dsandler.org/wp

Salon on Dennis Kucinich’s explosive, captivating delivery (as well as
the other candidates’ performances) at the Take
Back America Conference:

Yet the most impassioned applause of the day was reserved for Kucinich.
Introduced by Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America, as
“the only vegan in Congress,” Kucinich took the stage to John Lennon’s
“Imagine” and proceeded to conjure the heyday of American progressivism by
promising a new version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. “We’re gonna
rebuild America’s cities, and we’re gonna do it with America’s steel,” he
roared, his voice far larger than his elfin frame. In his spellbinding
speech, Kucinich laid out a lefty’s dream platform: Medicare for all, money
pulled out of the Pentagon budget to pay for schools and other domestic
programs, and “total nuclear disarmament.” He spoke to the crowd’s fury over
the war in Iraq, getting a screaming standing ovation when he cried, “This
war was wrong! This war was fraudulent! We must expose this administration!”