Two lesser known candidates recently visited YBP, Carol Moseley Braun and Dennis Kucinich
by Karin Haug, Customer Service Bibliographer
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, Karin Haug, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Academia staff or YBP Library Services.
Carol Moseley Braun
Dennis Kucinich
Carol Moseley Braun arrived without an entourage of reporters and campaign managers. Her down to earth style, articulate ideas, and use of humor was a refreshing change from the slick, primed politicians we’ve met of late, and she may very well be the most qualified and competent person running in the 2004 election.
Ms. Moseley Braun is used to paving the way. In November of 1992, she became not only the first female African-American senator, but the first African-American democrat to serve in the senate. She has served in government at the local level as a State Representative, County Executive Officer and Assistant United State Attorney. Additionally, she served as ambassador to New Zealand, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Antarctica. In her own words, she was “ambassador to paradise”. She tells her story with wit, humility, and pride.
Having served as Professor of Business Law at DePaul University Graduate School, she is familiar with the halls of academia. Ms. Moseley Braun believes “the rungs of the ladder of success are crafted in the classroom. In a global economic competition, it is crucial that education be seen not only as a private benefit, but also as a public good.” As President, she will make higher education affordable by working to expand Pell Grants as well as other scholarships and financial aid programs. She also intends to increase repayment of college loans to those who make a commitment to public service. She will support full funding of Head Start and other early childhood education programs while increasing national financial support for elementary and secondary education to relieve pressure on local budgets. This will allow local financial resources to be concentrated on improving content, curriculum and teacher support. She will also oppose school voucher programs which she believes drain resources from public systems.
Her discussion on libraries was limited, but she has been a consistent critic of the Patriot Act. “Everyone’s long term security is tied up in how well we work with others to fight terrorism around the world. But duct tape is no substitute for diplomacy, and the saber rattling that has made us all hostages to fear must stop.” She speaks a great deal about the war in Iraq which she strongly opposed but believes now must be handled with dignity. “So we shouldn’t be there, in my opinion. But having been – now that we’re there, we’ve got young men and women in the field. We cannot abandon them. We have to give them the support they need to get the job finished. Americans do not cut and run,” she says.
As the conversation turned to trade, she admitted to opposing NAFTA though she originally voted for it. Free trade, Ms. Moseley Braun claims, serves everybody, but in this case she believes have approached it wrong. Her opinion is it is in the interest of our private sector that we enforce our values and labor laws elsewhere.
Ms. Moseley Braun also tackled the health care issue which she would address by creating a universal coverage single payer system similar to the system offered to federal employees. This, she says, will take the burden off small businesses and job creation and put the health care provider and patient relationship at center of health care. She noted costs are lowered when people can get quality preventative care.
“Do you have a library card?” I asked her quickly as I shook her hand. “Of course,” she scoffed, surprised that I would even ask her. My next question intrigued her more. The last book she read? She rattled off two, answering the first that came to her mind and taking no time to consider the politically correctness of her answer. Open Wide Freedoms Gate: A Memoir (Dorothy Height) and The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century (Paul Krugman). She highly recommends both.
Dennis Kucinich began his political career as the youngest person elected mayor of a major city and waged (and won) a battle against a takeover of the Cleveland’s city owned power company. This fight, while it saved the people of Cleveland hundreds of millions of dollars, cost him re-election and derailed his life as a politician for fifteen years. He has defeated the odds having served both as state senator and as a member of congress since and now is running for President of the United States.
He arrived with an entourage of interns and flyers. The supporters he drew from the community filled a range of ages and backgrounds and came armed with questions.
He addressed the war in Iraq first, claiming he was the one candidate who had a plan to remove our troops from Iraq within a year of his presidency. As President, Kucinich will announce the United States intention to hand over all administrative and security responsibilities to the United Nations. He will, in exchange, give up all of the US interests in Iraq’s oil reserves and reconstruction contracts and allow the UN to administer both.
