Rep. Dennis Kucinich will seek reelection in Cleveland setting up primary battle with Rep. Marcy Kap

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Plain Dealer

Rep. Dennis Kucinich will seek reelection in Cleveland setting up primary battle with Rep. Marcy Kaptur
Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 2:09 PM
Updated: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 3:40 PM
By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he plans to seek re-election in a reconfigured congressional district that fuses his western Cuyahoga County base with most of a Toledo-oriented district that has long been represented by Democrat Marcy Kaptur.

His announcement in an email to supporters titled "We Have a District!" sets up a primary battle between the former Cleveland mayor and Kaptur, who is Ohio's longest serving member of Congress. Kaptur says she also plans to see re-election in that district.

"What they have done here is macabre," Kaptur said of the GOP redistricting plan that put her hometown in with Kucinich's. "I will run on my record and on the results that I have been able to achieve over the years. For the portion of the district where the people have not had me as a representative, I would like to introduce myself and talk about that record and my desire to represent the new part of the district."

Kaptur - who is serving her 15th congressional term - said she already represents the largest share of the new district's Lake Erie frontage, and has done much work over the years securing federal dollars for Cleveland and Cuyahoga County as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which makes spending decisions.



Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/09/rep_dennis_kucinich_will_seek.html

[WhiteTara]

1. Too bad Dennis...Go MARCY!

She is the best and deserves re election. I love Dennis, but she is the real one.

[cyclezealot]

8. Nah.

My money goes to Kucinich. He's the real deal.. Not that we don't love Marcy . They both are awesome.. No one has been out there in front of the fight for single payer with the energy of Kucinich.. Kucinich 's flirt with Washington State was out of respect for his democratic colleagues .. An attempt to not have to run against them.. He should be praised for being a gentlemen. Not condemned.
The travesty is combining Toledo with Cleveland. They are separate entities . Its a two hour drive with little in common. And far different concerns.. Shame to think we would fight each other, when its really a Gobber gerrymander.

[WhiteTara]

20. Sorry about the redistricting. It sucks.

I don't know about Washington State and all that. I just met him once and I wanted to pat him on top of the head and tug his ears. When Marcy speaks, she makes me proud to be a woman.

[No Elephants]

25. Do you know why he decided against Washington?

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. I'm sure that Kaptur won't use Dennis' flirting with leaving the state to run WA against him

[brentspeak]

3. So its been rigged for two of the best Dems to vy against each other

[midnight]

19. It seems that way.... I don't really understand the redistricting thing that just

happened but if this is the outcome, I can't seem to think of it any other way...

[defendandprotect]

4. Prefer Kucinich over Kaptur ... but no Senate seats open?

[Telly Savalas]

23. Sherrod Brown is up for relection in 2012

Wouldn't want to lose him either.

I don't have a lot of patience for what I perceive to be Kucinich's grandstanding, but even with that he's still better than 90% of the folks we have in the House. It's kind of a bullshit situation that's been created in Ohio.

[on point]

5. Bummer. I like both these folks. Perhaps one could move to state level??

[ixion]

6. Go Dennis!!

:woohoo:

[KamaAina]

7. Toledo-to-Cleveland gerrymander?!

100 miles?! When such a district is drawn for the purposes of creating a majority black district, the repukes scream bloody murder. What possible purpose does this serve other than pitting two (usually) progressive Dems (both, especially Kaptur, are weak on choice) against one another?

[NEOBuckeye]

18. Totally Absurd

Cleveland and Toledo are two very different cities. Makes no sense whatsoever, but this is the 2011 Republican Party we're talking about.

[Nikia]

21. I agree

I grew up in Ohio and am completely shocked at this news. This completely defeats the point of even having districts.

[du_grad]

24. Toledo will be divided into three parts

http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2011/09/14/Kapturs-district-reshuffled.html

This overt gerrymandering sucks! I live in the part of Toledo that will go to Latta (5th district Republican) after having Marcy as my Congresswoman since 1980. Check out the map of Toledo on the website. Marcy said that Toledo has never been divided by Congressional district since the Civil War!

