A Prayer for America
By Dennis J. Kucinich
Thunder’s Mouth Press
147 pages

When it comes to Dennis Kucinich, congressman from the great state of Ohio and current Democratic presidential candidate, people can feel one of two ways: Either (a) they can’t help but feel sorry for the guy or (b) they rip on him harder than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Nine times out of 10, it’s the latter, with Kucinich-bashers ranging from the absolutely hilarious and ingenious (Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart) to the not-so-funny or ingenious (Jay Leno, Colin Quinn.) However, as cruel as these late-night personalities are, it’s impossible to deny how right the comedians are. I mean, it seriously takes some degree of talent to be far behind Al Sharpton in both the polls and amount of delegates in this race.

Me? I tend to fall somewhere in between. It’s not Kucinich’s fault that he’s short (5’ 7”) and looks like a much older version of Mike Teevee from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” but it probably is his fault that he’s so far behind in the race for president. The man does not seem to know how to run a campaign! I mean, the guy was invited to speak on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and refused. How does anyone expect him to take on Osama, Saddam or George W. if he can’t even take on Chris Matthews? It’s been clear from the beginning that Kucinich’s campaign was at best symbolic and at worst downright embarrassing. The nickname that he gives himself on his Web site is “The Kooch.” The Kooch? What the hell is that? We’ve gone from Father of Our Country to Old Hickory to The Kooch?

But enough about the man, let’s talk about his book. Kucinich’s A Prayer for America is 137 pages of speeches by “The Kooch,” so it’s really more of a pamphlet than an out-and-out book. For the most part, Kucinich’s politics almost perfectly reflect my own. (Imagine if Ralph Nader had a clone that was exactly one-eighth his size, and when the clone (Kucinich) walks into the room, Nader puts his pinky to the corner of his mouth and says “I shall call him ‘Mini-Me.’”) However, where the congressman completely loses me is when he gets all new age-y.

“Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental.“

That’s a quote from a Kucinich speech titled, “Spirit and Stardust.” It goes on like this for a good couple of pages. Now, maybe it’s cool for my uncle or the Dalai Lama to talk this way…but my president? I’m not sure a steelworker in Pittsburgh is really concerned with “our soul’s Magnificat…becom[ing] the conscious of the cosmos within us.” Honestly, I’m amazed that this guy is a congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, and not a cult leader in Brazil.

Some of the speeches in A Prayer for America go over the exact same topics and therefore can seem repetitive. Also, Kucinich has a tendency to use a lot of what my mother, a Texan, calls “highfalutin’ language.” Here’s Kucinich’s take on Martin Luther King Jr: “The life of Dr. Martin Luther King shines like the sun through the clouds which hover over this nation, casting a beam of light whenever darkness seeks to envelope us, illuminating our way over the rocky, perilous ground until we can envision the upward path toward social and economic justice.” In Kucinich-speak, this translates into, “That Dr. King was quite a guy.”

Please don’t misunderstand me. I like Kucinich. I really do. If this were a perfect world, he’d be the front-runner. Of course, if this were a perfect world, George W. Bush would be managing a Piggly Wiggly in East Texas, we’d all be living in Anarcho-Syndicalist communities and I’d be dating Scarlett Johansson. But unfortunately, all Kucinich will amount to in this election is some great material for the late-night circuit.
jordan@red-mag.com