Is this the definition of the nutroots?
From Private Pigg on Liberty Pundit:
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Kucinich Landslide Winner in 47 of 50 States!
Hey, I love an upset as much as the next guy - and this would be no exception!
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich topped all other Democratic Presidential candidates in 47 of 50 states in the first nationwide poll of grassroots, activist Democrats, according to final figures released today by the Howard Dean-founded Democracy for America (DFA) political action committee.
In Iowa and New Hampshire, widely regarded as bellwether states because of their early positions in balloting, Kucinich scored stunning victories over former Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama, and touted front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton.
In Iowa, Kucinich captured more than 24% of the vote from among nine Democratic candidates, including write-in Al Gore, coming in ahead of second-place Edwards and third-place Obama. In New Hampshire, the first in the nation primary election, Kucinich scored almost 34% of the votes, more than Edwards and Obama combined.
Which makes me wonder just how representative of the Democrats the “activists” really are. I went to PollingReport.com, which documents the poll results from many sources, for the results of preference polls for the Democratic nomination.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News Polls, Mr Kucinich never scored higher than 3%. The USA Today/Gallup Poll showed a couple of 2% returns for Mr Kucinich, but most were only 1%. The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Polls had Mr Kucinich hit 3% once, but most of the results were 1 or 2%. The Newsweek Poll (conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates) had one instance with Mr Kucinich at a whopping 4%. The ABC News/Washington Post Poll had Mr Kucinich topping out at 2%. And so on and so forth. Perhaps I missed one, but I never saw anything higher than 4% for Mr Kucinich, in any of the polls listed.
The Distinguished Gentleman from Ohio is polling less than the margin of error in these polls! 
OpEdNews is one of my favorite far-left sites, and the denizens there are all a-twitter over Mr Kucinich and his “impeach Cheney” bill (which was so embarassing that it was tabled by the Democrats), and they just love Mr Kucinich’s brave, Don Quixote campaign, but these results pretty much tell you just how thoroughly out of touch the Democratic “activists” really are.
Back in 2003, I misoverestimated the hard-left activists, and thought that they’d actually win the nomination for former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont. And then his internet-fueled campaign did its Comet Shoemaker-Levy imitation, exploding spectacularly when it collided with reality.
In some ways, the Kucinich bubble amongst the activists reminds me of the Ron Paul campaign: a lot of people typing away at their computers, but with no real “there” there.
Art Downs:
The nuttier candidates appeal to the nuttiest of supporters, some of whom have a modicum of computer literacy and seem to believe that stuffing of a meaningless electronic ballot box is a form of activism.
There is the same effect with Representative Ron Paul. The Libertarian is a man who has practiced in a learned field and seems to believe that there is a future for pure Libertarianism. His philosophical points are interesting but impractical.
Kucinich is more a latter-day Henry A. Wallace and we know how he ended up in his run for the presidency. Perhaps he would make an appropriate running mate for Bloomie.
8 November 2007, 6:44 pmaphrael:
i’m probably a bad sample set, but I think kucinich is a lunatic.
9 November 2007, 1:48 amDana Pico:
A lunatic? I’d say that he’s way, way far to the left; I don’t think that necessarily translates to lunatic, but it usually does translate to unrealistic.
9 November 2007, 6:31 amAround the Horn Friday: Escheat Shuffle Edition « DelawareLiberal.Net:
[...] On the Presidential race front, the unlikely contenders are getting some press. Ryan S, thinks Ron Paul will remember, remember the fifth of November. And over at the misnamed Common Sense Political Thought, Dana Pico compares Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. In my mind, Kucinich gets the edge just with his wife. [...]
9 November 2007, 8:01 americ:
I’ll give Kuchinich this - at least he’ll go on shows like O’Reilly. The rest of the Dems are too chickenshit. Kerry wimped out in 2004, whereas he gave Bush a tough, but fair, interview. When Kerry finally went on in 2006, he got the same treatment, so the notion that Bill is just a shill for republicans just doesn’t hold water.
PS Blu, if you’re reading this, you should at least check out FOX news from time to time. Better than relying solely on Internet kooks for your news.
9 November 2007, 8:36 amAlan Coffey:
Art,
9 November 2007, 7:32 pmDon’t underestimate the power of Ron Paul’s message. Peace and Prosperity sounds mighty good about now.
