The Markos vs. the Menace

I’m not a Kos reader, so I didn’t know The Markos had posted this trash job on my Congressman till I read about it at MaxSpeak. It’s eleven hours old and there are already a thousand twelve hundred comments, so, you know, why bother? — whatever I’m gonna say is already in there somewhere.

But I would like to point out to whoever wanders by here that Kucinich’s’ so-called “urban 58 percent Kerry district” (the Ohio 10th CD), where I live, was held by a Gingrich Republican for two terms before Dennis ousted him in 1996, and that three-fourths of the precincts in this district are in the suburbs, not the city of Cleveland. Running for his sixth term last year, Dennis won 66% of the vote, 616 out of 641 precincts, and every single city, village and township in that mostly suburban district.

The western 25% of the 10th CD is the same as the 16th Ohio House District, which had a Republican state rep until Jennifer Brady squeaked out a 51% win this November. The 16th HD consists of five upper-middle-class suburbs, of which three have Republican mayors. Kucinich carried all five of those communities in November, winning 58% of their votes and 114 of their 138 precincts. (P.S. The 16th HD went for Bush over Kerry 53%-47%.)

I’m not claiming Dennis has a broad national or even statewide appeal; see the quote from Max below. But the idea that he’s just a city lefty whose message automatically alienates middle-class, suburban swing voters is refuted by the electoral evidence.

Not that I think The Markos gives a shit about evidence.

Also I would just like to mention that anyone who cites this book as evidence of anything needs to get off the freaking airplane and visit an actual city. Dennis screwed up his mayoralty in many ways, but refusing to “negotiate” Ralph Perk’s debts with Cleveland Trust by trading off Muny Light to CEI was not one of them. He preserved the asset, he got an income tax increase passed, and he handed both successes off to Voinovich who used them to become Mr. Solvency. Cleveland residents (and many suburbanites) know this, and have voted accordingly for the last twenty years.

Otherwise, I think Max’s response to Kos is about right. Yes, even this part:

Hear me now and believe me later: mockery of Dennis Kucinich is founded on fear of progressive politics, either from enemies on the right, or those who feel it threatens electoral viability and professional interests on the left.

And it’s true. Progressive ideas do threaten electoral viability for Democrats. This is a feature, not a bug. We want to threaten the viability of business as usual, whether in Iraq or in the homeland, because business as usual sucks. There are better and worse ways to do this. DK is acting the good Democrat, participating in the primaries. Wherever you are heading, he has already been there.