My Open Letter to America: Crucial Moment in Our Nation’s History

My letter of support for Kucinich for President Campaign and why I feel that it is imperative that we support him because of everything that is at stake at this time in our country.

My Open Letter to America: Crucial Moment in Our Nation’s History

Dear Friends,

I'm writing to talk about my interest and support for the candidate for President, Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

We are standing at a grave point in our nation's history: While our civil liberties are being eroded away with laws like the Patriot Act; While our soldiers are thrown into a war which is quickly slipping into a quagmire and which is harmful to our national security interests; While the current administration continues to embarrass us in the comity of nations; While the federal budget deficit is going more and more into the red; While 43 million Americans are without health insurance; While our domestic economy is suffering with extreme levels of unemployment; While American jobs keep being shipped overseas, where fair labor standards, workers rights and environmental protections are not upheld; While the gap between the poor and the rich in the world keeps getting wider; While we are facing a discriminatory legal system that leads to one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and that mainly benefits the wealthy prison-industrial complex; While the Black and Hispanic minorities are suffering from not only being at the bottom economic group in the country but also having disproportionately higher inmate populations; While corporate agendas like WTO, NAFTA, and FTAA keep getting shoved down our throats; While the corporations keep controlling our lives because of their undue influence over the government and the electoral process; The corporate controlled media is acting like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand.

A lot of people around the country are realizing that Dennis Kucinich, recipient of the 2003 Gandhi Peace Award, offers true hope, to the ordinary, middle-income, low-income and poor people, of peace, justice and prosperity, and that he is a truly honest candidate who will serve their interests and who does not take corporate contributions. Dennis Kucinich is a House Representative from Cleveland, Ohio, currently in his third term, and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (which is the largest congressional caucus). He comes from a poor working class family of seven children, and by the time he was 17 years old, he and his family had lived in twenty-one places, including a couple of cars.

He takes the most progressive stand of the all the different candidates on various issues. His top issues that he will work for are:
1. World Leadership Through Renewed Commitment to Peace and Diplomacy
2. Universal Health Care with a Single Payer Plan (Enhanced Medicare for All)
3. Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65
4. Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy
5. Funding for Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K through College
6. Civil Rights, Privacy, and Repeal of the "Patriot Act"
7. Women's Reproductive Choice
8. Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO
9. Restored Rural Communities and New Protections for Family Farmers
10. Balance Between Workers and Corporations
11. A Full Employment Economy
12. Worker’s Whitehouse

His website lists his position in detail on forty different areas:
http://www.kucinich.us

As is usual in politics, he has some people that sling mud at him, but none of it has much credibility, as his actual record proves that he has a history of conscientiously serving his constituents and fighting for the poor, middle and working classes. He truly wants to turn the government into a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. One of the most common things that the corporate influenced media uses to dismiss him is to say that he is "unelectable". To that, I have to reply, "Should the media elect our President, or should we?" If the progressive community will not support Kucinich, the most progressive candidate, who will they support?

While I agree that electability is an important factor to consider when supporting a candidate for President, I strongly believe that Dennis is the most electable candidate out of the current lot that is running for the Democratic Party nomination and I will try to provide whatever arguments I can to support this belief.

Given how horribly Bush has run his administration, and how his poll numbers keep falling, it is safe to assume that he is going to be vulnerable at election time in 2004. I think that Bush will continue to go down in the polls, because as far as I see, things are not getting better. The only thing that he can do to boost his ratings is to wage another war, which, I'm sad to say, is a possibility.

The reason I believe that Congressman Kucinich has a much greater chance than any other candidate of defeating Bush is because of his ability to motivate his audience and his appeal to a wide spectrum of disenfranchised electorate that hardly ever bothers to vote and his appeal to poor, minorities, working class, and many third parties, in addition to the full backing of the Democratic Party to which he belongs.