Dana Pico:
Mr Coffey: First of all, welcome!
But here are serious questions, as Mr Downs noted, about the practicality of Mr Paul’s message.
I recently (and very reluctantly) changed my position regarding universal health care coverage, not because I think it’s a good idea (it will dramatically reduce the quality of our health care system), but because we already have it, but both the poor and the willfully irresponsible get a free ride.
The free market libertarianism of Representative Paul requires the discipline of the free market: those who do not make enough money for food and shelter must go homeless and hungry, those who do not buy health insurance and don’t have the money to pay for services delivered must be allowed to suffer and die in the streets if they need health care.
Well, we won’t do that. If someone is unable to buy food, we’ll feed him anyway. If someone needs medical care and can’t pay for it, he’ll get it anyway. Our society is a compassionate one, and as a society we have decided that we will help the needy — and that removes the discipline of the free market.
Libertarianism is a philosophy which asserts the primacy of the individual, and the freedom of the individual from the unnecessary impositions of society; a certain minimalism, if you will. But our society, through democratic action, has decided against the minimalist, and has concluded that successful individuals will be obligated to help those who are not so successful — and that we will use the power of government to enforce compliance.
10 November 2007, 8:40 americ:
Right, but does that mean we want Hillary’s version? Or edwards or Obama’s, for that matter .. ?
10 November 2007, 9:45 amAlan Coffey:
Thanks for the welcome Dana.
Eric is right. There must be push back or the Hillary people will run us into the ground. Over at Division of Labour - http://divisionoflabour.com/ - they have determined that Hillary will be the one to prove that socialized medicine does not work.
Well, I don’t want to be part of that experiment! So I will push back now and advocate for the free market with a REASONABLE safety net. SAFETY NET, not socialist utopia. And perhaps Christopher Chantrill is right. It might take the failure of HillarycareII to get us to take a hard look at this problem. The hodge podge is a mess and the advocates of universal coverage find it entirely too easy to use the current system as a straw man to advocate towards StateCare.
10 November 2007, 10:34 amYorkshire:
I’m 99% sure there will be landslides in 47 out of the 50 states next year. It will be the dirt rolling downhill kind, not Kucinich.
10 November 2007, 1:43 pmDana Pico:
The lovely Mrs Clinton’s plan is not a single payer plan, but involves high regulation of insurance company policies and prices, along with a requirement that everybody get and keep insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible. It can’t really work, because the regulations she proposes remove profitability from the insurance industry.
But, if imposed and, as Mr Coffey suggested, it fails miserably, the resulting clamor will be for a single-payer system, not a return to what we have now; it will be said that the system failed because it did not go far enough, not because it went too far.
One thing is certain, however: once a system is imposed in which everybody has a benefit (health care coverage), it becomes impossible to replace it with a system which does not provide everybody with the benefit.
10 November 2007, 2:19 pmDana Pico:
Mr Coffey wrote:
OK, now what does that mean? Have you defined a REASONABLE safety net?
One of our former readers used to bring up the case of Diamonte Driver, a middle school aged boy who died because an untreated tooth abscess; the toxic material spread to his brain, and the brain infection killed him. Mr Driver’s mother, who was eligible for Medicaid, had had difficulties finding a dentist who would accept Medicaid to treat his older brother, and young Diamonte’s abscessed tooth went untreated.
The safety net was there, was paid for with our tax dollars, but still went unused because the system, which is designed to keep malingerers out, was too difficult for the mother to navigate easily, and because most health care practitioners don’t like Medicaid patients because Medicaid payments are both low and slow.
Every “safety net” program we have still imposes some burdens on the people who have to use it — and every time those burdens prove too burdensome for someone, and someone dies because of it, there is additional pressure on the system.
Are you proposing some sort of two-tiered health care system, in which those of us who are responsible and can pay for either our care directly or insurance have access to good quality health care, while those who depend on the “safety net” are deliberately assigned a lower quality of care?
10 November 2007, 2:32 pmeric:
Liberal Avenger has a hilarious video up of some guys from JACKASS having fun with a rodeo bull. Nice to see libs when they have a sense of humour …
10 November 2007, 2:33 pmThe Digital Federalist » Blog Archive » NeoCons Hate Ron Paul:
[...] