Corner Post Editorial
Ever consider voting for Dennis Kucinich?
by Andy Phipps, posted Nov. 15, 2007
That’s right, Dennis Kucinich.
He looks like an elf, his third and current wife has a tongue stud and he claims that he saw a UFO. He gets about 1 or 2 percent in the polls and has about a 100,000-to-1 shot of getting the Democratic presidential nomination.
But when it comes to agriculture, Kucinich easily outshines any so-called “front-runners” from either party.
In spite of the fact that these candidates are dumping millions of dollars into agriculturally and rurally centered early primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina, one is hard pressed to find even a scant mention of an agriculture or rural policy in the platforms of any of the major Republican or Democratic presidential candidates.
And if you do, it is usually mired in somewhere with their proposed environmental or energy policies. The biggest example of this is the amount and extent to which these candidates talk about renewable energy sources, such as ethanol. And even then it’s mostly rhetoric.
For instance, the only mention of anything relating to agriculture in Hillary Clinton’s platform is in her energy policy. She is calling for “an Apollo Project-like program dedicated to achieving energy independence” rooted in a proposed $50 million renewable energy research fund to be paid for by the oil and coal industries.
Project Apollo cost around $100 billion and employed 400,000 people. Plus, asking the oil and coal industries to pay for Clinton’s fund seems as likely to succeed as it would have been asking the Russians to pay us to beat them to the moon.
And on top of that, the farm bill, which will probably be passed before the first primary is held, provides for a $500 million research fund toward bioenergy solutions anyway.
Barack Obama and John Edwards both like to chime in on the issue of rural poverty, supporting a wide range of measures to alleviate it. But they always go back to the renewables, with Edwards even proposing a “new energy economy” to help out rural areas.
And again, it’s all just talk. Neither Obama nor Edwards have any real plans to back up their proposals. But at least the Democrats are talking. Among the three Republican front- runners, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney, none, and I repeat, none of them make any mention of an agriculture policy in their platforms.
Only one of them makes a mention of renewable energy longer than a sentence. That sentence belongs to newcomer Fred Thompson. It can be found on his Web site’s list of policy talking points under “energy security,” which first and foremost involves drilling for more oil.
But this brings me back to Kucinich. As far out there as he seems, Kucinich supports some very down-to-earth policies when it comes to agriculture. He wants to use existing anti-trust laws to break up corporate farms and shift federal funding away from industrial agribusiness and toward small farmers. He also supports country of origin labeling and wants to increase funding for regional food processing and meatpacking facilities. This would make it easier for farmers to get their goods to market.
He’s not alone on the lower tier either. Republican Mike Huckabee has an agriculture agenda including increased federal subsidies to farmers and a counter-cyclical revenue program that would help when crop prices bottom out and when there are low yields. Sam Brownback, who recently dropped out of the Republican race because of low support and dismal fundraising, was Kansas’ secretary of agriculture in the ‘80s and listed agriculture as being among the top issues of his campaign.
“The only thing they ask him [Kucinich] about is UFO's, and I don't know why,” said Tim Gibbons, communications director for the Columbia-based Missouri Rural Crisis Center.
The problem seems to be more centered on the nature of our deranged political process than anything.
“I don't know if they're scared of his answer or what,” Gibbons said. “They often talk around the point, in my opinion, instead of getting at the truth. Our ag policy, unfortunately, is being based on corporate interests. And in a large way I think that is extremely worrisome.”
Gibbons also sees the shying away from the issue of agriculture in the candidate’s campaigns as quite a disappointment.
“In our state over the past few years, we have seen that talking about ag issues to rural folks really makes a difference,” he said. “I think it's a mistake and I think that it’s a mistake for [the candidates] not to go there.”
What I’m getting at here is this, while a Kucinich or Huckabee will never be president a Clinton or Giuliani quite possibly could. And if those at the front of the pack can’t address an important issue better than those at the back, then I will consider making a statement and voting for a lower-tier candidate anyway. If there is one thing this country deserves right now it is substantive policies, not empty rhetoric. And for the people who wish to be the next leader of this country, it is what we should demand of them.
