Kucinich, Losing District, Plans To Run In Washington State

[jimmy olsen]

Weird. I hope he loses, congressmen should have lived for a while in the state they represent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/politics/24kucinich.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Kucinich, Losing District, Looks Very Far Afield
Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times

Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio greeted supporters on Saturday at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.
By CARL HULSE
Published: May 23, 2011
SEATTLE — Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the liberal Democrat from Cleveland, was a long way from home — 2,000 miles give or take. But he found plenty of political admirers in this stronghold of progressive political thought.

"Run, Dennis, run," urged Karen Pooley, a 48-year-old sales representative as Mr. Kucinich addressed her and other chanting protesters who were outside a Chase bank to rally against government policies that favor financial institutions while teachers are being laid off.

Mr. Kucinich is indeed thinking about running, but it would not be another try for president and maybe not even an eighth House race back in Ohio. Instead, the 64-year-old Mr. Kucinich, who first gained fame as the "boy mayor" of Cleveland in the 1970s, is delicately examining the idea of running for Congress here in Washington State next year. Given Ohio's loss of two House seats, his district is likely to disappear when new map lines are drawn.

But Washington is gaining a seat, and Mr. Kucinich figures his aggressive brand of antiwar, pro-working class politics could sell well in a solidly blue state where he has ideological allies and was popular in his White House bids in 2004 and 2008. It is a somewhat novel idea that could be summed up as: Have seniority, will travel.

"I think the issues that I speak about in terms of economic and social justice and peace and environmental quality are things that concern people all over the country, and I am grateful to be here with people of like mind," Mr. Kucinich said on Saturday as he joined the crowd outside the bank in the heavily Democratic neighborhood of Wallingford.

While Mr. Kucinich's case may be the most extreme example, he is not the only member of the House examining options for 2012. As happens every 10 years, the post-census redistricting is causing political dislocation for many incumbents as they watch state legislators chop up their districts.

In Iowa, Representative Tom Latham is planning to move into a nearby county to challenge a Democrat rather than a fellow Republican, Representative Steve King, after the two were thrown together in a redrawn district. Representative Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana, entered his state's Senate race after his district strength was diluted.

In Missouri, Representative Russ Carnahan, a member of a powerful Democratic family, saw his district vanish in what he viewed as gerrymandering by state Republicans. He is now eying a run for a new neighboring district that he said is about a five-minute drive from his St. Louis home. "I am very confident that at the end of the process, I am going to have a good district to run in and continue to serve and fight for the people I represent in Missouri," Mr. Carnahan said.

No one else in the House appears to be weighing the kind of cross-country move that Mr. Kucinich is exploring. And he, ever mindful that he still represents Ohio and could end up running there, says only that he is trying to find a way to remain a voice in Congress even if his district is dissolved.

"My district appears to be on the block, so I am looking at options, and I am not limiting those options to Ohio," Mr. Kucinich said.

Mr. Kucinich's effort would certainly be unusual. In the early days of Congress, a few House members won election years apart in two different states. But Ed Foreman, now a motivational speaker, was the last to do so, more than 40 years ago; elected as a Republican from Texas in 1962, he lost his re-election bid  in 1964, and then won one term in New Mexico in 1968.

The idea that Mr. Kucinich would relocate to the Pacific Northwest before 2012, when his current term in Ohio ends, is not going over well with everyone in Democratic circles.

"Washingtonians are not going to be receptive to a sitting congressman from Ohio filing for office in our state," said Dwight Pelz, chairman of the Washington Democratic Party.

Mr. Pelz said that while Washington was strongly Democratic, the new district would most likely be centered in the Seattle suburbs and be home to swing voters who might not take to Mr. Kucinich's liberal politics.

"If Dennis Kucinich is our candidate, we could easily lose that district," said Mr. Pelz, who said he had made his views known to the congressman.

It is unclear what competition Mr. Kucinich would face in Washington's new 10th Congressional District. Tom Cramer, an unsuccessful House candidate in 2010, said he  intended to run for the new seat and predicted it would be "very, very difficult" for Mr. Kucinich. If Representative Jay Inslee, a Democrat, runs for governor, Mr. Kucinich could run for his seat north of Seattle.

If Mr. Kucinich's weekend schedule was any indication, he is taking the matter seriously. In addition to the rally at the bank, he spoke to Democrats outside Seattle in Woodinville, a suburb that could be part of the new district, before he met with students at the University of Washington. He spoke at fund-raisers and gave a presentation on "reconnecting with the natural world" at the Green Festival in Seattle.

He has built-in name identification — a woman he bumped into at the popular Pike Place Market was wearing an old Kucinich for President button.

And he won some converts, striking a chord with voters who believe that the political debate in the nation's capital has shifted too far to the right and needs the kind of countervailing view Mr. Kucinich provides.

"I don't think it is an ideal situation," said John Tuttle, a retired Web designer who spoke with Mr. Kucinich outside the bank, "but if he meets the legal requirements, I would vote for him."

Others noted that Mr. Kucinich was not the first political figure with a national following to go shopping for friendly political territory, pointing to Hillary Rodham Clinton's successful Senate run in New York.

"If New York can welcome a national figure to the state, we can welcome a national figure to Washington," said David Spring of North Bend, a former candidate for the state's Legislature who encouraged Mr. Kucinich to run during the visit to Woodinville.

Should Mr. Kucinich go ahead, he is certain to face accusations of carpetbagging and confront questioners like a woman on Saturday who pressed him on whether political candidates should be homegrown. He had a ready answer.

"Where people live is always interesting," Mr. Kucinich said. "Where they stand is quite instructive."

[Habbaku]

Weird. I hope he loses, congressmen should have lived for a while state they represent.

And people that teach English should have to double-check their posts.

While it's no doubt a sleazy move on Kucinich's part, if the people of a district in Washington want him to represent them (and show as much via the ballot box), I see nothing wrong with that.

[Razgovory]

I would rather he fade quietly into that dark night.

[HisMajestyBOB]

On the other end of crazy politics, talk is that Palin has bought a house in Arizona, possibly for a run there. Maybe she has Gifford's seat in her crosshairs?

[Razgovory]

A run to what?

[Eddie Teach]

She washed out in Alaska so she's going to the minors, eh.