Kucinich mixes street savvy with controversial style

[babylonsister]

Kucinich mixes street savvy with controversial style
By DAVID LIGHTMAN
McClatchy Newspapers

Day after day, 12-year-old Dennis Kucinich wore the same pair of turquoise blue pinstriped pants to school.

Other kids teased him about the pants, which he'd bought for a quarter at a Salvation Army store, but Kucinich had nothing else to wear. Finally, a nun at his school told him to stay after class and gave him and his family boxes of clothes.

"It was an extraordinary act of charity," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a recent interview. "Every step along the way there were people there to help us."

Kucinich is a product of west Cleveland, a middle-class urban community that thrived when America's factories were humming, but has been struggling to survive for at least a generation.

Like so many Rust Belt ethnic enclaves, the congressman's district is still largely populated by scrappers, people who worked with their hands and lived by their wits and relied heavily on their governments - state, local and federal - for safety nets and jobs when times were bad.

It's long been a place where politicians are friends, neighbors and favor-dispensers. Maintaining that street-level sense has been the key to Kucinich's rocky yet ultimately triumphant political career, one that saw him become mayor of Cleveland in 1977, at age 31, then saw him nearly recalled from office as the media mocked him as "Dennis the Menace."

more...

http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/362218.html

[Desertrose]

1. Least he remembers what it felt like.....

that says a lot about why he wants to help out his fellow man & woman.

DR

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Dennis hasn't forgotten

and he lives within his means. If memory serves, in 2004 there was a piece about the houses where the various candidates lived. Kucinich's house was the most modest. Wish all Congress critters lived that way--when one that isn't wealthy to begin with goes to Washington and starts lavishing himself with expensive items, I've gotta wonder who they are getting money from.

[riqster]

4. DK bought that house in the '70s.

It's OK, a little bungalow. DK knows where he came from. No frou-frou haircuts for him!

[rjones2818]

3. When choosing your progressives and populists....

Remember that you have a choice of one who's lived the life, walked the walk and is an actual union member

vs

Well...um...y'know...a trial lawyer who apparently doesn't understand the idea of product liability!

I know who I choose!

Go Dennis! :woohoo:
http://dennis4president.com
Choose Peace!

[Adelante]

5. product liability!

Best line of the night.

[KoKo]

6. K:&R....it's sad how media and many in the public want "stars" or

the entitled to run for and win the Presidency. And, when they screw up we wonder why. Jimmy Carter was the closest we've had in decades who was an ordinary person who grew up in rural Georgia and made his money off his peanut farm. Did our Dems support him when he won the Presidency? No, they laughed at his energy policy...went after his banker Bert Lance and trashed everyone in his cabinet and Carter's own hapless brother. I've never heard a mention in the media about Chimpy's brothers..(except star Jeb)who have done far worse than Billy Bob Carter.

Unless there's some dark thing in Kucinich's past that the Media knows but isn't telling us...Kucinich is the closest we have come to "anyone can become President" that we have seen or will see. I'd like to take a chance with him. Because I'm tired of the Political Games and the money and inside the Beltway mentality. But, we all know that the Vast Political Establishment will never allow anyone real to make it to the WH. It was almost impossible in the past but now it's totally impossible. Still...it's worth a try to give Kucinich enough support that the VPE...starts to notice that Americans are sick of Business as Usual and Politics as usual and are not going to stand for it any longer...no matter if Hillary or Obama win the nomination.