Kucinich stumps on O'ahu for presidential campaign
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the first candidate for the 2004 presidential election to visit Hawai'i, kept hundreds of supporters cheering last night at Church of the Crossroads as he delivered an enthusiastic oratory.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
An end to U.S. troop deployments to Iraq, a much greater emphasis on environmental sustainability, a five-day-a-week national daycare program, increased Social Security benefits and full, universal healthcare were among the changes he said he would work to initiate.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, filled Weaver Hall at Church of the Crossroads.
Universal coverage, including dental care and alternative medicine coverage, "would be cheaper than what we have now," he said.
"We spend more money per capita than any nearly any other country," he said. "Yet 45 million Americans are without health insurance."
Kucinich said he would work to abolish nuclear weapons, would support treaties limiting biological, chemical and other forms of warfare and would bring the United States into the newly established international criminal court.
"All the world is waiting for an America that will recognize the need for cooperation," he said. "It is time we connect with the world community."
Kucinich said he would establish a Department of Peace, an office within the cabinet that would serve as a conduit for nonviolent domestic and foreign policies.
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The crowd, numbering well over 300 people, filled the hall, spilled out into lawn chairs in the courtyard and on the sidewalks, drowned out the ends of Kucinich's sentences with applause, hoots and other affirmations and rose at the end of the speech for cheers and applause.
Kucinich, a four-term congressman, said reducing Pentagon spending would provide much of the money for his projects.
He said he would call on the American people to provide him with a Congress that would support his national healthcare program much the way President Franklin Roosevelt had asked for and received the political support he needed to pass his New Deal legislation.
Before the speech, Kucinich said the United States should go to the world community and propose that the United Nations take the mission in Iraq, "so we can get the U.N. in and the U.S. out," he said. "I want to see our troops brought home as soon as possible."
He said the United Nations "absolutely" could handle the situation in Iraq without U.S. involvement, and cut off a question about the U.N.'s peacekeeping performance throughout the years of war in Bosnia, before the United States and other NATO troops moved in.
"We're talking about Iraq right now," he said. "And I'll also say that I wasn't in favor of the United States bombing Serbia, either."
Under his plan for Iraq, he said, the United Nations temporarily would administer the country's oil and other resources, and a multinational peacekeeping force would be supplemented with Iraqis commissioned as police and military until the country could administer itself.
Kucinich was elected to Congress in 1996 and chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He made several appearances in Maui over the weekend.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
