Progressive America: A collaborative timeline

The year is 2004, and Dennis Kucinich is polling suprisingly high during the 2004 Democratic Primaries. Welcome to this new collaborative timeline. Anyone can contribute if they so wish.

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January 14th 2004: Dennis Kucinich wins the D.C primary with 61% of the vote.

January 19th 2004: John Kerry wins the Iowa primary with 33%.

January 27th 2004: Kucinich wins New Hampshire with 51% of the vote.
 
There's no fuckin way he could win against Bush with Karl Rove still around.

Mini-Tuesday: Kucinich's support falls after he exchanges uncomfortable dialogue with Ted Koppel at a debate and staffers resign by the dozens. His best performance is in New Mexico where he wins slightly less than six percent and wins no delegates.
 
April 22, 2004: In Ryongchon Station in North Korea, the train of Kim Jong-il is several hours late and when the flammable cargo stored there explodes, Kim Jong-il and everyone else in the Ryongchon Station is killed in the explosion, causing a relative power vacuum in North Korea.
 
February 7th: Kucinich wins the Washington and Michigin primaries with 63 and 58% respectively.

February 8th: Howard Dean wins the Maine primary with 53% support.
 
Big Challenge

Okay, maybe the Bernie Sanders upswing could happen twelve years earlier in 2004. For there were the corporate scandals of Enron in 2001 and Global Crossing in (?) 2002.

And let's set aside the conventional wisdom that foreign policy only has a minor effect on domestic policy. Let's say the peace movement seriously focused on whether or not we were doing a solid job rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, including going there to run nonprofits and going there to run businesses and treat the people fairly. Which they didn't, probably expecting too much, but let's say they did.

And the first stuff people find out about Dennis is pretty good. That he was the youngest mayor of Cleveland. That he made a difficult decision, accepting default (?) on some city bonds rather than reducing pensions to city employees who are already retired (?)* . That he's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. And maybe we should consider a Representative once in a while and not just Senators and Governors.

But then, what the hell was the guy doing all through the 1980s? He only got elected to the U.S. House in '96. So, it's like the second and third things we find out about the guy aren't as positive, and that's probably enough to sink him.

* looks like it was about Muny Light -- Municipal Light and Power, the city-owned electric plant. Monied interests wanted the city to sell it. In some narrow sense, it may gave been time and may have been logical to sell. Dennis didn't sell. And they punished the city for it.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3600/kucinich1107/
Dennis Kucinich sounds like a stand-up guy. But with eight years federal experience, no experience as governor, just don't think he has enough.

PS I know Obama had less, but we can't count on getting lucky every time.
 
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Add the fact that he lost for a second term, plus being ranked the 7th worst mayor of any city -- nope. just nope.
 
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