Kucinich Speaks to Kirkland Crowd

As 2008 presidential candidates race across the country from Iowa to New Hampshire, liberal maverick Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) stopped in Cambridge on Friday to lay out his position on issues ranging from global warming to the war in Iraq.

Kucinich, who failed to win the 2004 Democratic nomination, spoke in the Kirkland House Junior Common Room as part of the Harvard Democrats’ ongoing effort to bring every major Democratic presidential candidate to campus.

The hour-long question-and-answer session dealt primarily with global warming, the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral process, and the war in Iraq.

“As president, I will ask the American people to participate in our own conservation policy, an energy audit of our own personal lives,” Kucinich said, outlining his plan for bilateral trade conditioned on workers’ rights and environmental quality principles.

Kucinich called for decreasing reliance on coal, oil, and nuclear energy by suggesting the introduction of solar and wind technologies for mass consumption.

And Kucinich’s plans for reform extend past the environmental arena—at Friday’s talk he questioned the usefulness of the electoral system.

“I think we’re at a point where there are some real questions about whether we should have an electoral college,” Kucinich said in response to a student’s question about whether the U.S. is truly democratic.

And mirroring the focus of the campaign season, much of the talk dealt with foreign policy, as audience members pushed Kucinich to defend his demand to cease Congressional funding of the war in Iraq.

Zak Tanjeloff ’08, asked Kucinich whether he had a plan for peace in Iraq.

“There is money in the pipeline right now to bring the troops in. If we follow the logic of support the troops, the war will never end,” Kucinich responded.

But Tanjeloff said that the congressman answered his question “like a politician.”

“I asked him if there was a plan for peace, not a plan for ending the war. He started answering my question by answering what he would have liked me to ask,” said Tanjeloff.

Kucinich criticized his opponents Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), John Edwards, and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for allowing discussions of Iran to have “all options on the table,” whereas Kucinich said “there is no justification whatsoever for a United States attack on Iran.”

“I think the Kucinich message is totally above and beyond that of any other candidate,” said Cody Colon-Berezin ’09, who attended the event. “However I don’t have faith in the Democratic party to be ready for the Kucinich message.”

The group Students for Kucinich formed on campus recently “in anticipation” of Kucinich’s appearance, according to Joanna I. Naples-Mitchell ’10.

“We felt that there should be a presence on campus supporting Dennis Kucinich,” Naples-Mitchell said.