Kucinich Watch: Why He's the Best Political Animal for President

My chosen candidate for President must espouse progressive values for both human and nonhuman animals. The ideal President should recognize the interconnectedness of human rights and animal rights and give them equal consideration. He/she needs to share my conviction that nonhuman animals are an integral part of our world and deserve our respect and compassion. How does the current crop of Democratic candidates fare in this area?

The Humane Society Legislative Fund publishes the Humane Scorecard, a report on how individual Congressional members have voted on animal protection bills during each session. The animal bills considered in the first half of the 109^th Congress dealt with prohibiting the slaughter of horses and wild burros, the welfare of commercially sold pets, a ban on the slaughter of downed livestock, and animal fighting prohibition enforcement. Presidential candidates Christopher Dodd, Hillary Clinton, and Dennis Kucinich all scored an impressive 100% in support of these bills. Joseph Biden ranked second at 60%, and Barack Obama scored a dismal 17%.

What about the other candidates? John Edwards, a former Senator, scored only 60% on the Humane Scorecard in his last term as a Senator. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently helped pass a statewide cockfighting ban and has consistently backed animal shelter-related and spay/neuter legislation. Unfortunately, he's a supporter of animal-cruel rodeos and horse racing. Mike Gravel makes no reference to animal protection on his campaign website, which suggests to me that he has no interest in this issue.

In the area of both human and animal rights, Dennis Kucinich was the sole Congressional member with the foresight to vote against the latest version of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) in late 2006 (the Senate had voted unanimously to pass it). He recognized that AETA, along with the Patriot Act, is one of the biggest threats to free speech and civil rights in our history (Kucinich wants the Patriot Act repealed). AETA allows any business classified as an "animal enterprise" (such as a factory farm, fur farm, vivisection lab, rodeo, zoo, circus, or a business that just sells animal products, like a supermarket or clothing store), that claims to have suffered a profit loss through violence, threats of violence, or even peaceful protests, boycotts, media campaigns or leafleting, to press charges of terrorism against the protestors. This undemocratic law has already led to large fines and long prison sentences for a number of animal and environmental activists, and could be used to prosecute all types of political and social activists.

The Iraq war is another important human rights issue for me. Of the three presidential candidates in Congress whom I would consider because of their animal protection records, only Dennis Kucinich voted against the war. (Hillary Clinton has stated that she voted for the war based on the information she had at the time and declines to apologize. Christopher Dodd also voted for the war, although to his credit, he now says that he regrets his decision.)

A long-time ethical vegan and animal advocate, Kucinich wants to create a Department of Peace. Sadly, many people find his idea of establishing a cabinet-level department dedicated to peace to be ludicrous, although they seem to have no problem with having a Department of Defense dedicated to war. This is what Kucinich has to say about the Department of Peace and its relationship to animal rights on his campaign website:

I would include advocacy of animal rights in the Department of Peace, which I have already proposed to Congress. This cabinet-level department would work with, and offer an alternative to, the Defense Department. There have been numerous studies that have suggested a link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. The Department of Peace would not only seek to resolve international conflicts with nonviolent means, but also seek to instill a peaceful paradigm into the hearts of all the people of the world, so that one day war will be an archaic relic of a time that has passed.

Kucinich and his wife Elizabeth, a statuesque young British beauty, recently adopted two shelter dogs and a stray. As a concerned pet parent and chair of the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee, Kucinich has sent a letter to Menu Foods, the Canadian company responsible for tainted pet food being sold in North America, requesting that all pertinent materials about the situation be sent to his committee for review.

Based on the above criteria, of all the Democratic candidates, Dennis Kucinich is the only one who has demonstrated to me that he is a compassionate visionary who fulfills my requirement of concern for both human rights and animal rights.