In Honor of Having Met Dennis

It was not a dark and stormy night but a wonderfully beautiful night in Philadelphia where I met Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich for the first time. I was so impressed with the two of them and the people who work with him that it kept me awake a good part of the night afterwards. I should not say this I think but I don't know how people can campaign. It is like being in an opening night every night of the week and there is no let up in sight. Of course there are the primaries to look to but they loom so far away in some cases and this constant being on and available to people must continue as does the work you have to do for the people who elected you to represent them in Congress.

There, now I feel better, admitting that I could never do what he does and does so well. Nor could I work as tirelessly as the people in the campaign with him. That had to be said.

But then I have to also say that all Americans should be allowed to do what we did and go to a debate or some other major campaign stop and see the whole process in action. It is the kind of education that we all need. Civics classes will change radically were all Americans allowed into the world of the campaigns. You see what no reporter can bring to light for you.

For example, and this is a very petty example of what you can observe: We were watching the debate down in the bowels of this building at Drexel University where all the campaign people who were not in the auditorium with the candidates were hanging out and watching the debate on numerous television screens. Each candidate was assigned a room. Hillary's campaign had blacked out the windows of her room. Obama's staff had taken posters with his name on it to block out the view of his room. The rest of the campaigners were open and you could walk by and watch them watching the debate and talking to each other and making phone calls and munching on their pizzas.

Then while watching the debate on the television in this larger room, we Kucinich people were not as focused on each other and what we each thought but more on just watching the debate as it unfolded. Of course it unfolded over a long period of time and we had to wait 25 minutes into it before anyone asked Kucinich a single question. The disappointment in the room was quite extraordinary. We didn't like our man, as it were, being ignored so obviously.

I intend to write at much greater length and will let you know where that article is when it shows up but the thing to remember is the kind of metaphor the blacked out room of Hillary's staff and the room equally obliterated with Obama's picture and the rest of the candidates being more open and visible in their staffrooms. It conjured for me an image of someone who values secrecy more than anything and is just too reminiscent of the current occupant of the White House and the Obama move to be as secretive in his way made me realize even without watching him in the debate that he is not just inconsequential but a redundancy.

Where is the real candidate these days to be found? We found him after the debate willing and eager to stay and talk to everyone who wanted to tell him something or to ask him questions. His name is Dennis Kucinich.