Kucinich!

At a party a week or so ago I was surprised to find a significant undercurrent of pro-Kucinich support. Of course we were a sizeable group of Foothills liberals. Either there were no conservatives present or, if there were, they were cowed by being so outnumbered. Most of us were either actively supporting or reluctantly resigned to one of the big three Democratic candidates but “Oh, if only…if only…”

So today, in Salon, I read Rebecca Traister’s article, “Stop lying to yourself. You love Dennis Kucinich.” Consider the following paragraphs from Traister’s piece:

You are lying to yourselves. In a quest for an "electable," "not insane" presidential candidate, you are willfully overlooking the candidate who actually comes closest to representing the things in which you really believe: justice and peace and the basic freedoms that should be afforded to every American, regardless of race, class, religion, gender, sexual orientation or galactic origin. In an effort to distance yourself from the squish of the Birkenstock and the stench of the patchouli, you have convinced yourself that compromise and pragmatism light the path to the White House. And you are correct. But still, before walking listlessly down the aisle toward our impending union with tepid centrism, let's rip our clothes off for one final, ill-advised fling with ideological honesty.

If you believe in universal, single-payer healthcare and that campaign finance and electronic voting are corrupt; if you hate the Patriot Act and believe it erodes civil rights; if you believe that gay people should have the same rights as straight people, that America should rejoin the Kyoto Protocol and take steps to halt global warming, that we should invest in alternative fuel sources, that our water and air need to be protected from pollution and overuse, that the government should reduce the amount of money it spends on war and instead work to improve the country's education system, and that going to war in Iraq was a terrible and tragic mistake, then (snip)…

Dennis Kucinich is our man! If he can't do it, well, that's because we're all chickenshit and condemned to a future of our own making. Yay, Dennis!

And after you read the article, take the quiz. Dare ya!