Tenacity

You heard a lot this primary about how hard Hillary Clinton works. How she never gives up and keeps campaigning till the bitter end. She liked to claim that's why 'hard working white americans' vote for her. One of the reasons she gave for staying in so long was that she wanted to stay in until all the states had voted to make sure 'every vote is counted.' It was the same reason she gave for counting all the MI and FL votes, which I won't get into here. More on that and Hillary another time.

For all the hype around her hard working and sticking to it, she still could learn a lot about that from Kucinich. The irrepressible Congressman is trying to start an impeachment of GW tonight in Congress. (Video) Belittled, berated, ridiculed, and scorned by nearly everyone, he is still plugging away.

NBC wins, debate gets a bit more boring

NBC had a debate last night for the Democratic candidates for president. At first, it had invited Dennis Kucinich, only to un-invite him shortly thereafter. Kucinich then went to court to force NBC to include him in the debate, and the judge agreed. NBC then appealed that to the supreme court of Nevada, and won. The debate had 3 people in the end: Clinton Obama and Edwards. Why did NBC invested so much effort to keep him out of the debate? The opening remarks by one of the moderators said something like 'the field is narrowed down to 3 candidates and this debate, for the first time, has only those 3'

Despite what was said, Kucinich is still in the race. He hasn't dropped out like Biden Dodd and Richardson. He has said he will stay in the race the whole way through. Whether or not he has strong support, I think anyone who is officially in the race should be allowed in the debates.

Was it really worth that much effort, of going to court to fight it, rather than just let him in?

A fun fact for you: Tim Russert was one of the moderators at the debate, he was also the person who asked Kucinich the UFO question at a previous debate (on the same network).

Update 1: WIth the wonders of video technology, you can now watch what the debate would have been if Kucinich was in it.

Update 2: Some people interrupt Jay Leno yelling about Kucinich

Nevada

It looks like Dennis Kucinich may be in the upcoming Nevada debate after all.

DK Update

Aragorn goes to NH to help Dennis Kucinich's campaign.

A longer but worth reading interview with Kucinich.

Saturday in New Hampshire

ABC had back-to back presidential debates yesterday, where they had close to all the Republican candidates, but then only 4 Democratic ones. It's understandable that they didn't have Chris Dodd or Joe Biden since they dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but Dennis Kucinich hasn't dropped out and they didn't invite him anyway. Whether he is a viable candidate or not, since he is an official candidate he should have been in that debate, especially since Bill Richardson was invited to it and Kucinich is at least as viable a candidate as him if not more.
Maybe it's a bit conspiracy theory-ish but the fact that Kucinich is an independent voice that doesn't play along with the corporate politics as usual seems to be a factor in it. He is outspoken about a single-payer not for profit health care system, which is different from universal health care that still includes for-profit insurance companies, even mandating coverage through them possibly enforced by fines.
It's certain that ABC and it's parent company Disney doesn't like his ideas for media reform with more public control of the broadcast spectrum. His bringing attention to the corporate owned nature of public resources and his related specific ideas and proposals, as opposed to non-specific lip service, doesn't sit well with the multinational corporations that have control of what we see and hear on the broadcast airwaves and publications.

On a positive note, John Edwards again talked about the world-wide elimination of nuclear weapons, including ours, something no other 'major' candidate has mentioned. Non-proliferation is well and good, but just not quite the same.

Elsewhere in New Hampshire yesterday, Bill O'Reilly is making news for getting in a scuffle with one of Obama's staff. Along with Guliani and McCain, he is making the hilarious trifecta of Republican self-caricatures.


Watch Kucinich on Bill Moyers

Being in the cool club

The end of 2007 saw the only two anti-war candidates blocked out of I think the last debates before the 'kick-off' of the primaries starts in Iowa and NH. It looks like Ron Paul, the only anti-war Republican candidate, possibly isn't going to be invited to a debate in early Jan. Earlier in Iowa, the Des Moines Register excluded Dennis Kucinich, the only anti-war Democratic candidate (as opposed to anti-Bush's war), from its debate.
Meanwhile in newspaper land, after getting canned from Time, Bill Kristol is seemingly going to write for the NYT soon. Actually about a week.

The mysterious pocket dimension

If your in the mood for a long anti-Clinton rant take a look here. It mentions Dennis Kucinich at the end, who you can see here.