There are key moments in a person’s life where they can make a choice between staying on the narrow path of honesty and integrity, and going off the path to make a quick score. It isn’t always apparent beforehand what that quick score will cost you. Kucinich has always been touted as the guy who is for all things good, honest and decent, the guy who believes what he says and who eschews rhetoric. That is now over as far as I am concerned.
If you missed the brief brouhaha over the discussions between Hillary Clinton and John Edwards after the last debate, they were heard discussing limiting the debates to fewer people. It was a quick discussion, one where neither had the opportunity to completely explain their views on the subject. Edwards later explained that he believes in formats where there would be three or four candidates at a time. All candidates would participate, but on separate nights. This way, instead of eight to ten candidates sharing ninety minutes, which equates to about ten to twelve minutes each (less after moderator and other time is deducted), three or four candidates would share ninety minutes at a time, giving us all much more time to get to know all of the candidates, so far, so good.
Kucinich takes this and spins it into some conspiracy to prevent him from participating in the debates. He very well knows that this is not the truth of what Edwards meant, but he wants to score some points to boost his sagging campaign, so he made the quick score. I guess Kucinich is tired of running for President every four years and not making it past 1% in the primaries so he figured he didn’t have anything to lose.
Think about this for a minute, to believe Kucinich, you would have to believe that after the entire 2004 campaign, plus the debates of the 2008 campaign thus far, no one knows who Kucinich is and what he believes. And you would have to believe that Edwards was concerned, despite Kucinich currently polling at 1% among Democrats, about Kucinich’s continued presence in the campaign such that he would be discussing excluding him from future debates.
That does not make sense at all. If one looks at this objectively, one has to believe that Edwards’ only concern in terms of the primary is beating Obama and Clinton. Edwards is currently polling third at 16% behind Clinton and Obama. Polling fourth and fifth are Richardson with 3% and Biden at 2%. I doubt Edwards is looking over his shoulder even at either of them as a threat. He is certainly not worried about Kucinich polling ninth with 1%, a figure virtually no one sees him exceeding. In fact, if you take this further, more candidates actually helps Edwards because the other candidates would probably center their attacks (if they were to attack other Democratic candidates) on front runners Obama and Clinton which would probably help Edwards overtake them.
If I can figure this out with about 15 seconds of deductive reasoning, Kucinich and his campaign can figure it out as well. Kucinich knew very well he was telling a whopper. Well, Dennis, I’m here to tell you, you were wrong when you thought you had nothing to lose by telling this lie. You did have something to lose, your honor.