Nobody in Toledo has probably ever heard of Jim Jordan. He will now represent East Toledo. We will have two Republicans representing 2/3 of a city who is largely Democratic and was one of the only places to support Jimmy Carter in 1980. Lucas Co. voted overwhelmingly for Obama and apparently now we are going to pay :-(.

[Seedersandleechers]

9. Oh no!

Two progressive congressmen up against each other? Would have loved to see Kucinich unseat a republican.

[KoKo]

10. Dem Party and Obama should have fought or at least talked about what's going on all over the US with

Repug Redistricting!

Because of redistricting (not challenged by DOJ's Holder) Marci Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich will be forced to fight for the same seat.

No matter which one wins...the House will be minus one more Progressive/True Dem Representative.

Here in North Carolina the Repugs managed to get the House and Senate in the 20100 Elections (even though NC went for Obama in 2008) and now we have two progressive/liberal/Dems pitting against each other who are FRIENDS. So we will lose ANOTHER DEM Progressive because of the Repugs Redistricting.

I do blame this on Obama and his lack of support for Dem Party and his DOJ who won't investigate the Repugs taking over and ramming through Redistricting to suit their own purpose.

This new House and Senate because of lack of strong Dem opposition to Gerrymandering by Repug Teapartiers (sponsered by Koch and Mellon-Scaife and Corporate Money from COC Power) will leave Obama with a Repug and House (STRONG) because there will be almost half of the Progressive/Lib Dems who will go down.

This is not a good thing for us Dems going forward. The Dem Party will become morphed with the Repug Party in some Middle-Morph that will be more right wing than we had ever invisioned even in our nightmares. There will be no CHECK on the Tea Party..!

[Gregorian]

11. I always learn from this forum.

I was excited to read Dennis's website. Now that I see the replies, like yours, I see the situation clearly.

[KoKo]

14. Marci Kaptur and Brad Miller (NC) or David Price (NC) going down will be a horrible loss to RDR Dem

Party! To pitt Kucinich agains Kaptur? Both of them are so good holding back the RW Repugs!

This is pitting the best who hold back the Repugs against each other. And these are the two races I know the most about. This is going on all over the US. Look at what happened to Progressive Lib Anthony Weiner's Seat that went Repug in NY State!

It's everywhere. It's a concerted effort. It's in your state too! Check it out. Pitting Lib/Progressive Dems Against Lib/Progressive for 2012 due to the Chamber of Commmerce/Koch and Mellon-Scaife/Corporate Money to defeat the Dems.

Obama wins but has a Tea Party House and Senate to deal with? For a second term.

[Gregorian]

15. Would you please post your thoughts in a new thread.

Weiner's loss could have been avoided. But these others are disturbing. And here I was all happy. It's always something with these conservative authoritarians we're up against. Rove comes to mind.

More people need to hear what you're saying. Please.

[KoKo]

17. People don't read many of my OP posts on DU...but when I find a good article about it ..I will post

..and I suspect that some Lib Bloggers will get into this and I will post about that.

It's very important this gets out...so thanks!

[dionysus]

12. LOL, obama's fault in record time...

:rofl:

[No Elephants]

26. Not really. Sometimes, the blame is in the opening post.

[former9thward]

13. How could the Party talk about this when they are doing the same thing in areas they control.

In Illinois, for example, they have drawn up new districts which put incumbent Republicans into the same district.

[24601]

16. That's very, very different - just give me time to figure out why. n/t

[No Elephants]

27. LOL!

[Major Hogwash]

31. But, you're from Arizona.

So, it's a little odd that you would comment about what is going on in Illinois.

[former9thward]

36. I thought this was a political discussion board.

I guess I was wrong. What is it? Only if you are from a state can you comment on what is happening in that state? Is that a new DU rule you put in? Please inform.

[harmonicon]

22. I just blame general Democratic opposition to gerrymandering.

I really think passing laws to institute mathematical, unbiased redistricting the norm would do wonders for our democracy. Unfortunately, too many people see it as being some sort of game and not actually being about, you know, representative democracy. Even on DU I've seen many people basically say "since the other side does it, we should do it too!". Well, this is where that's gotten us.

