Campaign Diary home >> Peace Train
Dennis Kucinich and the "Peace Train"
Date: Friday, Jan. 9, 2004
Location: Altoona, Iowa
Place: Kucinich rally
After talking with John Kerry supporters in the morning at Mary Sue's Café in Davenport, I drive 150 miles to the Adventureland Inn in Altoona, Iowa, where I meet my favorite person of the day. Moriah-Melin Whoolilurie is in her mid-20s, wears red, white and blue plastic eyelashes and came to Iowa from California with 25 other Dennis Kucinich volunteers on a 52-hour train ride. She is on her honeymoon.
The volunteers call themselves the "Peace Train." Before I have a chance to ask Whoolilurie a question, she hands me her "Kucinich 4 President" song on CD and tells me all about the Peace Train. I finally get to ask her why she supports the congressman. "Because he speaks the truth," she says with a soft, earnest sincerity. "He speaks to my heart. And his courage has given strength to my voice."
Kucinich arrives at the Iowa Education Association's annual convention and mingles for a good 30 minutes before the speeches start. I get to speak with him one-on-one, and ask how his childhood affected his political outlook. He pulls me aside. And here is my first surprise of the day: he is thinking a good long time about the question. Finally, he begins with the short, absolute-sounding declaration. "It's central to who I am." He pauses again, then speaks of his "great sensitivity" to those in need of quality housing, affordable health care, good education and solid neighborhoods. "I understand [because] that's where I came from." He lived in 21 different places before he was 16. None were new houses. Some were cars.
Most of this year's candidates were not born with silver spoons, but Kucinich's tone is different than, say, when Dick Gephardt or John Edwards says how poor he used to be. For them, the memories are politically helpful, and they appear happy to use the memories as a political weapon. For Kucinich, the memories are not pleasant, and I think he would trade the political advantage for a little better childhood.
I make it back to Davenport by midnight.
Next stop: Cedar Rapids.
Duke senior Justin Walker, a "political junkie" from Louisville, Ky., is on the Democratic Party campaign trail as part of an independent study project. He is filing periodic dispatches for the Duke Web site.
Read previous dispatch
