Voting for Kucinich? by YourEnchantedGardener Blog entry

Blog: Plant Your Dream!
by YourEnchantedGardener

Voting for Kucinich?

Why some people
like Dennis but won't vote for him.

Date: 1/13/2008 10:51:58 AM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 842 times

Good Email from Steve.

I would likely vote for another Dem this time,
because I would like to support an candidate
I feel can win.

I am not sure if HIllary can win, to tell you the truth.
the garbage that will be pulled out on Hubby
is already with the Spin Doctors I am sure.

Here is Steve's emails:

I impersonated Dennis Kucinich at the Point Loma Democratic Club's Candidate Forum yesterday. At the beginning I asked for a show of hands of who feels Dennis most closely reflects their feelings on the issues, and about 15 people raised their hands. Not exactly what I'd hoped for because there were probably 150 in the room, and that means he only polled at about 10%. But my reason for asking the question was to ask the followup, which was how many of those people planned to actually VOTE for Dennis. All the hands went down. Every one of them. That was even worse than I'd expected.

Why is this? Why are people afraid to vote for whom they really want? I have some ideas on that involving the media -- I think the sheep mentality may be more powerful than we realize. I wish the campaign would spend a little money to do an actual scientific, random poll of voters other than Republicans asking those same questions, because publishing the results might help convince people that they're not alone. Asking people for whom they're going to vote isn't at all the same question.

But I have to confess that my own brain keeps wanting to have the same discussion, and I have to keep reminding myself of all the reasons why I'm going to actually Vote for Dennis.

At least I feel pretty good about the other Democratic candidates, so it isn't like I'm stuck choosing the lesser of several evils. But then I think about the problems we have in this country:

I give us a "D" for International Citizenship, because we keep beating the shit out of our neighbors.
A "D" for Health Care -- it can't be a "C" because that's supposed to be average, and we're below average for industrialized nations. And I don't feel right about giving us an "F," because as far as I know we aren't yet harvesting organs from inmates, and that's got to be worth something.
A "C" for Democracy -- I don't want to take it for granted that I can still write this letter.
But you know who gets the "F?" It's Congress, for utterly failing in its responsibility and duty to reign in a War Criminal Administration. Even the sheep agree with me on this -- Congress polls much lower even than the %¤#&!§-King George himself.

Guess what statement got the most applause from the Point Loma Democratic Club? It was that Dennis is the only one who's taken a stand for impeachment.

The other candidates aren't bad. I hear Obama wants to create the Department of Peace that Dennis wrote a bill for several years back. Maybe he'd make Dennis Secretary of that Department. And I have to agree with Hillary that it matters whether you can work with Congress to get things done -- we don't elect a King, after all. Well, at least that's the way it used to be, and will hopefully be again.

But that isn't good enough. I want a president who shoots for the moon, who at least has the vision and the aspiration to work toward the whole solution, not somebody who compromises before the discussion even begins. It isn't good enough to vote for the better of three pretty goods. We need a leader who leads, even if his Congress is only capable of following part way.

Compromising solutions aren't going to do us any good -- we're beyond that. We're spending 1 of every 3 of our health care dollars for profits and overhead, and if we don't get the insurance companies out of the picture, we aren't really addressing the problem. If we don't improve our International Citizenship by signing on to Kyoto, joining the World Court, signing on to the Land Mine Treaty and the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty and whatever the rest of the list is that Dennis rattles off, we aren't really making much progress, are we? Dennis is the only candidate willing to at least TRY to address the issues at the fundamental level at which they must be addressed to have any meaningful effect. So it isn't like we can choose the better of three pretty-goods. We can't afford to settle for any less than a real leader who sees where we need to go and it at least willing to try to get there.

One person came up to me after the meeting and said that she'd decided she IS going to vote for Dennis now. And I sold a t-shirt to a woman who's going to vote for Hillary but said she would actually wear Dennis's t-shirt. Go figure. I don't think it's because it's such a great fashion item. Then again, I didn't see her with it on.