I’ve known Dennis since 1988. We don’t really talk, or hang out, or even associate much anymore. But I was there with Dennis, as a very green college intern, when he ran in a primary against Mary Rose Oakar in 1988, and got 25% of the vote. At the time, Dennis was attempting the comeback from his disastrous stint as mayor of Cleveland, an office which Dennis handed on a silver platter to George Voinovich in 1979.
Dennis is reprising his stubbornness from his mayoralty over the current health care bill. Like he is today, Dennis as mayor, took a single issue (the continued existence of a public utility, Cleveland Public Power) to the then logical extreme of leading the city of Cleveland into default. Yes, Dennis was right at the time. Yes, Cleveland Public Power is still with us, thanks to Dennis. Yes, Dennis has been proven right over time.
All that “being right” also led to George Voinovich, a Republican mayor of the largest Democratic vote base in Ohio, in the most important presidential state in the country, Ohio. Dennis, in effect proven by facts, created with his own hand a kryptonite for Democrats statewide. By giving birth to George Voinovich and a Voinovich GOP machine which could count on Democratic votes from the Democratic base, Dennis Kucinich, through his own stubbornness, doomed Ohio to two solid decades of Republican misrule, which in turn led to Ohio being the turning point for at least two Republican presidencies, each of which has been utterly disastrous for this country. Just take one look around Ohio.
Now that I’m running for office, I have no incentive to criticize Dennis over his current idiocy on health care reform. Dennis represents a good chunk of my county council district. My voters like Dennis. And I’d love to have Dennis’ support. But I’d much rather have Dennis’ vote on this health care bill.
Because if Dennis gets his way on health care, and this bill fails, Dennis will again, as he did in Cleveland in 1978, doom this country to further Republican misrule. Only this time, Dennis will be doing it with full knowledge aforethought. Dennis knows that if this bill fails, Democrats across this country will pay a heavy price. It may cost Barack Obama re-election. That’s just the politics.
More importantly, if this bill fails, Dennis will doom the rest of us, for the foreseeable future, to a health care system that is fundamentally broken. Dennis will claim that he again is in the right. Despite Dennis being completely unable to posit a scenario in which his position for single payer will ever be implemented, yes, he may be still be right.
The rest of us will pay for Dennis being right. I know. I’ve paid that price as a Clevelander, and an Ohioan, for a very long time. I’m running for office in part to help clean up the mess “Dennis being right” left behind.
But you are wrong, Dennis, to vote against this health care bill. The saddest part is that you know it.
Cross posted at DailyKos.
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Anastasia reports on her fundraising email from Dennis Kucinich, and missed the big news, emphasis mine.
“The Congressional Democratic Primary Election is May 4th, less than four months away,” they reminded their mailing list. “You all remember the extraordinary effort which was made last time to try to unseat Congressman Kucinich. He was successful only because of the help of people such as you, who understand the value of having a fearless spokesperson for truth, economic equality, jobs for all, health care for all and peace in the United States Congress…..”
If Dennis Kucinich is still reminding his supporters that Joe Cimperman tried to primary him last cycle, Joe Cimperman has a real problem running for county executive. I suppose Joe thinks he can raise enough money from the downtown glitterati to run a scorched earth campaign against Ed Fitzgerald and whoever else runs, but wow. Dennis Kucinich is nursing that grudge, publicly, and that means his supporters are too, and that’s a lot of grassroots Democratic Party support that simply will not forgive Cimperman, not this soon after that primary.
And that downtown fundraising glitterati? They have despised Dennis for 30 solid years. I did some legal research for Dick Pogue right out of law school, and during the interview, when he saw that I had Dennis Kucinich on my resume, Dick Pogue’s veins popped out of his head. The interview devolved into me defending the fact that I worked for Dennis Kucinich in his primary against Mary Rose Oakar in 1988 as a campus coordinator intern at Cleveland State. I couldn’t believe it, but there was Dick Pogue, one of the most powerful men in Cleveland, blabbering on like a bully on a playground about something that happened decades ago, at a fresh law school graduate just trying to make a living. It almost cost me the job, but didn’t, so I thus became perhaps the only person on earth to work for both Dennis Kucinich and Dick Pogue.
These same vein poppers most certainly pushed Cimperman every single day in 2007-2008 to go as hard at Dennis as he did. That was real bad advice to follow. I certainly hope Cimperman is listening to other people this time.
