I'd vote for absolutely any donkey in sight if doing so would get rid of the missile-in-a-horse's-ass sitting in the White house now, but there's only one Democrat in the race I could support absolutely without any hesitation.
Dennis Kucinich appears to be so good it's a little scary.
I'll try to explain, and I'll make it short and to the point, by pointing to Paul Schindler's account [in an issue of Gay City News not yet on line] of Kucinich's December 7 appearance before a group of Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID).
In his presentation in New York's Lesbian and Gay Communtiy Center, Kucinich focused on only three subjects, same-sex marriage, healthcare and the war in Iraq, but both his choice of issues and the positions he outlined for himself were far bolder than what we have come to expect from any candidate for national office.
He declared unequivocal support for equal same-sex marriage rights, and is the only candidate to do so. He told Schindler: "The idea of being fearful of this issue, running away from it because you think George Bush is going to use it as a wedge issue - the pursuit of the White House should not for the faint of heart."
He distinguished his own position on health care from each of the other "leading" candidates by saying that while they favor incremental change to the existing chaos [my noun] he favors Canadian-style, single-payer universal coverage. Kucinich told the GLID assembly, "Insurance companies do not make money providing health care, they make money not providing health care. Most people ask, my God, how are you going to pay for that? Well you know what - we're already paying for it."
Speaking to Gay City News after his speech, Kucinich said he is the only candidate with "a plan to end the occupation of Iraq. . . . It's one thing to say you were against the war. But you know if it was wrong to go in, it is wrong to stay in." The Ohio Congressman pointed to his website, which the article reports, "details a plan for bringing U.S. troops home within 90 days of winning a United Nations resolution for sharing the burden of restabilizing Iraq."
For more on his platform, including detail on these and some 60-odd other issues, see his website.
I don't think a progressive could even invent this guy. He seems too good to be true, and, in doing a pretty good job of ignoring him, the nation's going to see to it that it never will be true.
[Photo by Eric Rife]