Washblog

That's a typical newspaper ad that you'd place to sell a used car if you thought that $5000 was the most you could probably get for it, but would be willing to take $3000. What you would most definitely NOT do is to write the ad with $3000 in your subject line. My $5000 presidential candidate is Dennis Kucinich, because he

1. Sees the need to quit wasting all our resources on the imperial conquest of a diminishing resource, and put that money into education, rebuilding infrastructure and inventing the next economy.

2. Knows that the only way to stop the madness in Iraq is to stop funding it, really intends to have no permanent military presence there, and also intends to pay for the destruction we caused.

3. Supports investigation of government malfeasance, including about $1 trillion a year in unaccounted-for Pentagon spending, and refocusing our armed forces on threats that we face in the real world instead of the imaginations of those who have nothing to sell but fear itself.

4. Stands for universal health care; everybody in, nobody out, no exceptions.

5. Understands that the deindustrialization of our economy and deskilling of our work force is one of the most serious security threats we face, and is foursquare for fair trade and against outsourcing, and wants to repeal Taft-Hartley.

6. Wants to reform or get rid of the PATRIOT Act and restore our Bill of Rights.

7. Is unequivocally against the War on Some Drugs, in favor of medical marijuana, and for defunding the prison-industrial complex.

8. Favors paper ballots for presidential contests, and full election transparency for other tabulation methods.

9. Favors full equality for everybody, including marriage equality for LGBT people, and knows that full equality for women means control of our reproductive lives.

10. Opposes further concentration of the media and favors the fairness doctrine, stands for net neutrality, and favors an open source approach to intellectual property.

---and has lots of other excellent proposals. (I left out increasing the minimum wage and preserving social security, because there is already really solid Dem unity on those issues.)

Even more importantly, he is willing to stand up in public and ask for these things specifically and by name. No waffling, no triangulation, no substitution of feel-good rhetoric for concrete proposals. In the primaries, I'm supporting the candidate who stands for what I actually want. If we refuse to ask for it on the grounds that doing so will scare people with money who will then blow huge wads of it to make what is plain common sense seem marginal and foolish, how in bleeding hell are we ever supposed to get it? Republicans have been repeating "Social Security is in trouble and needs to be privatized" so long that way too many people still believe it. Whenthehell are a critical mass of Dems with national stature going to start doing the same repetition in service of real universal health care? Or keep repeating that repealing Taft-Hartley might give labor unions another chance to regenerate a middle class in this country? Kucinich on a national stage will push them that way at least.

If my $5000 guy can't go the distance, there are quite a few very worthy "or best offers" out there. Even the few who fall into the hold your nose as you vote category are still vastly better than anyone the Republicans have to offer. In the general election, I'll support whoever we get, confident that if it isn't Kucinich, that candidate will have been made better at both campaigning and governing than if Kucinich had not run. And that we will have made some progress toward building a more participatory political culture in which real flesh persons have more of a fighting chance against immortal sociopathic persons that exist only as legal structures.

Washington Democrats are going to choose our delegates through the caucus system, so we have the luxury of leaving the beauty contest stuff to other states.  Let's choose our delegates based on the direction we want our party and our country to go, not on a guessing game about what hypothetical candidate other people might want to vote for.  That will get settled one way or another regardless of what we do.

by eridani on Mon Mar 19, 2007 at 09:55:35 PM PST

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Kucinich will be speaking at the Grays Harbor College's Bishop Center on Friday, March 30, at 7:30pm.  The event is free.  I hope some of you will come down.  Heck, stay for the weekend and enjoy the beaches!

by funkycamper on Wed Mar 21, 2007 at 08:45:21 AM PST

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Laying it all out for universal health care, stopping the funding of the war, and fair trade.

Dennis deferred to Elizabeth to answer a question form the audience about monetary policy.  Both hung around for a few minutes before dashing off to catch a plane.

A member of one of the local tribes--didn't get his name or his tribe--presents a blanket made by his mother for Dennis.  (Memo to self--quit being so damn stubborn about getting a hearing aid.)

Modelling the blanket.

He was predictably asked why he didn't quit the Democratic Party--he said he wanted to move it in a more populist direction, and that someone needed to stand up to continued financing of the war.  He is putting together articles of impeachment, and said that he was very impressed with our state impeachment activists--low-key and focussed on the administration's attacks on our Constitution.

by eridani on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 03:50:24 AM PST

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