Dennis Kucinich is busy this week, in ways that should make headlines across the country.
Monday – Texas appeals court, to overturn Texas Democratic Party decision to keep Kucinich off the Texas primary ballot because he refused to sign a never-enforced, in fact unenforceable, open-to-interpretation loyalty oath.
Tuesday – Primary day in Michigan, and contrary to what you may have heard, Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate on the ballot. There are in fact three active candidates– Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, and Mike Gravel. And to all you Michigan Democrats – your vote WILL count. (More below)
Tuesday night – the Las Vegas Democratic Presidential debate, to which Kucinich was invited, and then uninvited less than two days later, by NBC.
Wednesday – the recount Kucinich requested of last Tuesday’s Democratic primary vote in New Hampshire is set to begin.
Let’s take them one at a time.
On Monday (today) his lawyer is in the Texas appeals court, trying once again to get Kucinich on the Texas Democratic primary ballot without Kucinich having to sign a loyalty oath that the Texas Democratic Party admits is open to interpretation by the candidates, has no force in law, and that is in fact unenforceable.
Kucinich is a man who takes oaths very seriously, so he has refused to sign the oath unless it is amended to indicate that he will support the party’s eventual nominee "if that person disavows war as an instrument of foreign policy." Since none of the other candidates in the race are anywhere near ready to do that, Kucinich knows he cannot conscientiously support any of them. So he has refused to swear that he will support the eventual nominee unless he is allowed to add that caveat. The party rejected his ballot application with the loyalty oath crossed out.
But although there are no repercussions, legal or otherwise, for a candidate to sign the oath and then violate it, the opposite is not true. Kucinich’s refusal to sign an oath to support the eventual Democratic Party presidential nominee without qualifications keeps this otherwise stellar candidate off the Democratic Party primary ballot in Texas. (Kucinich’s lawyer is appealing a Superior Court judge’s refusal last Friday to intervene in the state’s Democratic Party business.)
Tuesday is primary day in Michigan, and, through a strange string of events, Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, and Mike Gravel are the only active candidates on the ballot. (Chris Dodd’s name is also there, but he’s already withdrawn.) That puts anti-NAFTA, anti-war Kucinich in a head-to-head with war-hawk Clinton, in a state that has been devastated by Bill Clinton’s NAFTA. It could get very interesting.
The Michigan situation is ridiculous on its face. The Democratic National Committee thought slapping the hands of the Michigan (and Florida) Democratic Party officials for jumping the established primary schedule and re-scheduling their votes for January would be enough to send those state groups cowering back to their place in line. The DNC threatened those state party organizations with refusing to seat their delegates to the August National Convention.
Michigan Democratic Party officials said they were going to do what they needed to do, the DNC be damned. So the DNC told all the presidential candidates that they had to remove their names from the Michigan ballot, or they too would be subject to delegate limbo.
Obama, Edwards, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson obediently complied, and filed papers to have the Michigan Secretary of State remove their names from the ballot. The Kucinich campaign tried to do likewise, but one signature was not notarized, and by the time the campaign was notified, it was too late to submit a new document. Clinton, oddly enough, never made an attempt to remove her name. Neither did Mike Gravel or Chris Dodd.
So tomorrow’s Michigan Democratic primary will have the names of three active candidates, plus a line for "uncommitted." No write-ins will be recognized.
When Michigan refused to comply with its demands, Howard Dean and the DNC were stuck. They couldn't just say "never mind," at least publicly. But they've basically admitted they are in a "never mind" position in actuality.
The problem is that the DNC has no right, and actually no authority, to disenfranchise an entire state. They knew that. And the Michigan Democratic Party officials knew that. Party rules state that the convention delegates, not the DNC, decide which delegations to seat. The "understanding" is that the presumptive nominee at that point (late August) will indicate to the convention whether or not he/she wants the Michigan delegation seated. But it is the already-credentialed delegates who will be the ones making the decision, not any presidential candidate.
Problem is, there may not be a presumptive nominee at that point, and it might turn out that the 156 delegates from Michigan -- or their exclusion -- might make the final determination of who the nominee will be.
That's when things will get very interesting.
So, I see the face-off in Michigan as a real test of the progressive voting block, basically Clinton vs. Kucinich.
DFA (Democracy for America) and PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) have both pegged three candidates, Kucinich, Edwards and Obama, as progressives. Kucinich won each of their internal polls, quite handily. In other states DFA and PDA have been saying vote for one of those three (at this point excluding only Clinton and Gravel). But, in Michigan, Kucinich stands alone.
Detroit has been hit hard by Bill Clinton's NAFTA, which Kucinich has vowed to get rid of. And more than a million people in Michigan need Kucinich’s national not-for-profit health care, something Clinton has no intention of providing.
Michigan, for those paying attention, also explains the Kucinich support for Obama in Iowa. Kucinich suggested to his supporters that, in those precincts in the Iowa caucuses where he did not meet the 15% "viability" threshold, they should consider Obama as a second round choice.
