Dennis Kucinich

I saw Dennis Kucinich on the David Letterman show the other night. A lot of people in Northern Ohio like Congressman Kucinich. They feel like he fights for the little guy and the average worker in this blue collar area. Certainly his family background is fascinating, coming from a large family where they rarely had any money and sometimes lived out of a car. Still, I have to admit that even having lived in the Cleveland area all my life, I don't know much about the Congressman's politics. I did, however, note two interesting things in watching the interview.

First, though the Congressman's appearance was scripted to make him seem funny, friendly, and down-to-earth, he still couldn't turn off being a politician and campaigning even for 15 minutes. He appeared robotic to me, like all these candidates do. It was as if he replaced the veneer of a politician with the veneer of the average Joe. I still don't feel like I know who he is. I just got to see yet another projection of a self he wants us all to see. It makes me wonder if these people even know who they are.

I think this is one of the problems with politics. People say they want a candidate they can relate to but who is that? In some ways, Kucinich's background should have broad appeal to people in the U.S. But somehow his journey to Congressman has obfuscated that. Most of the candidates come from backgrounds I can't imagine or, at least, they've been living in rarified air so long that I can no longer identify whatever more humble beginnings they may have had.

The second thing you notice about Congressman Kucinich is that everyone comments on his wife (seen with him in the photo above). I think Dennis Kucinich is 60. His wife is 29. Letterman had a field day with that, basically stating that Kucinich gets his vote just for snagging a hot young wife. But I noticed that the wife didn't necessarily play well with the audience. Having a hot young wife may secretly appeal to some male voters but they can never voice that opinion, at least not in front of wives and girlfriends. And having a wife 30 years his junior alienates many women voters because it plays on the female insecurities about getting older and the stereotypes about older, wealthy men.

Having been married to someone 14 years younger than myself, I guess I don't have a problem with the age difference. I have a little more of a problem with the fact that they married only 3 months after knowing each other. Three months during which they didn't really get to spend a lot of time together. Call me old-fashioned but even after two failed marriages, I still think that it's hard to separate love from lust in the first couple months. I hope their marriage is a good one and that it lasts as long as he does. Still, not knowing a lot about Dennis Kucinich in other areas, I'm not convinced I want a president who makes such important decisions in such a seemingly hasty fashion.