Screw The Election, I Want Principles

Despite avidly following politics, I don’t put a lot of stock into our government. The American public doesn’t seem to either. The Democratic Congress hasn’t held its part of the election bargain: to put an end to the Iraq war in a responsible manner, to remedy the mistakes of dealing with Hurricane Katrina, to repeal No Child Left Behind, to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, and on and on, whine whine. I can’t say I’m that surprised that it’d be business as usual after 2006 because it’s still going to be that same old Washington, from now until the fall of the US Empire (it’s going to eventually fall, mind you. The USA is not immune to history’s inevitable dramas).

It’ll be the same during the 2008 election as well. No matter who gets into office, the situation will remain dire in Iraq, the predominance of the US as an effective ally in foreign affairs will stay awful, and the “American Dream” will be unattainable by the shrinking middle class. I don’t want to sound horribly dismal, but them’s the breaks.

So my endorsement in the primary is one based on principle, rather than actually being elected and winning the presidency. And the candidate that has the strongest set of principles with which progressives can agree is Dennis Kucinich. This man has been repeating the same mantras throughout his House career, ones of establishing peaceful relations in foreign affairs and using the military as a last resort. He wants every American to have health care under a single-payer system. He wants to restore the middle class in this country by getting rid of free trade agreements like NAFTA and the proposed FTAA. The list goes on, from education and poverty to racism and sexism. The man is on point.

And as J-Ro noted, every Democratic candidate that is running has a national platform to get things done now. Dennis Kucinich has been using this platform since he got on it.

The C-SPAN Archives has a nifty tool which documents time spent on certain procedures, time spent on a certain bill, and a whole bunch of other great things. One of those things that it documents is the amount of time each member of Congress spends on the floor of his/her respective chamber (and also how much time is spent speaking in committees). Let’s see how the Democratic candidates stack up:

In the Senate in 2007:
Joe Biden - 5 hours, 38 minutes, 4 seconds
Hillary Clinton - 2 hours, 32 minutes, 16 seconds
Chris Dodd - 4 hours, 29 minutes, 36 seconds
Barack Obama - 3 hours, 9 minutes, 16 seconds

In the House in 2007, Dennis Kucinich spoke for 3 hours, 49 minutes, 22 seconds.

So wait, that means that both Biden and Dodd are speaking up more than Kucinich in Congress? Well, yes and no. By pure measure of time, yes. But you have to realize that the House and the Senate operate on very different time distributions. Senators have an almost unlimited amount of time to speak on a topic, while time in the House is at a much higher premium. To adjust for this, the Congress project maintains lists of how many days the person spoke in that year, and how that ranks in comparison with other members of Congress.

Again, for the Senate in 2007:
Biden - 21 days (69th of all Senators)
Clinton - 11 days (91st of all Senators!)
Dodd - 23 days (66th of all Senators)
Obama - 17 days (76th of all Senators)

And for the House in 2007? Kucinich has spoken 55 days. Not only more than all of the other candidates, but ranked 17th in the House.

He’s been on the platform, not only speaking, but proposing legislation. Just this past Thursday, he introduced legislation that would aid states in establishing universal pre-kindergarten programs for all three, four, and five year-old children. The bill has 37 cosponsors. He’s proposed legislation:

to get out of Iraq immediately

to impeach VP Cheney (21 cosponsors)

to establish a Department of Peace (67 cosponsors)

As I said before, the list goes on and on. He’s using his national platform arguably more than any of the other contenders for the Democratic nomination.

But, despite this, Dennis isn’t going to get the nomination. And it doesn’t matter.

He’s got a fire and a set of principles that he will stand by and defend, principles that the progressive blogosphere considers almost taboo to discuss, like a family skirting around discussing gay Aunt Jinny who just died in a car accident at Thanksgiving dinner. These progressive ideals are the ones that more and more Americans are taking up and considering, despite counter-discussions in mainstream media and even amongst ourselves.

Kucinich doesn’t act like a politician. That’s why he comes off as squirrelly and naïve in the debates and why he campaign tells us to do weird things like “txt 4 peace, lol”. It will say something when Ohio, the state I’m voting in for the primary, gets Kucinich over 107,000 votes, 9 percent of the popular vote. Think 1920, when Eugene V. Debs, in prison and running under the Socialist Party ticket, still got nearly a million votes and 3.4% of the popular vote! Think Mel Carnahan, who actually died in a 2000 Senate race against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and still won. Obviously Kucinich isn’t in prison or dead, but the powers-that-be and big spenders don’t look too kindly on non-politico peace activists.

A vote for Kucinich says something to other Americans: there is someone willing to stand up during a time of war and poverty, someone who has enough prescience and foresight to see what negative direction the country has headed, and more and more people agree with his message and principles of peace, sustainability, and well-being. This vote will make its mark in history.

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