OK, who else found this a little troubling:
I really admire Dennis Kucinich, and I’d probably vote for him if given the chance, but I did find his response here somewhat troubling. A bit of a low blow by the media, perhaps, but he really could have handled the question better.
Dumb question, could have been a better response. I think Obama did great with his answer to an equally irrelevant question.
I saw this debate dlip what seems like a month or so ago and was appalled. I like Kucci as a candidate because he is willing to keep things real to some degree. He seems on board with the program of using today’s fed. govt. to protect individual rather than corporate rights and seems opposed to american imperialism.
The ufo question could have been easily handled as “Yes, I saw something I couldn’t identify” and Kucinich began to answer that way; then instead of just using the moment to come off as a well-grounded realist, he stupidly brought up Jimmy Carter’s experience and some meaningless percentage comparison between Bush voters and ufo sightings. Not his best moment. Probably wasn’t expecting the question.
Obama definately aced him with his “let’s keep it real” response.
Kucinich did have a very entertaining segment on the Colbert Report a few weeks back. He came off as savvy, willing to have a lot of fun, and not too concerned with getting a message out to that audience.
I agree he didn’t handle as smoothly as one would wish. It did seem to catch him off guard. But other than that, I’m curious how this was disturbing Michael? Because he admits to having seen a UFO? Or because he started a long-winded answer, with sarcastic comments when he knew he had only 20 seconds to respond? The latter might be a bit disturbing if I had high hopes for him I guess.
I actually saw something I’d have to term a “UFO” last year so I think my perspective has changed a bit. And the way Kucinich made the moderator repeat and emphasize that 14% figure seemed actually fairly savvy… implying that he isn’t that much of a kook since 14% of the population has seen one.
On the other hand, I’d never vote for Kucinich even though I might support some of his stances. As I recall from the last election he comes off as the closest thing to a truly socialist candidate out there. The US is not even remotely ready to elect such a candidate and if the Dems ever presented that far left a candidate it would be throwing the election to the Republicans. I really hope the progressives of this country have learned something from the past 8 years and will work to get a pragmatic reasonable middle of the road (but still progressive) president in power to try to put the country back on a reasonable track.
Ok…rant off! 🙂
cheers everyone..!
Lon
I guess I didn’t have serious hopes that Kucinich would ever win the nomination, but until I saw this I was thinking maybe, just maybe. Unfortunately I think this is probably the nail in Kucinich’s coffin. Maybe he figured the game was over anyway and he might as well “let it all hang out”, so to speak. I do admire his willingness to go “outside the box” on many issues, but if one is seriously seeking the presidency, one has to be willing to at least *pretend* to be “normal”. The presidency is essentially an acting job, which is why Regan was so popular despite his many foibles.
I’d like to hear more about your UFO sighting, Lon! I want to believe… but isn’t there an Air Force base pretty near you guys? Could’ve been some experimental aircraft, eh?
If there really are aliens out there capable of faster-than-light space travel, we’re probably screwed. They’re probably just trying to decide whether to wait for us to kill ourselves off vs. invading.