Dennis Kucinich is the candidate for president the media doesn’t want you to know about. Now, you may be thinking, why would the media want to alter the democratic race for the presidency and why would they target Kucinich?

Here are just a few reasons:

Dennis Kucinich, as a member of the House of Representatives, voted against the Iraq war and rallied opposition to it. He also voted against the Patriot Act (which he would cancel with the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act). He would also, if elected, withdraw the U.S. from Iraq in 90 days and go back to the U.N. to handle Iraq’s reconstruction. Not only that, but he would withdraw from the World Trade Organization and The North American Free Trade Agreement, sign the Kyoto and Nuclear Non Proliferation treaties, cut the bloated defense budget by 15 percent (which is $400 billion and also has over $1 trillion missing), legalize gay marriage, work for a Universal “Medicare for All” healthcare system, break up the media and corporate monopolies, start a “Global Green Deal” for the environment and decriminalize marijuana.

No other candidate currently seeking the presidency, except for Al

Sharpton, stands for any of those positions.

You may be thinking that a lot of people who run for president, especially Democrats, make all sorts of promises to get people’s votes. Why should you believe Kucinich?

Here are just a few reasons:

Kucinich was elected Mayor of Cleveland in 1977. At age 31 he was the youngest person ever elected mayor of a major city. At the time the city was in a financial crisis and he campaigned not to sell the city’s municipal power plant to pay off debt. When he took office, an Enron-like power company was trying to take over the power plant and Kucinich bravely said “No.” So, not to be outdone, the private power company teamed up with the city bankers and told Kucinich that he would either sell the power plant or they would throw the city into default. Forced into a corner, what did Kucinich do? He did what he promised to do and didn’t sell the power plant. The city went into default.

Kucinich barely survived a recall and lost re-election in 1979. For years he was out of politics and could barely find a job.

About 15 years later the people of Cleveland thanked him for not selling the power plant and saving the city over $150 million. He was then elected to the state senate and then to Congress. Today he uses a light bulb for his slogan.

If that doesn’t have you convinced, then consider his recent actions concerning Diebold. In case you don’t know, Diebold is a voting machine company over which there has been a big controversy, also not covered much in the media, over their touch-screen electronic voting machines, which have NO paper ballot. A copy of internal memos from the company was given to Internet dissident Bev Harris, who then posted them on her website. Bev Harris’ Web site (www.blackboxvoting.com) was shut down (hacked) during the California Recall Election in which the aforementioned touch-screen machines were used in several counties.

These memos detail internal corruption and awareness that the vote machines can be easily altered without detection (the CEO of the company promised to “deliver Ohio to Bush in 2004”). In the fall of 2003, a group of students at Swarthmore College posted the memos on their website. Embarrassed and wary of these facts getting around, Diebold sued. When it looked like the college was going to cave in to Diebold, in stepped Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich bravely posted the memos on his website (http://www.kucinich.us/e-voting/intro.php) and raised the issue in congress. Diebold backed down.

Though the race for the Democratic nomination may seem to be in Kerry’s hands, the platform of the party is decided upon at the nomination. If enough delegates represent Kucinich there is a chance that some of these issues will make it into the party platform going against Bush. Another factor to consider is now that Howard Dean has dropped out much of his support could go to Kucinich. In any case, the race is far from over.

You have a chance to see Dennis Kucinich and decide if he is the president you want in the White House. He will speak tomorrow from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the Campus Center Auditorium.

Information for this column was taken from kucinich.us, tvnewslies.org and blackboxvoting.com

John Pearson is a UMass student.