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Kucinich Exits and Democrats Diminished
by John Nichols The media managers of the 2008 presidential contest worked for months to get Dennis Kucinich off the stage and out of the running. And they have finally succeeded.
The Ohio Congressman says he is now "transitioning out of the presidential campaign" and into a tough Democratic primary race for reelection to his Cleveland-area U.S. House seat.
[Kucinich to
Introduce Impeachment of Bush Before State of the Union January
28
In a brazen show of courage, Congressman Kucinich took
to the House Floor yesterday and called Bush and Cheney the liars that they are.
"The President and Vice President lied and 4,000 of our soldiers died.
The President and Vice President lied and a million innocent Iraqis died in a
war that'll cost us two trillion dollars while people here in the states are
losing their jobs, their health care, their homes, their dignity. Lies are
weapons of mass destruction. Lies are also an impeachable offence. Monday,
January 28th is the State of the Union. We already know the State of the Union,
it's a lie."]
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[Republished at PFP with express Agence Global permission.]
Even as it was neglected, Dennis Kucinich's campaign forced the concerns of Cleveland and other cities into the debate.
Kucinich's decision to quit the Democratic presidential race is
an acknowledgment of reality. Never flush with the funds needed to buy
paid media, he has lately been denied access to the free media that is
the lifeblood of insurgent candidacies. The congressman was excluded
from the last few debates by the television networks, and his campaign
events -- even those that drew substantial crowds in New Hampshire and
Michigan -- had gone largely uncovered.
The casual dismissal
of Kucinich's sincere, issue-oriented endeavor made it easy for critics
at home -- led by the virulently anti-Kucinich Cleveland Plain Dealer
newspaper -- to ridicule a campaign that raised critical issues as
little more than an ego trip. That encouraged challengers to enter the
March 4 Democratic primary contest for Ohio's 10th District House seat.
The
critics claim that Kucinich has neglected his constituents in order to
pursue what Bill Clinton might refer to as a "fairytale" campaign for a
nomination that was never realistically within reach. "Our district is
heading in the wrong direction because we have an absentee
congressman," says Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, whose
primary challenge to Kucinich has been generously funded by
special-interest groups that disdain the incumbent's independent streak.
Kucinich,
who flew to Cleveland rather than to South Carolina or California after
the New Hampshire primary -- in which his campaign received more votes
than the "serious" candidacy of debate-regular and one-time media
darling Fred Thompson -- was anything but an absentee congressman
during his presidential run.
If anything, the congressman
neglected the national race in order to spend time in his district and
on the floor of the House, where he maintained a far steadier
attendance record than the senators against whom he was running for the
presidential nomination.
The congressman's greatest
attention to his district during the course of the presidential
campaign took the form of his focus on the economic issues that are
most important to a working-class district that includes portions of
the city of Cleveland and neighboring blue-collar suburbs. Even as he
discussed the essential subject of the war in Iraq, Kucinich usually
did so in the context of a discussion about the cost the war was
imposing not just on the distant battlefields of Iraq but on the
American cities from which needed federal funds have been diverted to
fund a fool's mission in the Middle East.
Much is made of
the populist turn the presidential race has taken as economic
conditions have worsened. But when none of the other candidates were
taking pointed stands on trade policy, the mortgage crisis and real
health-care reform, it was Kucinich who staked out precise positions
and forced the other candidates to offer working Americans more than
mere rhetoric.
The AFL-CIO extended an enthusiastic
invitation to Kucinich to participate in the labor federation's August
debate in Chicago because union leaders knew that he alone would guide
the debate toward specifics on questions of how to reform free-trade
agreements, renew industries, and protect the rights of workers to
organize. At that debate, it was Kucinich who earned the loudest
applause. And rightly so. He was bringing the concerns of cities like
Cleveland to the national stage.
One of things that most
debate moderators found so frustrating about Kucinich was his
determination to talk about the bread-and-butter issues that matter
most to working Americans, rather than to play their games. Kucinich
forced the anchormen and the reporters, as well as the other
candidates, to pay a little attention to the problems of factory
workers, shop clerks, and farmers. There is no question that the
Ohioan's determination helped influence the three more prominent and
well-funded contenders, especially former North Carolina Senator John
Edwards.
Kucinich never got much credit from the media or
the other candidates. But he influenced the national debate for the
better, and the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is
diminished by his exit.
It is not just Kucinich who is
leaving the national stage. It is the discussion about cities like
Cleveland and Detroit and Milwaukee.
Mayors have bemoaned the neglect
of urban problems in this year's campaign, but the former big-city
mayor never allowed that neglect to become complete. Now it may be, as
least as far as the presidential race in concerned. But the
congressman's determination to retain his House seat points to the
likelihood that Congress will still be called upon to consider the
concerns of a city on Lake Erie and the so frequently-forgotten people
who live there.
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.
Agence
Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde
diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mona
Eltahawy, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong, Patrick Seale and Immanuel
Wallerstein.
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Released: 25 January 2008
Word Count: 799
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002, rights@agenceglobal.com
-------------------
Writings 
The media managers of the 2008 presidential contest worked for months to get Dennis Kucinich off the stage and out of the running. And they have finally succeeded. 
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