Libs v. Kucinich
A week or two ago I spoke with Dan Williamson from the Other Paper about BSB's favorite politician, Dennis Kucinich. In response, Dan put together an amazing column that captures a lot of the strife going on within the party, and with our activists, regarding Dennis' presidential bid and disappearance from North East Ohio. From BSB's reaction, to DK's House votes, Progress Ohio, Dean DePiero, the current primary battle, the article covers near everything going down with, as Williamson says, "the elfin congressman from Cleveland."
With no realistic shot at the Democratic presidential nomination, you might figure the only reason Dennis Kucinich runs for president is to appease liberal bloggers. Kucinich is widely perceived to be the race’s token hardcore left-winger, a lonely voice for the party’s ideological base.
But in Kucinich’s native Ohio, liberal bloggers seem to have had enough of the elfin congressman from Cleveland...
In an interview, Kurtz said there is “this growing discontent” with Kucinich among Ohio liberals.
“I can respect his ideology. I can respect his policy positions on where he’s coming from on policy issues,” he said. “He’s just turned a lot of us off with his shenanigans.”
Those shenanigans include his recent votes in Congress—such as breaking with the Democratic Party on the Iraq war and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program—as well as what Kurtz sees as his pointless presidential campaign.
Kurtz said he thinks Kucinich is putting the liberal cause “in jeopardy” by refusing to support any legislation that doesn’t fit his far-left ideology.
And Williamson even takes the time to talk to some folks about Kucinich with level heads and real job (that's reporting!):
Brian Rothenberg, Ohio Democrats’ former spokesman, has drawn derision for defending Kucinich’s S-CHIP vote in his own liberal blog, Progress Ohio.
But while Rothenberg remains a fan of Kucinich, he acknowledged the congressman’s U.S. House seat could be in peril.
Although he described Palmer as an “Internet candidate,” Rothenberg said that her campaign could gain traction.
And finally, Williamson travels all the way to Parma to speak with the Messiah himself:
He didn’t commit to challenging Kucinich, but DePiero had only faint praise for his congressman.
“In the past he’s done some good things in the district,” DePiero said. “He’s got a very good staff, people that I know well, but I think that there’s a sense that he ought not to be running for president, that he doesn’t have a chance of getting the nomination, that he oughta be focusing his energy in the district. And that’s not just me saying that.”
DePiero’s situation is all the more interesting because of his close friendship with Chris Redfern, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman. Is Redfern among those criticizing Kucinich’s presidential ambitions?
“The chairman and I, we’ve spoken about it, but he hasn’t told me whether he thinks it’s a good idea or a bad idea,” DePiero said.
I'm telling you, Dan put together a great article from many different perspectives...go check it out.
Frankly, in my opinion, it's another hack job by traditional media which seems to think that community blogs are monolithic. Obviously, our comments on this site alone demonstrates that there is an open debate about D.K., not some homogeneous school-of-thought here alone. Bill Callahan and ProgressOhio obviously openly disagree with the criticism about the S-CHIP vote, so it's not really fair to say that Dennis has a problem with Ohio leftist bloggers, just some of us.
Of course, I have to take issue with "Brian Rothenberg, Ohio Democrats’ former spokesman, has drawn derision for defending Kucinich’s S-CHIP vote in his own liberal blog, Progress Ohio."
I wrote two comments on Progress Ohio's website in response to Brian Rothernberg's column "Shadows on High" regard the S-CHIP vote in which I argued that his column was misleading and inaccurate because it implied that criticisms of D.K. on the issue were over things he never said about it, when, in fact, he did say what we suggested.
I didn't know two comments from one blogger over a factual issue equates into personal derision.
Last week, Williamson wrote a hack piece that was designed to appear as an attack of Bill Todd but only to sneak in a fluff piece about really how misunderstood people are about Todd and what a swell guy he is. Not once in the piece did Williamson address the main criticism of Todd's sensational radio ad, that's it's highly misleading at best, down right false in other regards.
I give up!