Liberal Bookend: Dennis Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich leaves no doubt that he will be the most liberal, if not leftist, of the Democratic candidates running for president. Here's a recent article/speech by Kucinich in Political Affairs Magazine:

We are losing our nation to a philosophy of war and destruction. It is time for policies of peace and construction. It is time for the philosophy of peace, nonviolence and economic justice. This was the philosophy of Dr. King, Gandhi, Jesus, Fredrick Douglas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson.

We are all united with the philosophy which birthed the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the dreams of social and economic justice which could be called forth by those who were ready to stand up, to speak out, to march, to demand, to testify about the good news:

The world is interconnected. The world is interdependent. We are not just our brother and sisters keeper, on a deeper spiritual level we are our brothers and sisters. This is the meaning of the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the meaning of Love Thy neighbor as thy self. This is why policies of unilateralism, first strike, and preemption are dead ends. This is why nuclear proliferation is a threat to every person on the planet. This is why the very idea that war should be an instrument of policy needs to be challenge. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are prepared to work for it.

Kucinich is a good man but there tends to be too much in the way of rhetorical flourishes in his statements and he tend to pile cliches on top of cliches. The first time around in 2004 he got away with his odd style because he was different. But now we know him and he needs to find ways to take his style in a less abstract direction.

In this era, one can argue that successful politicians are able to tell a story of some sort. Since Republicans have been giving us fictional stories for some time, the challenge for Democrats is to give us something that is real. A good example that doesn't even require many words is watching former President Carter working on Habitats for Humanity. But even Senator Biden using hearings to carefully illuminate numerous issues having to do with Iraq is a kind of story. Kucinich needs to develop two or three themes and weave them carefully into his speeches and writings.

I didn't see it and have no idea what it was like but Kucinich seems to reach more people with his singing according to Stephen Koff of The Plain Dealer:

Say what you will about Dennis Kucinich, that he's a peacenik or a realist or a dreamer or a man America needs right now.

But when he sings - really sings, deepening his voice and slowing the tempo to a working-in-the-fields, sharecropper cadence - the man can connect. Even in New York, on Seventh Avenue near Broadway, where some of the best singers and politicians show up as a matter of course, Kucinich's singing can steal the show. If he can make it there - well, you know the rest.

"You load 16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt," Kucinich, who is white, sang in a slow, sorrowful voice Monday to a mostly black audience of about 500 people, getting their attention and mild approval near the end of a long, somewhat rambling speech at the start of his second try at becoming president.