Kucinich!

So it's Super Tuesday. Huzzah! In honor of that, I'm going to post something I wrote almost TWO months ago! Lucky you. I originally wrote this for HuffPo, but they seemed to decide it was irrelevant or something, which is why it is now being posted on a blog that no one reads.

I mentioned before that I had planned to vote for Kucinich. I wrote a full article on that. Now that I can't vote for him, and will be voting for someone else, as well as whether or not we should be better funding Native American alcohol addictions. Among other things.

My, have I gone link crazy today! Probably to make up for the lack of content. Anyway, here it is, my essay on supporting Kucinich. I called it: In Which I Give Money to a Candidate Who Very Well May Never Win a National Election, Ever. Enjoy. Or, don't.

Former good movie maker and current good author Steve Martin is also, we should recall, a former amazing stand-up comedian. On one track of his how-can-it-be-so-funny Let’s Get Small, Martin mentions a few of the things he’s purchased since he started raking in the money. “I got me a $300 pair of socks. I got a fur sink. Oh…let’s see…electric dog polisher, that was a good one. Gasoline-powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I’ve bought some dumb stuff, too.”

I, aside from also being genius in many formats (start looking forward to my lite rock album), have bought some stuff that others might be inclined to call “dumb”. Usually, I’m aware that I’m spending more money than I ought to in order to purchase something I ought not to. There’s the couple hundred I dropped on a button maker – buttons that you might wear to tout bands or presidential candidates – so that I can cut and paste words out of the New York Times and The Economist to say dirty things. There’s the two full Puma tracksuits I own, one larger than the other, so that I may wear one for lounging and one for formal occasions. People tend to think the fact that I still pay for the music I listen to, and buy all my albums in actual CD format, is not so bright in the age of The Napster and The Limewire and whatever the kids are using these days (darn kids with their rocking and rolling), especially considering I own near 500 CDs now. I own, and I am not exaggerating, four (count ‘em 1-2-3-4) copies of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. Yes, the one starring Peter Weller. One copy on DVD, two (count ‘em 1-2) VHS copies, and, naturally, a copy on BetaMax. The shipping cost more than the actual tape on that one.

And, yesterday, I added to that list of “dumb stuff” by dropping another fifty bucks down a black hole.

I donated to Dennis Kucinich’s campaign.

Yes. That Dennis Kucinich. Yes, yes, he has an attractive wife. I know. Yes, yes, he’s a vegan. I know this, too. Yes, yes, I feel like I could put him in my pocket and feed him M&Ms all day (oops…vegan) or bring him to work in my jacket a la Indian in the Cupboard. Well, I don’t know if I actually could do that last one—that’s more speculative on my part. Anyway, none of these things played into my decision to donate, for the first time in my life, to a political campaign. If I had wanted any of those things specifically, I could have supported Fred Thompson, Weird Al Yankovich, or an Oompa Loompa, respectively. Although, a point for Kucinich: with a British First Lady we could have the import tax lowered on Daniel Craig. I mean, Casino Royale was pretty rad. And I hear Golden Compass has talking bears in it and stuff.

So, why, then, have I decided to spend my hard-earned (okay, maybe not so hard-earned. To be fair, I am writing this while at work.) money on this exercise in futility? Well, first of all, I don’t subscribe to this I-Don’t-Recycle-Because-One-Can-Doesn’t-Make-A-Difference-Because-Other-People-Don’t-Recycle mentality. Kucinich most likely won’t win the election because we have been told he can’t win the election. He doesn’t win because you all (yes, YOU, Dear Reader) don’t want to “waste” your vote. However, I tend to think I’m only wasting my vote if I spend it on someone I don’t truly want to win, only because they’re the most “electable”. Let’s not do the whole cart-horse thing. You know. Putting one in front of the other or whatever.

Okay, that’s definitely enough preaching. I’m not Mike Huckabee (Zing! (But really. Talk about sneakily crazy with that guy.)).

More important, though, is that the longer Kucinich can stay in the race, the longer he gets a platform from which to voice his incredibly cogent views. And that means the other candidates might, just might, have to address those issues themselves. The more pointed, the more candid, the more direct Kucinich is in his criticisms and solutions, the less other candidates can respond to everything in glib sound bites. Also, every single sentence Kucinich says doesn’t start with, “My daddy worked in a mill.” We get it, John. We really, really get it. We got it four years ago; we get it now.

And that’s the story of Why I Decided to Give Money to Kucinich.

Besides, what else was I gonna spend the money on? Inflatable mittens?

I know, right? How could that have not been published? Another scathing mill insult to a candidate that's not even in the race anymore in a column about a candidate that never even really was in the race! A travesty, indeed.