Congressman Dennis Kucinich has announced his candidacy for the Dem presidential nomination in 2008. Which, if I’m not mistaken, would make him the first Dem to formally announce.
Any chance this will be less of a quixotic effort than his 2004 run?
Of course, if he’s going to run as a single-issue end-the-war candidate, it’ll cut his feet out from under him if we’ve already pulled out by 2008 . . . 
I can’t type that with a straight face!
I was a big fan of Kucinich. I thought he was the most straightforward, genuine candidate. Sadly, he’ll never be elected president because he is an unabashed liberal, and liberal is still a dirty word to most Americans.
You are. Governor Tom Vilsack announced not long after the midterms.
If the campaign’s gonna begin this early, can we move the Iowa caucuses and the NH primary up to June and September of this year, to get rid of some of the clutter before 2008?
Sure sounds like apartheid to me.
Oops - wrong thread.
Nevermind. :smack:
Did you mean this post for a different thread?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Any chance this will be less of a quixotic effort than his 2004 run?/QUOTE]
No. He’s too goofy looking to be taken seriously, even if he weren’t so far to the left. Not a chance.
I say the guy deserves a medal for his opposition to the war. Was fortunate enough to see him give a stirring speech when we visited DC a few years back.
We could do worse (and IMO probably presently are.)
We haven’t had a prez since JFK who wasn’t. (Never could see what anybody saw in Reagan, pulchritudinally speaking . . . sure, he was good-looking in the '50s . . .)
It’s quixotic from *his * POV, but he’s still politically useful to the party mainstream candidates, all of whom must welcome this development. He is extreme enough to make all the rest look moderate, just like Gary Bauer and others have been for the GOP.
I’m hoping that after the early primaries and caucuses, both parties will not invite the fringe candidates to the debates. I could care less if Kucinich, Sharpton, or Bauer wants to run for President. Just because they have opinions doesn’t mean they should be able express them alongside candidates who have actually won votes.
I don’t. That’s the only thing that makes the debates interesting, if you ask me. They serve as a good contrast to the main guys, who are oh so careful not to say anything too controversial.
The seven-way Dem primary debates in early 2004 were more interesting, educational, and fun to watch than anything else that happened in that campaign cycle, dale. And Kucinich did win some votes – so did Sharpton, IIRC.
Uh, no? Removing the “clutter” is what makes Presidential primaries in my home state meaningless! “Oh, Missouri, that’s just like Iowa, right?” :mad:
I’m glad he’s running. He’s going to give Harold Stassen a run for the money for the record number of White House runs.
Not a hope in hell…nor does he have a hope of winning the presidency. I would be surprised if he even got the nod as the Dem’s candidate in 2008 to be honest. Though he has more of a chance at that than anything else.
-XT
Should’ve remembered that.
In a thread back in '04 (which I can’t seem to find after trying several different search strategies), someone remarked that one obstacle to Kucinich’s electability would be that his Eastern European name “sounds more like ‘Dukakis’ than Dukakis does.” This time around – well, let’s say Dennis owes a great big thank-you to Tom Vilsack! 
I just got an e-mail about this from my father, who was an alternate delegate from Wash. State for Kucinich in the Boston convention thingie. Pop’s moved to Colorado so the possibility of a Denver convention is exciting for him.
Here’s Dennis’ campaign website, BTW.