If Dennis Kucinich had won the Democratic nomination in 2008, would he have beaten John McCain?

[frazzled]

133. Well, I guess my response has to be

No, it did not comfort me all that much. To use the phraseology so popular around here, "it was just words." I'm not discounting those words, just that they were meaningless at the time, given the general rush to war. President Obama, then still a state senator in Illinois, gave the most eloquent public speech of all speaking out against that war on Oct. 2, 2002 (see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469) too. And nobody seems nostalgic for him.

In 2002 I was very busy trying to convince my then Senator (J. Kerry) to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. It didn't work. Then in early 2003 I marched with 50,000 people in Boston against the shock and awe. There were many of us who opposed that war vigorously, and Dennis Kucinich was one among them—but in no more position of power, really, than any of us were.

So no, not really on Kucinich. It's not that I want to rag on him, but neither did I ever think he was some kind of hero. I always felt he was too erratic, a little too moonbeamy (the UFO stuff), and his presidential-bid overnight conversion on what was previously a decades-long anti-choice position did not impress me (and still doesn't). And whatever he believes right now is, frankly, irrelevant. Or at least, it's only as relevant as any other citizen's belief.

No politician is perfect, and I do not expect them to be. And I also try to put myself in their shoes: it's not as easy to make choices when you are actually responsible for governing as it is from a chair at your computer desk, or even when you are one of 535 whose minority vote doesn't really change anything. So all I'm left with is questions about character, and intent, and consistency, and general world view.