Reply #25: Abortion? Campaign Finance? [View All]

[tsipple]

I almost stopped reading right there. Dennis Kucinich has been pro-choice and wasn't well liked by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, for example.

He switched his position, which is great, but in no way can you get "Kucinich is the winner" out of that one, in my opinion. Unless you're anti-abortion.

Re: Campaign finance, Dean was one of the candidates who signed the Democracy 21 pledge to clean up the system once elected. You can read about that pledge at Dean for America. Sharpton and Gephardt did not sign, and Edwards did not sign (since he does not sign any pledges) but agreed with the principles. Both Kucinich and Dean are raising their campaign funds through small contributions -- they're virtually tied for having the smallest average contribution size -- and both do not accept PAC funds. Kerry, Edwards, Clark, and some others have much larger average contribution sizes. Dean, however, has raised enormous amounts of money this way and figured out how to bypass the big donor/influence mechanism that normally finances campaigns. Kucinich has not been so successful at doing that.

Re: Illegal drugs, Kucinich is fine, but so's Dean, and it might actually get done with Dean. Dean wants the FDA to spend one year after he's elected reviewing medical marijuana. If the FDA approves, that's the science we need, and he'll proceed with allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to their patients. Kucinich's viewpoint is fine, but it'll never get past Congress. (In fact, Dennis has been one of the least successful Congressmen in the House. In his entire term of service, he's had a grand total of one bill passed: a bill which provides access to a government video program to the Ukranian Museum. Yes, I know he's in the minority, but he's not working well with the hand dealt to him, and that concerns me.)

Re: Death penalty, Dean favors very narrow use of the ultimate penalty and reforms to make sure it isn't abused.

Re: Defense, Dean wants level funding. He would reallocate priorities, though. Again, Kucinich can talk all he wants about slashing the Department of Defense and instituting the Department of Peace, but it won't get through Congress and, at least the former, is not the right public policy when America does indeed have threats and global responsibilities. Heck, we can't even seem to find money to keep combat hazard pay in place, and our force strength is stretched way too thin. Senator Durbin is also investigating why that Chinook helicopter called up from the Reserves may not have had the same level of defensive equipment as regular Army equipment. We have misplaced priorities in the defense budget, but funding is needed in certain areas.

Re: Education, what are you talking about? There's plenty of information on Dean's web site about this issue. Two teachers unions have endorsed Dean: the California Teachers Association and the Vermont Teachers Association. No teachers unions have endorsed Kucinich. By the way, Vermont is middle of the country in income ranking but outranks much of the rest of the country in student performance.

Re: Energy/environment, I'm not sure there's enough to go on yet to make a distinction between the two candidates. Kucinich has good environmental ratings in Congress (from what I've heard), and Dean has a good land preservation record in Vermont (to combat sprawl). Dean also opposes new nuclear plants until the waste problem is solved -- something I happen to disagree with him on but which some environmentalists like. He has also come out against the "grandfather" exceptions and recent EPA changes to New Source Review. And Vermont is one of the few states that joined in the stricter auto emissions standards (along with some other northeastern states and California), even though Vermont doesn't have automobile pollution problems like smog-filled cities. Dean also favors raising SUV fuel consumption standards to the identical standards for cars.

Re: Family farms, again, check Dean's web site. What has NAFTA got to do with family farms? If you're arguing that agricultural products from Mexico impact family farms, that's a stretch. It works both ways. A huge amount of U.S. farm output goes to Canada, for example, including products from family farms. Sorry, we disagree on this one profoundly. Read what the Republicans did with Smoot-Hawley in 1930 to see how this country dug itself deeper into the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover. Free trade is exactly what we should be trying to get, with a few basic rules to assure that we're not destroying environment or putting workers into sweatshops in the process.

Re: Gun control, take a look at Canada. Awash in guns, virtually no crime. This gun control liberal is reluctantly forced to conclude that gun control may not be the answer.

Re: Health care, huh? Kucinich wants a Canadian-style nationalized healthcare system. A Democratic Congress couldn't get the Clinton Plan (which fell far short of this) passed, so what's the point in debating an issue position that won't ever happen? Under President Kucinich we'll have exactly the same crappy healthcare system we have right now. Under President Dean we'll get progress. And since we're talking about people dying here, I'd much rather have progress than ideology.

Re: Iraq, huh? Kucinich's and Dean's positions were identical on this one through the run-up. Now they are different, though. Dean still believes there's a way to internationalize this disaster (although time is running out), on the theory that "we broke it, we bought it." Kucinich just wants to run home and leave Iraqis to shoot each other for a long time.

Re: Labor, again, huh? Dean looks set to receive the endorsements of over 3.6 million members of various labor unions. Kucinich is less than 0.1 million.

Re: Patriot Act, Both Kucinich and Dean want to substantially modify it. (Kucinich has said, in the past, he just wants to repeal the whole thing, but from what I can tell in the legislation he introduced in Congress he wants to mend it.)

Re: Sexual orientation, great, but why do so many more GLBT Americans support Howard Dean? And why hasn't Dennis gotten anything done to help the GLBT community since his mayoral days? There's only one state in the country where GLBT have full civil rights: Vermont. (California is almost there.)

Re: Taxation, both very similar, agreed.

Re: Trade, yes, of course, Dean supports NAFTA and free trade, with safeguards. Read your history books. Free trade is first and foremost for consumer interests, by the way, i.e. individuals. Why should government tax me for buying French wine, Canadian paper, Mexican blankets or automobiles, English cheese, or Italian vinegar? And where do you think my payments for those products goes? Usually it goes right back into exports from the United States of Hollywood movies, software, countless agricultural products, etc.

Ask farmers whether they think we ought to trade with Cuba or not. Apparently Kucinich thinks it's OK to have exceptions for countries with awful human rights records (e.g. Cuba) and not OK to trade with second world countries that are trying to get ahead (e.g. Mexico). Why some "progressives" are against free trade is just completely beyond me. Didn't anyone read what the Republicans did in 1930 to this country?

Re: Treaties, you'll have to be more specific. Dennis Kucinich and Bush seem to think that presidents have the power to unilaterally abrogate treaties. Dean thinks Congress ought to have a role in that, since they pass the treaties in the first place.

Re: corporate interests, sure, that's a threat. But the biggest threat is the influence of corporate interests over the political process, and that's addressed by having a quarter million people (and growing fast) each inspired to give 77 bucks to a presidential candidate (Dean). It's not to rail against free trade -- lots of corporations hate free trade. (Ask USX what they think.)