Is there anyone like Kucinich but better on TV?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

Is there anyone who shares Kucinich's ideas and platform but who comes across as Clark or Edwards or Moseley-Braun on television? Are there other members of the Progressive Caucus that are great in a debate and telegenic? I guess Wellstone would have fit this qualification?

[DemPopulist]

1. Tom Harkin

I think so anyway...

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

2. his website is down

great

[caledesi]

3. I will tell you this. After seeing the Harkin Steak Fry...

All the candidates sounded damn good. Would vote for any one of them (although my heart is with Dean).

[tsipple]

4. Russ Feingold?

Jan Schakowsky's not bad, either. As for the Iraq war issue, Howard Dean is probably the closest match among candidates running.

[RichM]

5. No, there isn't, really. So the question poses itself: are those of us who

see how great DK's ideas are, willing to take him as he is? How much of his great platform is one willing to trade away to get someone more telegenic?

DK himself has said that of all the candidates, the one that he's friendliest with away from the campaign trail is John Edwards. This seems to me to be no accident, because Edwards is truly an unusually decent guy. It's wrong to characterize him as "just a pretty face with Southern charm." Edwards is charming because he has inner decency, which doubtless is related to his own working-class family roots.

However, on policy, he's not DK. Kucinich is special -- a very unusual person, IMO. He's already taken brave positions that will naturally expose him to charges of being a "lunatic leftist," etc. These charges should really be seen as compliments. They mean: he wants to take troops out of a fraudulent war & illegal occupation, he wants to cut the Pentagon budget, rescind the Bush tax cuts, & spend this money on universal health care & education. THAT is what it means to be a "lunatic leftist."

I say it's time to take the guy with the best ideas -- and to hell with how telegenic he is. It's too bad he doesn't look like JFK, but it's time we all grow up and give primacy to substance.

[tsipple]

7. Abe Lincoln Was Butt Ugly

And he did a decent job.

[RichM]

8. This is true -- but it was also before the age of television.

Abe probably wouldn't be considered "electable," today.

Which shows, of course, how utterly stupid the concept of "electability" is -- the whole idea of demanding that the candidate be gorgeous (perhaps not because YOU care so much, but because you're such a "pragmatist" that you think all the OTHER stupid voters will care).

[MuseRider]

9. I just don't get this

he isn't that bad! I think he is kinda cute actually but then a good mind is always the best turn on. He is, as Starpass said, the heart and soul of this party. IMO he is not a lunatic and I think that the idea that he is is the saddest thing I have ever heard. It just shows you how far right this country has been pulled. Sad, sad, sad.

[Terwilliger]

11. I dont think cultural qualms are left/right

fact of the matter is, if you're not a Kennedy type in this modern TV world, you're attacked for your "inability" to be attractive

Yes, it's sad...just as equally true.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. Kuciinich is a thousand xs better than the chimp on TV!!!

[Terwilliger]

10. Al Sharpton

you asked!