Surprises lead to Paul vs. Kucinich
Nov. 4, 2008 – As the 2008 presidential election nears its homestretch, it’d be helpful to see how one of the most invigorating presidential elections in recent memory came to be. How did Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich, both of whom only a year ago were no more than punch lines to the mainstream media, become the nominees of each of their respective parties? To see how we got here, let’s go back in time to January 2008 in Iowa.
Backed by a surge in fundraising engineered by Kucinich’s official Web site and a surge in the youth vote in the Iowa caucuses, the Ohio congressman shocked the world by beating senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by seven percentage points. Impressed by Kucinich’s win in Iowa and a surprise second-place showing in New Hampshire a few weeks later, the Democratic National Committee put its full support behind him even though most of his positions have run contrary to DNC statute.
On the Republican side, the shock of that cold January night wasn’t as sudden as one may expect. The tide that grew in the months before Paul’s victories in Iowa and New Hampshire was viewable in November of the prior year. Paul took a growing advantage from a burgeoning online campaign ($4.2 million raised from his Web site in one day, coinciding with the British holiday Guy Fawkes Day), as well as an uptick in the libertarian vote to easy success on the GOP ticket.
Unlike Kucinich, though, Paul came under heavy attack from his own party as his victories piled up. Calls from other campaigns of voter fraud began piling in to the Election Assistance Commission offices in the days following his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. But there was no evidence of any type of fraud found in the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary. Then, in two massive stadiums in Denver and St. Paul, a contest that wasn’t predicted years in advance by a Washington “insider” began.
The first debate in September began like others in past years until one moment changed everything. After moderator Tim Russert asked Kucinich a question that skewered his universal health care proposal, he asked his Republican opponent to scrap the current debate format in place of one “resembling the great Lincoln-Douglass debates of the past.” Paul agreed, shaking hands with his Ohio counterpart, and the two men spent the remaining hour debating issues ranging from global warming to torture and government reform to the war in Iraq.
And so the tempo of the campaign has been. Compared with the last few presidential elections in this country, these past 10 months have been a welcome breath of fresh air to a floundering republic in desperate need of one. It’s possible that the will of change has beaten the pull of apathy, at least in this round. Maybe there’s truly hope for us after all…
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