Kucinich win shows labor's political power

[Peoples Weekly World]

**Kucinich win shows labor's political power**

(Reprinted from the November 23, 1996 issue of the People's
Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
For subscription information see below)

By Rick Nagin

Cleveland - The election of Dennis Kucinich in Ohio's 10th
Congressional District was a ground-breaking event
demonstrating the powerful political potential of a mass,
grassroots coalition led by labor.

Trade unionists and seniors provided the largest numbers of
some 5,000 volunteers but many others came from Hispanic,
environmental, peace and other organizations. Some were
unemployed workers or shoppers at the outdoor mall where the
headquarters was located who just walked in and offered to
help. On any day after early September there were probably
100 people working for some period of time in the
headquarters, a beehive of activity and camaraderie, where
anyone could find plenty of baked goods, bagels and cream
cheese and other snacks brought in by the volunteers.

According to the campaign staff, the volunteers canvassed at
least 600 of the district's 750 precincts, some as many as
four times. They turned the western half of Cuyahoga County
and especially the west side of Cleveland into a sea of
15,000 bright yellow yard signs reading "Light Up Congress!
Elect Dennis Kucinich" - a reminder of the historic fight
Kucinich had waged as Cleveland mayor when he refused to
sell the city-owned power plant to a private electric
company.

The staff estimated that the volunteers made 100,000 phone
calls and mailed out one million pieces of literature. Many
organizations issued their own literature and did their own
mailings including the AFL-CIO's Labor '96, the UAW CAP
Council, the Sierra Club, Peace Voter '96, gay rights and
senior groups. The United Auto Workers and the Steelworkers
did plantgate distributions. The Ohio Council of Senior
Citizens distributed 12,000 pieces with the positions of
Kucinich and his opponent, incumbent Martin Hoke, on senior
issues to senior buildings, nutrition sites and bingo games.
This was after the National Council of Senior Citizens and
the Cleveland AFL-CIO Retiree Council mailed voter
registration and absentee ballot forms to 16,000 union
retirees.

The coalition embraced many political viewpoints: Democrats,
independents, Greens, socialists, Communists, members of the
Labor Party, even some disgruntled Republicans. Democratic
Party figures, including First Lady Hillary Clinton,
Congressmen Louis Stokes, Joseph Kennedy and Barney Franks
visited Cleveland to help in the effort. Especially
significant were visits by Congresspersons Luis Gutierrez
and Nydia Velazquez who spoke to large meetings and rallies
and on the radio mobilizing an unprecedented vote in the
Hispanic community.

But it was the grassroots, labor-community coalition that
Kucinich had in mind on election night when he gave his
impassioned victory speech with jubilant leaders of
organized labor standing behind him, their right fists held
high, chanting, "We are the party of the people! We are the
party of the people!" The coalition was inspired by both
Kucinich's personality and his program.

Respected as a champion of the underdog and working people,
Kucinich was the son of a truck driver, who grew up in
extreme poverty even living for a time out of the family
car. As mayor, he had battled the power structure, the
utilities, the banks, the mass media and, although his
efforts saved the city light plant, he had waged the fight
alone with no organized base and was ruthlessly crushed
after the banks retaliated, forcing the city into default.

Despite years of ostracism and ridicule in the media,
Kucinich staged a dramatic comeback in 1994, when he was
elected to the state senate, one of the only Democrats in
the country to unseat an incumbent Republican in the year of
the Gingrich "revolution." At a time when other candidates
of his party believed they should move to the right and fell
like flies, Kucinich declared himself to be a Roosevelt
Democrat and championed the views of an emerging left-
center, labor-community coalition.

In the state legislature he spoke out on behalf of this
growing coalition, leading fights against privatization, the
locating of a nuclear waste dump in Ohio, and the cutting of
badly needed services to seniors and Hispanics. With the
AFL-CIO mobilizing to defeat the Gingrich gang in Congress,
it was only natural that Kucinich's campaign would become a
national rallying point.

Unlike many other Democrats whom labor supported as "lesser
evils," Kucinich raised the stakes. He issued a bill of
rights for working people stating his belief that people
have a right to a job, a right to a safe workplace, to
decent wages and benefits, to strike, to participate freely
in the political process. Issued on glossy paper with a
bright yellow background, the program was distributed
throughout the labor movement and posted on union bulletin
boards everywhere.

The Republicans reacted with fury to this open challenge to
their decades of labor-baiting bully tactics. Kucinich's
program, Republican county chairman Jim Trakas announced, is
"very similar to the Communist Manifesto" and is "what Lenin
stood for." Kucinich blasted this reversion to
"McCarthyism."

Martin Hoke, a loutish multi-millionaire, had been lucky to
face seriously wounded opponents in his two previous races.
He had unseated Mary Rose Oakar in 1992 when the longtime
Congresswoman was embroiled in the House banking and post
office "scandals." In 1994 he faced County Treasurer Francis
Gaul, the focus of blame for the collapse of a key bond
fund. Hoke, as Kucinich was fond of saying, was a man who
woke up one day on third base and thought he had hit a
triple.

After the 1994 elections, Hoke jumped on the Gingrich
bandwagon with a vengeance, championing the Contract on
America, denouncing labor, federal social programs and
efforts to raise the minimum wage while skipping important
votes for photo opportunities with the House Speaker.

At first Hoke adopted an upbeat, positive posture,bwith TV
ads showing him fraternizing with workers and playing the
piano for senior citizens. But as an AFL-CIO television
campaign exposed his ultra-right voting record and
positions, he found himself trailing by eight to ten points.
The mask was then removed and the phony smile replaced with
the snarl of labor-baiting and character assassination.
Voicing his class hatred, Hoke assailed "Washington labor
bosses" who, he said, were "stealing their members' dues" to
"run a campaign of lies and smears" against him.

In fact, It was Hoke's campaign that degenerated into lies
and smears as he saturated TV with ads slandering Kucinich's
role as mayor and wildly charging that his health care
proposals would bankrupt the country. When Rep. Barney Frank
appeared for a Kucinich fundraiser, Hoke falsely charged
that Kucinich advocated homosexual marriage and scurrilous,
unsigned leaflets were distributed at churches, charging
that Kucinich's supporters favored sex with children and
animals.

The smears were endlessly propagated by a right-wing talk
show host who made it his mission three hours every morning
to stop Kucinich. The poisonous attacks, aimed at
suppressing voter turnout, caused the race to tighten
considerably. In the final week before the election the
focus of the Hoke campaign shifted to virulent red-baiting
directed at this writer.

In what was probably a first since the beginning of the Cold
War, Kucinich refused to knuckle under, calmly stating that
I was one of 5,000 volunteers and declaring, "It's Halloween
and Hoke is dressing up as Joe McCarthy. Karl Marx is not
running my campaign but apparently Harpo Marx is running
his." On Nov. 5 Hoke was defeated by a vote of 108,000 to
102,000 with 10,000 going to a candidate of the Natural Law
Party. It was a stunning rebuke to Hoke's shameful attempt
to whip up hatred and hysteria. Although he spent a million
dollars - over twice as much as Kucinich - he could not
shake the solid majority of voters who showed outstanding
maturity.

Unable to accept defeat gracefully, he never actually
conceded and the next day denounced what he claimed was a
"war that John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO declared on the
people of America." The "war," he whined, will continue
because the Republicans, although seriously weakened, retain
control of Congress. While the war was hardly declared by
labor, it is certain that labor and its allies will continue
their efforts to reverse the nearly two decades of assault
on unions and all that is decent in this country, and they
will be able to count on the staunch, heart-felt support of
Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
##30##

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