The pure one: Dennis Kucinich, 'soul-light magic,' and the Democratic party.(Election 2004 III)

IT'S easy--and not altogether unfair--to dismiss Rep. Dennis Kucinich as a kook. What other Democratic presidential candidate has mused publicly on the nature of the universe by saying, as Kucinich did in June 2002, "The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self"? And who else has described his perfect soul mate, as the unmarried Kucinich did in November, as a woman who is "fearless in her desire for peace in the world and for universal, single-payer health care"?

It's good for a laugh, but perhaps it is too easy to dismiss Kucinich--and to miss the influence the four-term congressman from Ohio and former "boy mayor" of Cleveland has had on the Democratic race. Because of the structure of the multi-candidate contest, because of the simplicity--or simplemindedness --of his ideas, and because of his scrappy personality, the diminutive Kucinich has had an outsized influence on the race, an influence that can be seen in both the rhetoric and the substantive positions of his fellow candidates.

Up until now, the campaign has run on what some Democrats call the "every man a king" system. Each candidate, no matter how low in the polls, has been dutifully included--and given equal time--in party debates. With so many candidates, the format allows just a few precious moments for each to make his points. With so little time, the candidates with the best sound bites tend to receive a disproportionate amount of attention.

That's where Kucinich comes in. He can describe his entire platform in ten seconds: He wants the U.S. out of Iraq immediately. He wants to repeal NAFTA. He wants universal health insurance. His program excites the far-left reaches of the generally leftist Democratic base, even if some of those voters realize Kucinich himself doesn't stand a chance. "He is giving party activists the pure essence of what they want to hear on every conceivable subject," says one Democrat frustrated by the attention Kucinich receives at debates. "How hard is it to say that all trade is terrible, that Bush conducted a war to pay off his friends?"

It is, in fact, very easy to say those things, and Kucinich does it every chance he gets. And that, in turn, has put pressure on the other candidates. "He's pulled the debate to the left," says Republican pollster David Winston, who works with the GOP in Congress and keeps in touch with the White House this election year. "He's having an influence, and ultimately that will not be helpful for the Democrats." Even if you view Kucinich's presence as a good thing for Democrats--Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, says Kucinich has "really hit a chord with a lot of lefties out there" and has energized "a part of the party that has not been talked to"--he's still nudging them further left than they might otherwise want to go.

The leftward pressure pushes other candidates to bend their own positions to fit the left-wing activists' expectations. How else can one account for otherwise rational men who try to explain that they originally supported the idea of the war in Iraq, and then they didn't support the prosecution of the war, and then they supported the reconstruction of Iraq, and then they didn't support paying $87 billion for it? While the other candidates twist themselves into pretzels, Kucinich looks straight ahead. "That put him in a great position to say, 'If that's all a bad idea, then let's just get out [of Iraq],'" says the frustrated Democrat. "It's the simplicity of the demagogue and the ideologue."

For his admirers, Kucinich has the bona fides to back up his rants. For one thing, ...