Dennis Kucinich faces end to Congressional career after Ohio defeat

[KurtFF8]

Source (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/07/dennis-kucinich-ohio-mary-kaptur)


The two-time Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich could be out of Congress after losing in the Ohio primary contest.

Kucinich lost the Democratic primary to Marcy Kaptur, a longtime colleague on the liberal wing of the party, in a bruising showdown made necessary by a newly drawn congressional map.

Kaptur now faces the Republican candidate Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, who became known as Joe the Plumber during the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a concession speech, Kucinich described Kaptur's campaign as "lacking in integrity" and "filled with false truths".

"I hope this is not a representation of how she'll run the district," he said.

Kaptur did not respond to Kucinich's criticism, but said in a statement that she would need his supporters and those of another primary contender, Graham Veysey, in the general election.

Kucinich is an eight-term congressman and two-time presidential candidate from Cleveland known for his quirky style and politically combative flair. Kaptur is in her 15th term representing the Toledo area of Ohio. She ran a campaign that emphasised her record of bringing federal money and projects back to the state.

Districts are redrawn every 10 years to reflect population changes in the new census. Ohio's lagging population growth caused the loss of two of its 18 congressional seats.

Whichever party controls a state legislature typically sets redistricting so that incumbents in the majority party are protected and minority party seats are put at risk.

Ohio Republicans drew just four of 16 districts that lean towards the Democrats in a state that is evenly divided between the two parties. The decision to snake a district along the Lake Erie shoreline, linking the Democratic strongholds of Cleveland and Toledo, resulted in the state's sole intra-party contest between sitting representatives.

Kucinich and Kaptur are both liberal Democrats who have been friends for years, but their campaign took a negative turn.

Wurzelbacher was thrust on the national scene by the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, gaining his nickname after expressing working-class concerns about taxes to the then candidate Barack Obama during a campaign stop.


It's too bad, I think a Kucinich vs Joe the Plumber general election would have been quite interesting. The other interesting thing to note here is that this was the result of redistricting more than anything else.

Kucinich was one of the few social democrats in the US Congress, certainly no revolutionary of course.

[Prometeo liberado]

I for one refused to get duped into falling for the "better democrat" line ever again.

[Lucretia]

To my mind Kucinich will always be associated with voting against Obamacare, declaring it to be an entrenchment of corporate medicine, saying it did more harm then good, then -- after getting a ride on Air Force One -- saying he was going to vote for the bill in order to save Obama's presidency. At the press conference where he announced his decision to change his vote, he looked like a broken man who had come face to face with the bankruptcy of his whole approach to politics and finally, deep down inside, realized the role he had been playing all along in facilitating bourgeois rule over the country: as a Democrat you're allowed to say a lot of flowery and inspiring things about how wicked corporations are, but the second it comes time to put words into deeds and actually govern, your job is to shut up and vote for what those powerful bourgeois interests tell you. The best you can hope for is that your dissenting vote doesn't matter to the party as a whole and can thus be ignored. The worst is when your vote does matter, and the contradiction between your personal rhetoric and beliefs and your actions as a member of a bourgeois party necessarily resolves into grudging support for capitalism. Your only remaining option is to persuade you constituents about how guilty and terrible you feel about the situation. The Kucinich obamacare flip-flop was the most striking example to date of how the bourgeois party corrals well-meaning lefty types, getting them to act in lockstep with the bourgeois leadership and interests.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I can't say I care all too much. I suppose it is unfortunate the social-democrat won't be in power but it wasn't as if they were doing a whole lot for the revolutionary left to begin with.

[Drosophila]

I think Dennis Kucinich actually does stand for the poor and working class, he just uses the wrong methods.

[HEAD ICE]

Dennis Kucinich was one of the biggest scumbags of the Democratic Party. It is precisely his anti-war and social democratic rhetoric that he is able to take people who may begin to question their allegiance to the Democrats and keep them within the party. He can spend the whole election talking about bullshit like the "Department of Peace" then tell people to go vote for Obama/Kerry.

If anything good riddance to this asshole, just one less person who can spread illusions.

[Martin Blank]

Will the last petty-bourgeois democrat leaving Congress please turn out the light?

[Lobotomy]

I remember reading a few months ago that he was anticipating a loss, and was considering running here in Washington sometime in the future.

either way, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of Kucinich. he'll come out of the woodwork every now and then.

[Os Cangaceiros]

either way, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of Kucinich. he'll come out of the woodwork every now and then.

God I hope not. We only need one Cynthia McKinney.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The role of people like Dennis Kucinich is to corral disgruntled folks back into the acceptable fold of bourgeois politics. It usually goes like this:

1. Kucinich runs for president, using a lot of left sounding rhetoric.
2. A number of left leaning students and workers looker for change support and join the campaign. People get involved who would have probably ignored the political circus otherwise.
3. Kucinich loses the primary.
4. Kucinich endorses the winning candidate, and his supporters go over to support them, on the basis of "lesser evilism."

[Crux]

God I hope not. We only need one Cynthia McKinney.
what's so wrong with McKinney? I don't know all that much about her I admit. And, for the aforementioned reasons, wouldn't it be better if Kucinich broke with the Democrats?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I lived in Cleveland soon after Kucinich had been mayor. He was full of shit then and he is full of shit now. Politics in this country are so bankrupt that he does look good compared to most US politicians. And by that, I hope to damn him with the faintest of praise.