He moved on the healthcare next, saying unlike many other democratic candidates who promise “health insurance for all”, only he and Carol Moseley Braun were proposing a “universal health care system”. Kucinich agrees with many democrats that health care is experiencing a crisis in this country. To this end, like Ms. Moseley Braun, he plans to create a single payer, universal health care system, “Medicare for All”, which will include affordable prescription drugs. When asked how he will finance this initiative, he says, “The General Accounting Office of Congress has concluded, ‘if the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the saving of the administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the cost.’”
He called himself a strong supporter of public libraries. He has a library card, and says, “so much can be done if we support the expansion of knowledge.” As he spoke about libraries, he chose to mention a statue that marks the entrance to the House of Representative. The statue is not of military heroes, but of a woman holding a shield and protecting a child. The child is holding the lamp of knowledge. It is entitled "Peace Protecting Genius".” As President of the United States, Kucinich vows to make “peace protecting genius” the words of his presidency.
“We’ll throw the book at the Patriot Act, and I promise you’ll have a president who has actually read the bill of rights” he promised amidst much applause. Kucinich has regularly spoken out against The Patriot Act citing it violates Constitutional Amendments by treading on our rights to freedom of speech, right to peaceably assemble, by allowing unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause, by nullifying due process and removing the right to prompt and public trial and finally, by removing our protects against cruel and unusual punishment. He voted against the act and has helped draft an amendment that prohibits the Justice Department from carrying out the “sneak and peek” provision.
I asked him what he planned to do about the rising cost of higher education and how he would help people, like myself, graduating under the burdens of extensive education debt. “Well,” he smiled as he said, “I already have a daughter.” He went on to describe his intentions to remove Bush’s tax cuts from the wealthy and allocate 70 billion dollars toward sending people tuition free to public colleges and universities. Kucinich wants to increase programs that forgive education loans for those who do community work. He believes “education is necessary for social mobility” and notes when state budgets get cut, tuition usually goes up. He wants to see money that is funneled into the Pentagon and the war in Iraq be invested in the people, in state local budgets and in education.
“The President’s plan for education reform has become nothing more than an unfunded mandate. It leaves schools grossly under-funded and encourages teachers simply to teach students to pass performance tests, instead of teaching a broad based curriculum.” He plans to invest more government money in public education to remove some of the burden from state budgets because “quality education is a core American right and value”. To help combat this problem, he has introduced a bill to provide government funded pre-kindergarten programs for children aged 3-5.
Kucinich cites the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt as his model for how to help the economy and claims the government has the responsibility to create jobs when the private sector has failed. Thus, as president, he will instate public works programs. With this enabled workforce, he will rebuild not only bridges and dams, but new schools, new energy systems and yes, new libraries.
He is, let us not forget, a well-versed politician, and thus he provided well planned answers to most questions asked. He did so, however, with a sense of humor and a deep belief in what he was speaking. One of the moments which most struck me, was when a man presented the problem of fatherless children in this country. Kucinich listened politely as the man demanded that the government create initiatives to promote marriage. He chose not to give the man the answer he was looking for, but neither did he dismiss his concerns. Instead, he took a moment to reflect and then calmly stated that he recognized the epidemic of single mothers was a problem and that those children needed all the support their country could give them. However, he said, he worried when the man asked that the government get involved in promoting marriage; Kucinich is divorced with a daughter whose life he has been very involved in. He asked the man for some literature on the subject.
His strong love for this country, and his knowledge of history came through in most of his well educated answers. Therefore, it was hardly surprising to me that the last book he read was Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson by Gore Vidal (Yale Univ Press, 2003).
Carol Moseley Braun was perhaps the most impressive candidate that visited YBP, and Kucinich was one of the most articulate. Yet neither candidate has received the press attention afforded other democratic front runners. Ms. Moseley Braun cited a story of the first time she ran for office when someone said something to effect of, “It’s a shame you’ll never win because you’re black and a woman and people won’t vote for you.” She did win that election, however, and many more besides. When asked what he would say to people who said he couldn’t win, Kucinich promised, “If people vote for me, I can win.” As we enter the primary, let us remember it is not our duty to vote for “the winner” but for the candidate we personally feel is best suited to step to up the plate. The only thing that stands between a candidate and the presidency is votes, and it is our duty as voters to be courageous. Let us not let the media pick the President, but the people.
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