And that's what happened in 2000, and with a candidate better than Nader, it would have had an even greater impact. Look at the hysterical reaction of the Dems that year.
For all of this not to be true, for a Kucinich to actually get nominated, would mean that there would exist a radically different political situation in the U.S., virtually a pre-revolutionary situation in an advanced state, much more so than in the late 1960's, that the Dems would try to reverse with one last throw of the dice. And for that, they'ed need quite a Machievellian Kucinich, lol. (The actual Kucinich is a rather ascetic, saintly figure, alas, who still talks of America as the 'Shining City on the Hill' - as did Reagan, and so does not really break with the American Ideology, and it is why he can call those resisting the American occupation "criminals" (no doubt because they kill our saintly boys), a repulsive statement that deserves condemnation. Kucinich still sincerely worships at the Altar of America. Rather like Nader himself. But we need a Machievelli, not another Savonarola. See http://www.kucinich.us/statements.htm#100903)
If this were the case would it mean I am wrong in my general view of the political character of the Democratic Party (backed by over 150 years of historical record on this party) and that the Nathan Newmans are right, the Dems have "returned to their roots", etc? No, my view does not exclude the scenario in the paragraph above, obviously it is included, but only as an extreme limiting case that proves the general rule.
Because the historical record also shows that even this limiting case only appears when there is an organizationally independent and objectly threatening force from the left, as for ex., that which (unfortunately) produced the Popular Front in France (Blum, here, there had to be something on the left to 'front' with), or US liberal progresivism (TRoosevelt, Wilson, here they didn't front with the US Socialist party, but threw Debs and others in prison), or to a lesser extent, liberal New Dealism (CPUSA, who did front, but the real threat was 'international communism' represented internally by this organization).
The conclusion is that no matter what shade of left politics you espouse, (for the record, I espouse _no_ fronts with future Democratic Party Leon Blums, but that is another discussion) there is no way around the fact that the only viable strategy is to build an _organizationally_ independent movement that struggles in every way to project an objective presence in whatever political environment. With respect to this strategy, the Kucinichs only siphon off precious activist energies away from building such an effort in 2004 and into a worthless void. Which is no doubt why the Dems tolerate him.
Without this strategy put into effect, you won't even get a tepid liberal reform.
No how, no way. And the fact that we are still debating this basic issue is why I'm pessimistic on the US Left, and don't share Seay's and Henwoods' overly optimistic assessments of this Lefts' capacity to understand. The US left is backward and provincial.
Kucinich is a total waste of time. Just impotent politically correct postering, not a strategy. That too many people don't grasp this confirms my own assessment of the US Left. And no, I'm not hardly the only one who thinks so, you can be sure.
-Brad Mayer