Kucinich’s own crusade

FAIRFIELD, Iowa — The smell of incense and cinnamon hangs in the air during a reception for Dennis J. Kucinich at a country mansion outside this “meditation community,” a town of 9,500 and the home base of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Natural Law Party.

Star-spangled “Elect Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat, President” stickers are displayed everywhere, from the backsides of the young folks to the shoulders of the older.

“The energy is palpable, and if we hold on to that space, think of all the possibilities that raise up to all of us,” Mr. Kucinich says at a 30-minute stump in the living room of Fred Gratzon, the wealthy founder of the Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company.

While the presidential front-runners blitz for votes in many of this state’s towns and cities heading into Monday’s influential caucus, Mr. Kucinich tills for supporters in an opulent house bordered by a cornfield.

The Ohio congressman traverses the state in a humbling maroon Ford Windstar minivan, dwarfed both physically and symbolically by the luxurious tour buses used by his bigwig Democratic rivals Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

“Oh, he’ll never win the Democratic nomination,” says one elderly woman to her friend as she slips off her shoes to enter the Fairfield event, mandatory behavior among the crystals-and-hugs New Age set. “But I have to vote for him to follow my heart.”

Mr. Kucinich, 57, is a one-man outpost against even his own party, a faux Gandhi-like purveyor of peace, medicinal pot and alternative medicine.

Close up on the campaign trail, the 5-foot-6-inch, 135-pound candidate is not nearly as comic-book humorous as he appears on television. He has an ease and grace that befits the one-time Cleveland mayor’s considerable political experience.

But his platform — including the Department of Peace, government-paid college education for all, and Washington, D.C., as the 51st state — primarily draws the adoration of the disenfranchised, which bodes poorly for advancing his political status.

If he were to become president, he says his Cabinet would include an attorney general “who is a civil rights activist with deep knowledge of the law and some experience in taking on Wall Street” and a vice president who is “much more progressive than I am.”

While front-runner Howard Dean cavorts with the support of Hollywood establishment Democrats such as Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner, and Mr. Kerry is feted through fund-raisers headlined by baby-boomer guitar strummer James Taylor, Mr. Kucinich is honored by outlaw country legend Willie Nelson and folk singer Michelle Shocked.

His earthy vibe and iconoclast stature lures many third-party adherents as well as those nonvoters who just want a break from the tired chatter of Washington, which sounds to them like the squawky adult-speak in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

“He’s not [Ralph] Nader, which is good, although a vote for him is a vote for change in the system,” says Ralph Hutchison, a 24-year-old volunteer who was shipped into Iowa from Cleveland to do some door-knocking.

Mr. Dean’s young followers tend to wear Burberry and J. Crew attire. Mr. Kucinich carries an earnest, earthy gaggle of kids who, like Mr. Hutchison, don Army jackets and jeans and frayed sneakers.

Story Continues →