Now, in the spirit of reciprocity, I’m hoping that Obama will suggest to his Michigan supporters that they support Dennis at the polls, since they can't support him there. (With the 15% threshold for "viability" applied in Iowa at the precinct level, Kucinich knew he had little chance to make headway in Iowa. But Obama has absolutely no "viability" in Michigan, simply because he’s not on the ballot and write-ins will not be counted.)
Lacking word from Obama, I hope his Michigan supporters will figure out this reciprocity strategy themselves. As I understand it, Michigan has more Blacks than does South Carolina, the next primary coming right up.
Also, the three-candidate ballot situation in Michigan leaves Congressman John Conyers of Detroit, the co-author of the Conyers/Kucinich National Health Care Plan (HR 676), able to actively campaign with Dennis in Michigan with no conflicts of his own political interests.
One final note on Michigan. With such a tight race, it may be that no one candidate will have earned enough delegates to win the nomination before the convention in August. That will result in a brokered convention, something that the Democratic Party hasn’t seen in decades.
A candidate must have earned 125 delegates to have his/her name placed in nomination at the national convention in August. Michigan has 156 delegates. If Michigan progressives (all those anti-war, pro-peace, pro-national health care, pro-impeachment, pro-recount people) can get their act together tomorrow, it is possible for Kucinich to get a good number – or even all – the delegates he needs to actually get nominated at the convention.
See what I mean about things getting interesting?
Then, Tuesday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, just as the polls are closing in Michigan, the next Democratic debate begins. But unless NBC changes its mind, again, Kucinich will not be on the stage with Clinton, Edwards and Obama.
Last Wednesday, Kucinich met all their criteria and was invited to that debate. But 44 hours later, shortly after Kucinich announced he would be asking for a recount of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote, NBC changed the rules and un-invited him to that debate. They said, inexplicably, that it was because Bill Richardson had dropped out of the race. As they say in this neck of the woods, what exactly does that have to do with the price of eggs?
So, did NBC un-invite Kucinich as punishment for starting a recount that might show the Come-Back Clinton did not in fact come back from her devastating third-place finish in Iowa? Did Clinton and/or Edwards succeed in their efforts to limit the debate, as they were caught conspiring to do months ago near an open microphone?
Did Tim Russert, who tried to marginalize Kucinich with a question about UFOs, pull the plug? Did GE, owners of NBC, and a major military contractor as well as part-owner of thousands of electric companies, not want Kucinich’s anti-war message heard? Or was it pay-back for his refusal, some 30 years ago, as the young mayor of Cleveland, to privatize the city’s municipal electric company?
Or did the "dump Kucinich" come from one of the co-sponsoring organizations, the Nevada Democratic Party, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, IMPACTO, 100 Black Men of America, or the College of Southern Nevada?
People have been calling NBC to protest, of course to no avail. Threatening to boycott the advertisers does nothing, because those car companies, drug companies, big box stores advertise on all stations. And remember, the top three fund-raising candidates who are guaranteed to be on that stage are among the network’s big-time advertisers. They have and will spend literally millions of dollars among them to run those irritating campaign ads.
The sponsoring organizations can, and should, do something about this. The fact that they haven’t is inexcusable. This behavior on the part of these co-sponsoring organizations and the people who control them must not be tolerated. It is these organizations, not just NBC, which must be held accountable for this affront to our democratic system.
Here’s the list of web sites for those organizations. Mine these websites for email address and telephone numbers. Let's fill up people's mail boxes and voice mail boxes with our protest.
Nevada Democratic party:
http://www.nvdems.com/
U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce:
http://www.ushcc.com/
IMPACTO:
https://www.lvlcc.com/
100 Black Men of America:
http://www.100blackmen.org/
College of Southern Nevada:
http://www.csn.edu/
On Wednesday (Jan. 16, 2008) the New Hampshire Secretary of State will begin the recount process, the cost of which the Kucinich campaign has agree to cover.
Since the Kucinich presidential campaign has not been great in the fund-raising category, it could use a little help in that regard. Estimates I’ve heard range from $65,000 to $70,000 for the recount. That’s a lot of dough, just to make sure that the nation’s first primary was legitimate all down the line.
This is a strictly noble effort, because Dennis Kucinich is that kind of a guy. Kucinich, who got 1.4% of the vote, does not expect his totals to change much. But the recount will settle questions about vast disparities between exit polls and vote totals only in those communities where the paper ballots are counted by machines – Diebold scanning machines. With people still disputing the validity of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, it is imperative that the process this year be scrutinized from day one. And New Hampshire’s vote was the first secret ballot, a primary, as opposed to the very public Iowa caucuses.
As a presidential candidate, Kucinich has standing to call for recounts in any election in any state where he thinks serious questions have been raised about the accuracy of the results. His call for a recount in New Hampshire is the first shot across the bow to those people who might be planning on tinkering with results in other states, letting them know he, and we, will be watching.
Keeping his standing as a presidential candidate through all the balloting this campaign season, thereby keeping his ability to challenge any monkey-business, is enough in my book for Kucinich to keep campaigning to the end. It’s that important. And it’s important that we support him in this, particularly financially.
I’m sure things will be happening campaign-wise Thursday and Friday, but what they are remains to be seen. When I know, I’ll be back here to let you know. (The Nevada caucuses are set for Saturday, Jan. 19.)
