Reaching for dreams
Sunday, July 27 2003 08:21 AM PDT
People ask me why I think I have any chance at all to be elected the next President of the United States. I can well understand the skepticism and even cynicism which locks some people into a type of thinking which rules out new possibilities simply because it's outside their experience.
Let me share with you my experience about creating new possibilities. When I first ran for public office in 1967, I was a 20-year-old candidate for Cleveland City Council. No one that age had ever been elected to the city council. More significantly, no political unknown with relatively few resources was considered to have any chance at all against one of the most powerful ward machines in Cleveland. When I indicated to friends and family my intention to run, I was greeted almost universally with discouragement. Indeed, people who where closest to me told me there was no way anyone without a name, money, a political organization, or significant backing in the community could even think of making a race, let alone running and winning. I ran and faced a 16 year incumbent who was old enough to be my grandfather. I campaigned door to door and although I lost, I came closer than anyone had come to unseating the incumbent and in the process had built a community organization. After the election, the nay sayers, while expressing amazement at my showing, came back again in full force, saying "look, you've had your try, they'll be ready for you next time, there's no chance, why don't you quit." This kind of discouragement and pessimism and even despair greets every one of us every day, whenever we have great dreams or possibilities. There are always those who test our commitments, our willingness to move forward, who test our resolve, our heart, about what we really want to do in life. And everyone of us knows a story about someone who relented under the discouragement, who stopped when they really wanted to go forward, who didn't make the move they thought they really should make, who didn't step forward to take up the challenge of service, of participation, of life dreams, and even of love.
So despite those who just knew there was no way I could ever be elected to Cleveland city council, I tried again. I campaigned for two years. I knocked on just about every door in the community and I shared with people my vision of how they could be truly represented in the city council, could have a voice, someone who was committed to standing up and speaking out despite the fact that I was so young. In November of 1969, at age 23, I became the youngest person ever elected to the Cleveland City Council - by 16 votes - in a recount.
Eight years later, I was elected Mayor of the City of Cleveland at the age of 31, the youngest person ever elected mayor of a major American city. On the platform with me on election night were my mother and father, and brothers and sisters, who joined me to celebrate the culmination of an urban odyssey which had our family living in 21 different places by the time of was 17, including a couple of cars. The improbable ascent of a child of the inner city to the top office in a community doesn't speak so much to my own capabilities but speaks to what happens when the power of optimism, faith and joy sustains hope and creates new possibilities, which defy prediction.
Just about every day of my life, I've met people who, because of fear and doubt, cut themselves off from the incredibly expressive power of the human heart.
My effort to be elected President is not simply a campaign. With your participation, it becomes a movement to inspire the American people about the potential of our nation to create peace, while some believe there will always be war; to create healthcare for all, while some believe the resources for health care are beyond their means; to create economic opportunities and prosperity, while some believe poverty will always exist. So when you run into people who say "no chance," think instead about what you can do to help them believe that they have a chance to reach their dreams. With faith in ourselves and faith in our nation, we can create a new world.
Dennis J. Kucinich
http://www.denniskucinich.us/
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