While Dennis Kucinich travels around the country on his presidential pursuit, some in Ohio's 10th congressional district (Cleveland's West Side and West inner-ring suburbs) are becoming disenchanted with his increasing lack of attention to the district, his rigid positions which have led to some strange votes, and his inability or lack of desire to work with his colleagues to move his progressive agenda forward. About two months ago, former Kucinich supporter Rosemary Palmer announced that she is challenging Kucinich in the Democratic primary for congress.
http://www.rosemarypalmerforcongress.com/
(Note: I wrote and tried to post this diary yesterday and it disappeared. i see another has been posted but it contains no actual info, just a link to an article, so i am trying again, with hopefully better luck!)
Many activists in the area have come to know Rosemary in the last couple of years since she and her husband, Paul Schroeder, formed Families of the Fallen for Change, following their son Augie's death in Iraq in August, 2005. The group is dedicated to finding better solutions to the situation in Iraq than those offered by the Bush administration. Rosemary is a good progressive and on most issues, her positions as far ultimate goals are not that different from Kucinich's. What is different is her approach. She favours building coalitions to make steady progress toward those goals.
Today in a telephone press conference, Rosemary joined with Cincinnati attorney and former Marine Paul Hackett, who ran for Congress in Oh-2 in an August, 2005 special election, narrowly losing to Jean "Scrunchie" Schmidt in one of the most Republican areas of the state, to announce that he has endorsed Rosemary and is supporting her campaign. It turns out one of his reasons is personal and, I think, very revealing about how Kucinich goes about things and how counterproductive that can sometimes be.
After saying that he's been deluged with requests for his support and that he turns down "99.9%" of them, he said,
"I think that the quality and caliber of Rosemary is what we need in our leadership in Congress in the United States, and I would like to highlight the word leadership and say that that is one of the key qualities that is absent in Congress today ... Frankly it's been absent in Ohio's 10th district in Mr. Kucinich's tenure in Congress."
During the Q&A, Hackett was asked by Jerid Kurtz of BuckeyeStateBlog.com, why now? Why this race?
Hackett responded, "We all know Iraq is the #1 pressing issue that faces America today. And we don't get to move on to other pressing issues, be it the economy or any of the other long list of problems we face -- we're not going to solve the puzzle of challenge of Iraq in the absence of leadership. I think we need somebody who's going to be on the job full-time, focused on these issues and focused on making the us better and stronger and healing the United States, and look at these challenges and issues in somewhat of a nonpartisan way. I believe Rosemary has those qualities. Conversely I don't believe Dennis Kucinich has these qualities."
Then he dropped what I thought was a bit of a bombshell and sort of sad, really.
He said, "I haven't spoke publicly about the only conversation I've had with Dennis Kucinich but I'll be happy to now. It took place the day after I won the primary of special election. He started the conversation, which was pretty much unilateral him to me, by saying `I would rather see Jean Schmidt get elected to than you because you are wrong on Iraq and you fought in Iraq and you are a Democrat in name only.' My takeaway from that is it's pure politics, pure partisanship and an unwillingness to address the issues that face America with a view toward solving the problems as opposed to advancing one's singular agenda. I think Dennis Kucinich at least by example of only conversation I had with him is the poster child for silly politics that does not represent leadership, and leadership is what America needs and it's what Congress needs and it's not what Mr. Kucinich in my humble opinion has demonstrated in his recent career in congress. He hasn't accomplished much other than part time, running for president."
He said in his strongly worded endorsement of Rosemary, "Ohio needs her and America needs her. and I'm thrilled to be able to do whatever I can do to see that she accomplishes that goal for Ohio and for the United States."
It's hard to tell how much Hackett's endorsement will help Rosemary's campaign but it certainly can't hurt. She's approaching the campaign very methodically and pragmatically. She has hired campaign stuff, developed a Web site, is actively fundraising, has been holding press/blogger telephone conferences and has issued numerous position statements on issues such as environmental protection, alternative fuel development and treatment of veterans. I'm over in Oh-11 (the East Side of Cleveland and the East inner-ring suburbs) and we're ably represented by the dedicated Stephanie Tubbs Jones. So I'm not invested in this one way or another; we have Republicans to defeat. But many of my cross-town friends are disappointed in Kucinich -- one big enthusiasm-killer was Kucinich's unequivocal promise before last fall's election NOT to run for president again -- and are excited to hear about Rosemary's run. Stay tuned....