Bush will have several advantages over any of the other Democratic candidates, such as over $200 million worth of attack ads in the wings, Karl Rove dirty tricks, and support from the corporate media. As far as the money is concerned, Bush will have more money than any of the other Democratic contenders. In the end, it will have to do with more than just money for anyone to have a chance. Of course, the more money, the better. I think the message a candidate represents, in the end, is more of an important factor in determining who the people will vote for, than how much money a campaign spends. The problem is that, that message is not always very clear to see. Campaigns spend millions of dollars to either distort their opponent’s message, or make their own message sound falsely appealing. In the case of Dennis, that message is not ambiguous at all. He speaks the truth. If you put Dennis and Bush in a debate, that gives them equal chance to answer questions, and to question each other directly, Dennis's message will not be easy to hide or distort for the GOP spin machinery.

This is all assuming that Dennis wins the Democratic Party nomination. I can't imagine that the Democratic Party, at the minimum, will not unite behind him, if he does win the nomination. After being nominated, his campaign will receive a lot more attention and spotlight than it currently does, and he will no longer be the "darkhorse" candidate.

There are several resources on the Internet that I researched to come to the conclusion that Kucinich is electable. One of them is SelectSmart.com. On this web site, you can choose various criteria to make a final decision that best matches your choices about subjects as diverse as religion and career search. Their selector for President brings up Dennis Kucinich as the top choice of 36% of the survey respondents, follow by Bush as the top choice of 12%, and then Howard Dean as the top choice of 10% of the survey respondents. Try it yourself:
http://www.selectsmart.com/PRESIDENT/

Some people say that Kucinich is not electable because he is a progressive. The truth is that a progressive candidate is the most electable one at this time. The following is a list of polls conducted by reputed media organizations and pollsters that show that majority of peoples' social and economic attitudes are in line with the platform of Dennis Kucinich and that it is a myth that the majority is conservative. In fact, the silent majority is liberal and compassionate, and the conservative media cannot keep it a secret forever. The issues which the majority supports are the ending of the Iraqi Occupation, repealing Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, universal health coverage, protecting Social Security from privatization, reducing corporate influence in government, and helping in the development of poor nations around the world:
http://www.kucinich.us/poll_support.php

It is clear that the mainstream media routinely censors and hides Kucinich and his message. As someone who has been following the campaign for a long time, it is obvious that Kucinich has massive support but somehow the media has succeeded in hiding this from everyone. This site has some useful information and details on the media censorship against Kucinich:
http://kucinichwatch.com/electable-candidates.htm

Kucinich has a history of attracting swing voters and "Reagan Democrats" and has won elections against better-funded Republican opponents, has repeatedly defeated entrenched incumbents, and will defeat another one in November 2004.

His Congressional district includes the suburb of Parma, Ohio, described as "one of the original homes of the Reagan Democrats." An Ohio daily calls it a "conservative Democratic district," which he carried by 74% in 2002. Being a success there may be a better predictor of national success than holding statewide office in a liberal stronghold like Vermont or Massachusetts.

Kucinich is a winner because he builds Wellstone-like grassroots campaigns against bigger-spending opponents. He is a winner because of his blue collar roots and populism, reflected in his battles for heartland voters against unfair, corporate-friendly trade deals.

He is an unabashed progressive who wins because swing voters who don't agree with him on every issue still see him as a fighter for their interests, as someone who will put the interests of workers and middle-class consumers ahead of big-money interests. No Democrat is better positioned in 2004 to attract 'Reagan Democrats' and swing voters with a frontal attack on how Bush policies hurt them and favor the rich.

Republicans use "wedge" issues to pry away traditionally-Democratic white working class voters -- a tactic that has not succeeded against Kucinich. In '96, for example, Republicans used his support of gay rights as a wedge, and he stood firm and triumphed.

Kucinich has been a winner in a swing district in the swing state of Ohio. And Ohio has 20 electoral votes. It is the state that is key to national victory; only two candidates in the 20th century won the presidency without carrying Ohio.

While it is true that he will continue being shunned by the media and continue being dismissed as unelectable, because they can't really find anything bad to say about him, his message will not go away. Despite not taking any corporate contributions, he has raised over $4 million dollars, a hefty amount for a grassroots people driven campaign. Most of his contributions are in very small donations and almost all the money that he will have raised by the end of this year will be eligible for federal matching funds starting January of next year, and he will have enough money to take him at least till July when the Democratic Party Convention chooses the final candidate.

