Dennis on my mind

Today I watched Dennis' video on his signing up to run in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire and was swayed once again. It is an odd experience for me to feel swayed by a politician. I like writing about politics and their intersection with culture and the arts but to be involved in this more direct way is new to me. It also makes me wonder why am I feeling so tied up in this campaign.
As I look at the times in which we live, I see how extraordinary they are. While the Chinese may say that it is a curse to live in interesting times, and in some ways they are correct, on the other side of that curse is the blessing that when it is necessary, all of us can rise to the occasion and contribute. Many years of thinking about the ways in which the culture and arts intersect with politics have gone into getting me to this point of wondering just who represents my needs and goals the best. I don't think I have ever asked the question before. I never asked either who did I think could get the country and by extension the world out of the mess that is sitting here in our laps.
So, I watched the video and listened to him and asked myself if there were things I disagreed with. Of course there was one tiny point that slipped into my thinking that made me a little uncomfortable and that was I have a difficult time with the state motto of New Hampshire--Live free or die. It has been a rallying cry of the libertarian wing of the Republican party and it seems like an awful expression. However, Kucinich did say some things I thought I would never hear a person running for office of any kind in this country say and that was that we are not here to be the best or on top of everyone else. First principles according to the ways in which this country was first conceived live within Dennis' thinking. Not the most practical thing to say and while it annoys me that most candidates say the most bland and all things to all people stump speeches day in and day out, Dennis is much more of the moment. Things are happening at the moment he is speaking and he is not unaware of them.
In this way, reveries of other stump speeches of other candidates began to rumble through my mind and I know that there is a certain boredom that has to set in when this is what you are saying day in and day out to mostly press people who will then go out and say what you said with some kindness towards it or with some animus towards it.
All in all, life is hard when you have to be on in that way every day.
Blogging is like that too. Every day there has to be a topic of concern to say something about. I have been talking about Dennis for the Huffington Post as well as on myspace and now here. It feels like a new kind of obsession that should lead to either some new insights into what makes politics interesting in and of itself or will grow tiresome and tedious.
But since I do know we live in much too interesting times, I think there will be a very large percentage of the time when there will be more than a human can say in one day.
Today I am preparing to go to Philadelphia for the debate on MSNBC. I hope to be able to blog from there and tell what I have seen and what I hope to see down the road from there. What I do know is this, in my catalogue of skills for anyone I want to have to listen to at all, there has to be some real intelligence as well as a commitment to things of an abstract nature that are not about making us all wealthy and powerful but that speak to the more realistic aspects of life.
We all need good health care and we all need to be able to work and to retire. We all need to eat and if you are watching the papers these days you know that there is a severe food shortage at your local soup kitchens so if you think of it, take in some food now. No one in this or any country should be going to sleep hungry. We also know we all need to be educated and to receive an education that is not just affordable but free.
Start listening to Dennis for the next couple of months and ask yourself, why not Dennis? He is saying everything you want to hear and most likely is going to deliver what he says.