Kucinich Wins Presidential Poll on John Edwards’ Own Site
The screencap of the poll was taken at 4am PST. Click on the picture for a larger image. You can participate in the poll here. Scroll past the video.
Are people finally realizing that John Edwards is not the progressive alternative to Hillary and Obama they once thought he was? A blog on Edwards’ site recently posted a poll so visitors could vote for the Democratic candidate they support most for president. The fact that Dennis Kucinich beat Edwards in this poll suggests that the tide is indeed turning. Much like the ABC polls, which were taken down when Kucinich won, people will explain it away by saying that Kucinich supporters rallied to vote for their candidate. With the total amount of voters being so low I doubt it’s true, but the fact is that the opportunity was available for every supporter of every candidate to participate. One would expect that since it was on their candidate’s site, Edwards’ supporters would have been more aware of this poll’s existence and easily outnumbered the presence of all other supporters. It’s a rather sad day when you’re only able to muster up a little over 120 votes for yourself on your own site.
Kucinich seems to be the candidate that Americans attracted to Edwards actually want. Edwards is merely a watered-down imitation of the congressman, with stances that fall just short of progress. For example, Edwards presents himself as a peace candidate even though he voted for the Iraq War. Dennis Kucinich did not vote to authorize nor fund the war. Edwards presents himself as a pro-labor candidate whose only memories are of his father working in a mill, but refuses to cancel NAFTA. Dennis Kucinich said outright at the AFL-CIO debate that he will cancel both NAFTA and the WTO. Edwards also says he’s got the most progressive plan for universal healthcare, but we know that simply isn’t true because Kucinich is the only candidate with a plan for universal single-payer not-for-profit healthcare. In short, Kucinich is who Edwards wants to be when he grows up.
In light of the recent childish bickering between Obama and Clinton regarding diplomacy, post-YouTube/CNN debate, it’s worth noting that Dennis Kucinich met with President Assad of Syria on Sunday to diffuse tensions and talk about the role his country will play in securing the Middle East. Kucinich said he felt obligated to visit certain sites in Syria affected by Israeli occupation and the destruction of war. Does it bother anyone else that the top-tier candidates don’t feel this same sense of obligation? Much like his push to end the occupation of Iraq now and get Cheney out of the White House by means of impeachment, Kucinich is not waiting until 2008 to start forging diplomatic ties with foreign leaders. THAT is why he’s winning poll after poll.
I agree that Kucinich is making progress, although I don’t know how much that individual Edwards poll reveals. The only thing it probably shows is that Kucinich’s internet presence is larger than Edwards, or at least more organized. Or perhaps it just means that Kucinich supporters are more dedicated to winning online polls than those of Edwards. Check out Edwards lead over Kucinich in ActBlue contributions. THAT’S what I want to see Kucinich start winning.
Thanks Brad. If you have a link please post it.
This is Kucinich’s ActBlue page and this is John Edwards.
Although to be fair, Kucinich is beating Clinton and Obama on this site, so it’s obviously not the best indicator of how much money has been raised. So I do retract my point with regards to this specific ActBlue website, but I do still believe that we need to put more focus on getting the message out and raising money than we do winning polls online. I’m afraid that some activists have begun to think that this is how elections are won. And I’m not in the most remote of ways hinting that you guys do this, as your video work is surely one of the most important things that needs to be done right now. Those early ABC polls that Kucinich won were important for us to be able to use them as starting points of discussion, but polls can be created by anyone and I feel like some people spend a good deal of effort seeking out these polls so that they can vote in them.
Feel free to disagree as well. I do think dominating the internet arena is an important part of our campaign right now, so it’s conceivable that there could be good counter-arguments.
That poll on Edwards site is too funny. Notice the snarky comment they put next to Kucinichs name. They can’t even spell ‘desparate’ correctly.
The best thing that could happen to the citizenry is happening on the internet. Freedom to vent, Freedom to scour the net for facts and then challenge those facts and truly dig deep to find what amounts to the truth as best you can and then weigh it against the actions and words of the candidates and then confront them with the hypocrisy or be inspired enough to consider voting for them. These among many more fantastic advantages to being, quite literally, in touch with the world.
The worst thing that could have happened to the manipulative powers that be has happened- the internet. And they will do their damdest to restrict our use every step of the way and that must never be allowed to happen.
Actually, kucitizens did rally to give dennis the win in this poll. our group did it through one email. ironic that some find this unfair when the votes for the celebrity candidates don’t come from popular support at all but are the result of propaganda funded by corporations and special interests, while we’re a grassroots organization of people from all over who get it
anybody who doesn’t get it hasn’t seen this:
http://www.dehp.net/candidate/stats.php
why pretend that dennis doesn’t have the kind of support that money can’t and didn’t buy? we’re proud to be on the side of most americans and willing to act. If you want to join our group, just stop by here:
http://action.dennis4president.com/groups/view/id_131/
it’s free, and so are we.