[No Elephants]

29. Principled decisions that favor democracy are always preferable.

The futures of our families and our Constitution are going down the tubes.

Meanwhile, both Republicans and Democrats act as though which Party "wins" is all that matters, as if governing were some kind of ball game. As differences between the Parties lessen, that seems more puerile than ever.

[harmonicon]

33. I'm seriously considering never coming back to the US.

Sure, I'll go back to see my family, but if there's a legal way for me to live in Europe or another first-world location, I'll take it.

A good friend of mine who's lived in Amsterdam his entire life is moving to Belgium this year, because he's disgusted with Dutch politics, the right of which he says are fascists - and they likely are. The difference, I think, is that at least those fuckers know that they're fascists and know what/why they are full of hate. I in no way blame my friend (who is a Muslim) for wanting to get out of there. However, what is to be done when so many people in the US think that Obama is a Muslim? I read a list of facebook comments from people about Obama and our new anit-Muslim holiday that were just staggering in their sheer stupidity. I would take a functioning democracy with fascist zealots in power over whatever the fuck it is that passes for government and politics in the US now.

[No Elephants]

34. Sadly, so many countries are now, to put it in our own paradigm, red or purple.

Amsterdam, of all countries, to elect fascists?

"I'll retire to Bedlam."

I have no clue what, if anything can be done, about conservatives getting elected in the US, let alone in other countries.

[Blue_Tires]

37. good points...

[Major Hogwash]

32. I don't agree all that much.

They set up a completely autonomous committee here to keep the Republicans from gerrymadering because the Republicans accused the Democrats of doing it in 1970 when they were in power, so the Republicans did it when they were in power in 1980, and again in 1990. In 2000, they started drawing districts that were completely without logic except to keep them in power, so the Democrats here sued and a judge agreed with them.

After 3 more attempts, and 3 more lawsuits throwing out the Republicans attempt to use crayons to color the entire state red, they settled on using a committee of people who were not office holders of any kind.
They came up with a redistricting plan within 2 months, and even though their first attempt was thrown out by a judge, they had it done by Halloween that year.

Not so, this year.
This year the committee could not even do their job after meeting for 90 days, so it is now headed back to the courts!
Right?

Wrong!
The Idontknow Supreme Court issued an opinion last week that they do not have the authority to make that committee do their appointed job!!
Needless to say, the state Supreme Court here is now full of judges and hacks that were appointed by Republican Governors over the last 20 years.

The Republicans wanted to split counties, which has been done before.
They wanted to split towns, which has been done before.
But this year, the Republicans on that committee even wanted to split farms in the east of a county from other farms in the same area of the same county to draw their redistricting lines in an obvious attempt so as to try and keep their tenuous hold on power here.

It isn't going to work, though.
The Democrats on that committee are not stupid, so they didn't approve their plans.
The Governor has no clothes, and that's obvious now too.
Because he couldn't even keep control over his own party hacks to do their job and getting their job done while they went about it without even trying to have an appearence of being fair and balanced.

The Faux Snooze channel has infected the legislature here so bad that now we have the Faux Snooze state legislature and the Faux Snooze redistricting committee.
They're waiting for Steve Douchy to tell them what to do!!

Incredible.

[Overseas]

38. Thanks for reminder about Repub redistricting-- yet another weapon they have been using

to crush what remains of our democracy.

[In Jest]

28. That's too bad

I like Marcy Kaptur.

[No Elephants]

30. I have a feeling that, as far as the Party Establishment, this will be

Lieberman Lamont all over again, with Dennis being Lamont. Except that both these candidates are apparently good Democrats.

Watch for Colbert and perhaps even Jon Stewart to join in the hatchet job.

Hate to see two good Democrats pitted against each other.

[MiaCulpa]

35. oh, shit.

Kaptur will never win Cleveland. She is far too anti-choice, and even went along with Michigan's nutball rep Pete Hoekstra and all his recent very anti-woman legislation. That's how Kaptur kept her Ohio district in the past, before redistricting she had mostly anti-choice Catholics for constituents. She was actually more conservative in that area than the repub candidate who ran against her last election.