A major advantage that Dennis has, that the other candidates don't have, is his army of volunteers comprising of enthusiastic activists from various progressive issue groups, or just simply peace and happiness loving ordinary folks who are very tired of what's going on (to put it mildly), and see in Dennis a hope, that the world can be changed for the better. His campaign is already receiving enthusiastic support amongst Internet activists. What this means is that he doesn't need to spend nearly as much money as the other campaigns to get his message out and keep his campaign going until whenever needed.

Another major advantage that Dennis has, that the other candidates don't have, is his populist appeal to the disenfranchised masses who feel that no other candidate truly represents them or will make a difference in their lives, and therefore see no reason to vote.

Dennis’ support for Campaign Finance Reform, which reduces the impact of big corporate money in politics, and Instant Runoff Voting, which eliminates the spoiler effect that third party candidates are often accused of, makes him very appealing to third parties, which do not have a fair chance to compete in the current two-party system. If he gets the Democratic Party nomination, he is likely to get endorsements from major third parties, including Green Party, Natural Law Party, Working Families Party, Libertarian Party, amongst others, and that would ensure the unity of the entire Center to Left political spectrum against Bush in November 2004. According to my understanding, he sounds like the "most electable" candidate against Bush.

Even though the corporate interests might be convinced that they will succeed in drowning out the Kucinich Campaign, they will merely be underestimating the power of the Internet, which has now become one of the leading media of mass communication worldwide. Thankfully, the corporate interests do not yet have a monopoly on this wonderful media, which now plays a major role in educating concerned citizens of the truth that they can no longer cover up and hide.

I strongly believe in voting with your heart in the primaries and voting with your head in the national elections, because the primaries are precisely the time to not only choose the candidate that best represents you, but to also send a clear message out about which issues you support.

I think it is important for anyone who likes Dennis, based on his issues, to vote for him in the primary elections, even if that person feels that Dennis has no chance of winning the Democratic Party nomination. The reason for this is that the more delegates that Dennis wins in the primaries to represent him in the final Democratic Party convention, the more clout he will have in the process. Even if he doesn't get enough delegates to win the nomination himself, he might be put in a position where he can be the "king maker", that is, have enough delegates to influence who the final winner will be. In exchange for the support of his delegates, he can possibly negotiate with a candidate to accept some of the items on his agenda. The more delegates he has, the more influence he will have. He might even be considered as a possible running mate for VP by the eventual winner that Dennis might endorse. Voting for Dennis in the primaries is a win-win situation for us even if Dennis doesn't win the nomination.

My personal biggest reasons for supporting him are that he is the only major candidate who supports peace in the Middle East by a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an even-handed approach to the problem, and pulling out the US troops from Iraq and ending the occupation of that poor country. I am very afraid that if we don't support Kucinich right now, then all of the remaining candidates who are considered front runners will start running towards the center as they have often shown the tendency to do. Even the so-called anti-war candidate Howard Dean is on record as having said that we cannot "cut-and-run" from Iraq and that we should support our troops by approving the $87 billion that Bush has requested for this occupation. Contrast this with Kucinich, the only candidate running who voted against the war, and has repeatedly called for supporting our troops best by bringing them home now and not approving more money for this unjust occupation.

For the primaries, my heart and head are both telling me to go with Dennis, and for the national election, my head is telling me to go with the eventual Democratic Party nominee, whoever it may be.

If you support Dennis, I thank you and please sign the "Million Voices for Kucinich" petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/kucinich/petition.html

They have a long way to go, but if we get all of our friends, all over the world, who support Dennis, to sign that petition, it can get to one million. It is so easy to do! It will be one of the best ways to punch through the media censorship. We, The People, cannot be stopped.

If you are still not convinced, then I invite you to attend an event where Kucinich is speaking, and if not, then attend a Kucinich House Party, or watch his video “This is the Moment”. I am confident that you will feel inspired:
http://www.kucinich.us/video/

If you support another candidate, thank you for reading through this, and giving Dennis some thought for at least a few minutes.

Sincerely,

Tayyab Siddiqui
http://www.Rochester4Kucinich.com