Kucinich for President?

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All of which may still add up to a whole lot of nothing, electorally speaking, because Kucinich is not green in another way: He has raised less than a million dollars at this writing and has opened campaign offices in only three states (Ohio, Iowa, California). Meanwhile, the cries of ?spoiler? are beginning to rise. In a recent column for the liberal Web site workingforchange.com, Alexander Cockburn lamented the arrival of influential leftists Barbara Ehrenreich and Marcus Raskin on the Kucinich bandwagon. ?Though he?s hotly touted across the progressive spectrum, Kucinich hasn?t a prayer of becoming a serious contender,? Cockburn writes, ?and I?m amazed to see people like Ehrenreich acting as the Pied Piper, calling all the erstwhile Greens, the Natural Law Party, and other exiles back under the Big Top.?

Still, Kucinich has surprised his critics before. At 31, the youngest mayor ever to lead a major U.S. city, he was considered finished in politics in 1978, when he couldn?t keep the city from sliding into default. (Kucinich had refused to sell Cleveland?s municipal power company to cover $14.5 million in bond obligations.) But 16 years later, he resurfaced to grab a state senate seat, and then in 1996 surprised almost everyone by knocking off a Republican congressman.

And while the odds are certainly against Kucinich?s winning the big prize next year, his candidacy may be worth watching. After all, it?s Cockburn?s so-called ?exiles? who at one time helped distinguish the Democratic Party from the party of Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, and King George II?a distinction that has faded to near nothingness in recent years and one that Kucinich would like to delineate a bit more sharply this time around. ?I see this election as a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party,? he told In These Times in March.

If the former ?Boy Wonder? of Cleveland and his ?unconventional? positions can nudge the debate even slightly beyond the made-for-TV parameters that this campaign would otherwise navigate, then he?ll have done his party?and maybe even the country?a huge favor.

Craig Cox is executive editor of Utne.

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