Kucinich Unhinged

I heard a quote from Democratic presidential candidate and Congressman Dennis Kucinich today that annoyed me because it was so unbelievably stupid.

Okay, to put this in perspective, at the recent Democratic thingie with the NAACP, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were overheard discussing future forums. Fox ‘News’ included sub-titles for the “overheard” post-forum conversation between Clinton and Edwards.

According to Fox, Edwards said, “... at some point ... (unintelligible) ... maybe the Fall ... We should try to have ... a more serious and a smaller group.”

Clinton responded, “Well ... we ... we've got to cut the number ... because they are ... because they are just being trivialized.”

Okay. I think it's obvious to most sane people that the two of them were discussing the fact that there were so many people on that stage. Most of whom don't have a chance in hell of getting the Democratic nomination. What they were discussing (and this was an overheard private conversation between the two, by the way, not public statements), was the possibility of later having forums with a smaller field of people, narrowed down to the more likely candidates. I think it's a bit early in the race to start narrowing down the list, but you have to admit that with so many people on-stage, there's not going to be a lot in the way of serious discussion, and I think that's what they meant.

Okay, now here comes Kucinich, saying it's a “conspiracy to rig the presidential election”.

Hehe. Um ... whut?

Naturally, Kucinich supporters jumped all over this. “Our man is being robbed” and all that. Come on, guys. Do you really think Kucinich has a chance in hell of getting the Democratic nomination? I don't think this means he should be excluded at this early point in the campaigns, but at some point you'll have to start narrowing down the field a bit. That's what Edwards and Clinton were discussing. I don't see that as a conspiracy, but a nod to the reality that in the end it's really only going to come down to a contest between Edwards, Clinton and Barack Obama. At some point we'll have to move on beyond the grand-standing of candidates who have zero chances of getting the nomination, and hear mostly from those who have a chance of being elected. Like it or not, that's the reality.

Up until now I've had a largely favorable impression of Dennis Kucinich. He leans a bit farther to the left than I'm willing to go, but I like some of his ideas. But by saying that this exchange between Edwards and Clinton was a conspiracy to rig an election, he's just proven to me that he's just another politician who's not above a little self-righteous grand-standing.

Next candidate, please!