Kucinich quits

Minutes ago, as Mrs. Dada had just finished preparing for dinner out and a lecture afterwards this evening, we received the news Representative Dennis Kucinich was dropping out of the race for his party's nominee as their presidential candidate.

"Oh, don't tell me that!" Mrs. Dada scolded. "I just finished putting on my eye make-up."

Strangely, I guess the news was that sad for her and it gave me some confusion. Worried about tears ruining her eyes for the evening ahead I, on the other hand, was rather excited by the news.

See, for weeks and weeks now, months--maybe a year or more actually--I've been suffering this overwhelming sense of over choice. There were just too many democratic candidates in the field to choose from. Oh, I got a little excited for the republicans earlier this week with the announcement Fred Thompson was dropping out of their presidential candidate race. How jubilant that must have made all republicans, save for Thompson fans, of course - their choices being even richer than the democrat's.

I had experienced that elation with similar announcements from Biden, Dodd, Richardson and that strange guy from Alaska who kinda just disappeared off the radar screen of possibilities earlier.

But despite the early drop-outs, there were still just too, too many choices. We all know in this process, more will fall. But I had no idea it would be Kucinich who would be next. I wondered if it might not be Hillary. Or Obama.

So hang in there, deciding's only going to get easier in the coming weeks and for that I'm thankful.

I dropped by the Kucinich website to console him with an e-mail of thanks. Thanks because I was quick witted enough to get Mrs. Dada excited about the remaining democrats so as to save her mascara. But while on his website, I did express regrets that, despite his best efforts, Kucinich's message just wasn't getting out there.

That's pretty remarkable in that we probably, here, in this country, have one of the best communication systems in the world. Sure we rank 39th among nations in global environmental compliance and our health care ranks 37th , but our communications have to rank pretty much higher, I'm sure. Yet, most Americans didn't know flip about what Kucinich stood for because the bastard seldom appeared in the debates. I can only fault Kucinich's campaign organization I guess.

At any rate, this is sad, because I think if Kucinich could have gotten his radical message out there, most Americans would have discovered they are extremists in that they want much of what he advocated for: universal health care system, immediate withdrawal from Iraq, salvation of Social Security, regulation of the unregulated now nose diving the nation's economy into the ground by enriching themselves and destroying middle class , etc. Things like that.

So while I was a little disappointed Kucinich was the next to bite the dust, I'm pretty excited our choices are now down to three. It's a now a decision between race, sex, or hair.

While I was a little confounded Kucinich didn't endorse one of his opponents still in the race, I concluded maybe that's probably because none of them is really a democrat. (At least, not in the fold of some of the democrats I grew up with.)

It may be that Kucinich wasn't "republican-lite" enough like the remaining democratic candidates. But at least, for the media, Hillary, Obama, and Edwards are. Those like NBC, Fox, the rest of the "liberal media" and, oh, the Nevada Supreme Court, etc.

At least we can be thankful that the choice for we on the liberal left just got 25% easier with Kucinich's decision today. So let's all get excited and argue who, among these remaining three -- the best our democracy has to offer -- is going to save the nation!

Whoopee! This is getting so exciting!!