An A for Effort

Newscasters were snide when talking about Dennis Kucinich’s recent announcement about running for president in 2008. Nothing new – they barely hid their amusement during Kucinich’s 2004 run. It was a long shot then and probably is now. But one thing has changed. In 2004, he railed against the Iraq war, thought it a crime and a terrible waste of people and taxpayer money. Polls showed that his was a minority view. Kucinich was seen as a fringe candidate, a radical, someone sorely out of touch with America and even his own Democratic Party constituency in his Cleveland district. Republicans thought he would be easy pickings in the 2006 Congressional elections.

What a difference a few years make. The vast majority of Americans disapprove of Bush’s war. Most want us out sooner rather than later. They voted their feelings in the 2006 elections and Kucinich was part of the winning Democratic Party tide. Now he wants us out of Iraq. No more troops. No more money. Get out!

He may find a new batch of supporters if Bush decides to send 40,000 more troops to Iraq indefinitely.

I was a Kucinich delegate to the Wyoming Democratic Party’s state convention in spring 2004 in Sheridan. We Kucinich supporters knew that odds for a delegate to the national convention were slim to none. But we did come within six votes of getting one of our own to Boston. It helped that we piped in a Kucinich speech to the convention floor. The guy sounded good and was very persuasive, at least for us antiwar types. We offered several antiwar planks for the platform that were roundly defeated. I remember being lectured by a young delegate from Laramie on the platform committee about how we couldn’t withdraw from Iraq and desert the Iraqi people because it would dishonor the memory of the few hundred troops who had died in Bush’s war. I wonder how he feels now with a roster of 25,000 U.S. casualties and almost 3,000 dead? And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and maimed?

Guess it’s time to find my 2004 "Kucinich for President" T-shirt. Let people laugh. Dennis was right in 2004 and his views have been supported by the damage this war has done at home and abroad. For more, go to the Kucinich for President site.