter writes, “a useful smokescreen for the big insurers, whose real agenda is to gut the law while preserving the mandate.”
On this basis, Republicans–rather than disappearing into irrelevancy after suffering a landslide defeat in the 2008 election–were brought into nearly every major decision that this Democratic administration makes. They have been allowed to shape the “discussion” of every issue, tilting it ridiculously to the right.
But why does Obama need to hide behind the right? Isn’t he a liberal? Why would he want politics skewed rightward?
The answer to these questions doesn’t lie within the heart or mind of Obama, but with the needs of the American ruling class.
Ask the question a different way: Why might the American ruling class want politics skewed rightward?
In the context of growing international competition with the rising powers of China and India, the question almost answers itself. The American ruling class wants–or more accurately, needs–to lower the living standards of American workers. Compared to the people sweating their days and nights in China’s iPhone factories, American workers are “overpaid.” To compete, the ruling class need us to make do with less–much, much less. And, ideally, they’d like us to believe that this is a good thing.
Like the squabbles over the health care legislation, the budget “battle” between Democrats and Republicans only makes sense in this light. Each side puts up a big “fight” to satisfy their respective bases, but the real outcome is never in doubt. In the case of the budget, both sides have agreed to not really consider taxing the rich, and instead to frame the discussion around which social programs must be cut
The Republicans want to take an arm and a leg. The Democrats have a counterproposal. They’re “outraged” that both limbs might be sacrificed.
“Cut off your arm, not your arm and your leg.” That will be Obama’s campaign slogan for 2012. And we’re supposed to feel like he’s doing us a favor. Worse, we’re supposed to endorse it with a vote.
God, Zepol, just give links. Eli and many others won’t read it anyway. They’ll just recite a party line marginalization tactic and bring up all the flaws of Dennis Kucinich. Again, Eli, I ask are there any Dems in Washington state that are less flawed? Case in point, the fascist hyenas–to use Chalmers Johnson’s words–Cantwell and Murray, who recently supported the Patriot Act that both Obama and the Dems railed against. Or what about our Governor Chris? How’s she turnin’ out?
In this instance, you’re being a little disingenuous by not bringing up the fact that Dennis Kucinich has talked about his “shift” from being pro-life to pro-choice. You failed to mention subsequent votes against prohibitions on interstate travel of minors for medical services. You fail to mention Kucinich’s votes to keep partial birth abortions legal, and you fail to mention that the last time NARAL rated Kucinich it was at 100%. He’s a had at least 7 years of consistent pro-choice voting. Hell, I am not in that district and I don’t even like the guy. I think a lot of this is political opportunism–hey, your militant moderates sure do a lot of that too! But what I hate from The Stranger is superficial, dishonest, and biased reporting and smearing.
The “tiny lion of the far,far left”?Huh?WTF?!?Eli,stop smoking crack!I’ve never seen Dennis over here (the Far Left).Hint:He’s a Centrist(which might make him seem to be a member of the Far Left to Fox Boob’s Bill O;Reilly . . . ).