Dean or Kucinich?

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Dennis Kucinich, to his profound credit, was bucking this trend. As the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he did his best to organize opposition to Bush's domestic and foreign policies. He organized significant numbers of Democratic Senators and Congressional representatives to oppose the Iraq war. He's continued to speak out on the need for equitable tax policies, justice in global trade rules, and how a $400-billion-a-year military budget makes us less safe, not more. He's helped give voice to a vision of a different America that I find compelling and powerful.

But it's hard to imagine Kucinich winning the nomination, let alone the Presidency. He's served only briefly in the House, and as he's acknowledged, no House member has been elected President since James Garfield. Kucinich's stands, though they'd be unremarkable in Western Europe, are probably too radical for our corrupted political culture. And I keep having nightmares of potential Republican attack ads hammering away at his being a vegan-using this stand to make the 99% of Americans who aren't vegans and the 95% who aren't vegetarians feel like he looks down on them for eating a piece of chicken or drinking a glass of milk: "This is a man who's so far out of the mainstream," they might say, "he wants to confiscate your macaroni and cheese."

Although Kucinich has defeated Republican incumbents for the state legislature and for his Congressional seat, this was in a local context where people knew him personally, and recognized his integrity, intelligence, and track record. National politics is far more susceptible to manipulation. Kucinich's campaign has continued to raise important issues, in the most far-reaching way. He's articulated a powerful vision of where we need to go as a country. But his support base has been largely confined to those who voted Green in 2000 or seriously considered doing so. Kucinich is raising critical issues as long as he is in the race, and this may influence the nomination of someone else who's decent. But backing him will have only an indirect impact on who that someone else will be.

When Howard Dean first challenged the then-pending Iraq war, it was a welcome contrast from the front-line Democratic contenders. But his campaign initially seemed almost as improbable as those of Kucinich, Al Sharpton, and Carol Moseley-Braun. I was hoping for someone with greater visibility to jump in-like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois or Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. But as Dean continued to speak out, he began building a citizen's movement. By challenging Bush in a way that he presented as utterly mainstream (being a doctor helps), by challenging the Democratic party to return to its roots, and most importantly, by refusing to take a path of timidity, he's galvanized people's hopes, giving them something to believe in and act on. He's succeeded less because of particular policy positions (which, aside from the war, are not so different from those of the other "mainstream" Democratic candidates), than because he's willing to fight for them, and challenge Bush's astonishingly regressive path.

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