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I just got a call from Cuyahoga County Judge Peter J. Corrigan, and he says that the Peter J. Corrigan who has pulled petitions to run as a Republican against Dennis Kucinich is some other Peter J. Corrigan, not him. Corrigan also said he’s running for re-election to his bench, he’s a Democrat, and would never even contemplate running against Dennis.
This is how desperate the Republican Party has become in Cuyahoga County. Despite all the troubles, some dude who magically has a great Irish last name and even more magically has the same first and middle name of a sitting Dem judge thinks this will get him elected to Congress. So pathetic.
It also shows how powerful the name-politics game is in Cuyahoga County. I wonder who that could help?
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UPDATE: Judge Corrigan confirms that there is some other Peter J. Corrigan who pulled petitions to run against Dennis as a Republican. It ain’t him.
Because I’m about to run for Cuyahoga County Council, I check the good ol’ candidate’s list regularly, and something very weird has popped up. Peter J. Corrigan is a Democratic Party elected judge in Cuyahoga County. Coincidentally, he was also once a prosecutor in Bill Mason’s office. Hmmmm….ain’t that special!
As of today’s candidate list (which changes all the time) Corrigan’s pulled petitions for his re-election as a judge on the Democratic Party ballot this fall. But he’s also pulled petitions to run as a Republican against Dennis Kucinich for Congress. Corrigan’s campaign website is blank.
A few things.
First, Corrigan is a lock for re-election as judge. Big time Irish last name + 50 signatures = enormous salary continues with no effort. Second, I cannot imagine that Corrigan thinks he’s going to beat Dennis Kucinich, which means if he does run against Dennis as a Republican, Corrigan will be unemployed thereafter. Third, he can’t be on the primary ballot for both judge for one party, and Congress for another.
All of which means fourth, Peter J. Corrigan is up to something. Has Peter J. Corrigan switched parties? Is the teabag calling? Or is Corrigan on the run from………hmmm….
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I cut my political teeth as a campus coordinator for Dennis Kucinich’s quixotic primary challenge to Mary Rose Oakar in 1988. He lost 75-25. There were like 4 people at the election night party, two of whom were me and my fellow CSU student intern friend. It was one of the earliest formative experiences of my political career. I spent a lot of time around Dennis, and those close to him. Dennis has been my congressman for most of the years he’s been in Congress. He was my mayor when I was a kid.
So I know what kind of politician Dennis Kucinich is. When Dennis decides what he believes in, he acts in pursuit of that belief forever, taking every logical step that conclusion requires. The Cleveland default, while Dennis was mayor, was the first manifestation. That default gave rise to George Voinovich, a Republican mayor of a Democratic city, and that gift kept on giving to Ohio Republicans for decades.
Consequences are consequences, Dennis would say, of acting on what you believe in. It’s an honorable, even noble way to conduct your public service, but it is very messy, and often counterproductive. You do have the luxury of always being right. History is Dennis’ judge, he’d say.
Dennis has decided that the only health care reform that makes sense is a single payer system that eliminates private health insurance companies forever. A lot of us agree, including myself. The difference between Dennis and the rest of us is that Dennis will only act in a manner which will immediately bring single payer to reality, while the rest of us fight to get the best we can out of a political system designed by the framers for compromise.
The problem for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi is that Dennis thus subtracts one vote from every whip count, to account for Dennis’ eventual “no” vote. Dennis has decided that he doesn’t care. When Dennis thinks he’s right, he will follow his logic to its bitter end, for the sake of being right. See his presidential follies. I admire this in Dennis, to a point.
I don’t know if Dennis will change his vote on final passage if the entire thing comes down to one vote. He may. But this is not Boccieri-style preening, it’s Kucinich-style crusading. Dennis is in the safest seat this side of Tim Ryan and Marcia Fudge, but it’s even safer, because Dennis is so beloved on Cleveland’s west side. There are parents who were not born when Dennis began his career with kids in college today, and both parent and child think of Dennis as the single most perfected manifestation of all that is good about a dying city. Nothing is going to ever change that. So Dennis can afford his crusades.
I’m hopeful that we won’t need Dennis’ vote for final passage, because I actually like that Dennis is this committed to single payer. Someone has to be. Someday, generations from now, single payer may become a reality thanks to people like Dennis. But if it comes down to Dennis’ vote on health care reform in 2009, and Dennis does flip flop, he has nothing to fear. Dennis may have to choose between single payer crusading and this historic presidency. In that equation, I think Dennis will choose this presidency.
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Breaking out of Strongsville. Jim Trakas says Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich supporters are sinners and we need to pray for their souls.
Greatness.
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