Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be one of the keynote speakers at Truman Days, the party that Democrats in Jackson County throw every spring. Kucinich will have the opportunity on Friday night to share stories about performing ventriloquism on The Daily Show and his fifth-place finish -- eat it, Chris Dodd! -- in the 2008 Democratic primary in New Hampshire.
Fringe members of Congress, it's worth remembering, represent actual people. I know because the wee vegan, who once reported a UFO sighting to Shirley MacLaine, was at one time my representative.
Kucinich represents the west side of Cleveland. Daily Show correspondent John Oliver described the area as "blue collar" during his segment. It's true that Kucinich represents more hard hats than, say, Kevin Yoder does. But Ohio's 10th District also includes Lakewood, an inner-ring suburb that mystified players of the original Trivial Pursuit game as the answer to a question about which U.S. city had the largest gay population per capita.
Oliver's piece was built around the joke that Kucinich must possess superpowers to be able to propose flaky ideas such as the Department of Peace and continue to win re-election in a state that went twice for George W. Bush. Kucinich is a sort of genius. He has figured out that there's a place in politics for a mascot.
Kucinich's electability stems in large part from name recognition. The man's been running for office since he was old enough to vote. At age 23, two years after losing a race, he was elected to the Cleveland City Council. He ran for Congress the moment he reached the minimum-age requirement. At 31, he became Cleveland's "boy mayor"; he survived a recall effort but was replaced after one raucous term by a Republican who also had a Croatian surname.
In Cleveland, ambition -- not weirdness -- is considered Kucinich's signature trait. It was evident at an early age. In 1972, a writer at a city magazine in Cleveland, Terence Sheridan, captured the essence, calling the 20-something Kucinich "a consummate political Pony Express rider picking up and dropping off controversial issues as fast as he can con the media into using them."
Kucinich's intention to run for president was evident even back then. Sheridan recounts a conversation that Kucinich had in 1967, when he made his first unsuccessful run at the City Council.
... Kucinich indicated how far he expected to go. "If I win this one, I can go all the way," he said.Thirty-five years, two divorces and one unidentified flying object later, Kucinich's presidential aspirations took form."All the way where?" asked Roldo Bartimole, the poor man's Tom Paine and publisher of Point of View, an acerbic newsletter with influence surpassing what is indicated by its circulation of about 900.
Kucinich's face reddened. "Well, you know . . ." he stammered, and the subject was dropped.
In 2003, in the midst of his first run for the White House, Kucinich summoned a group of reporters to his campaign office in Lakewood to announce a proposal to tax the profits of oil companies. Kucinich said the American people were being gouged.
With Kucinich, it's the emotion of the argument that matters. Gasoline, I see from reading the 2003 story I wrote about the former boy mayor, was selling for less than $1.70 a gallon at the time.
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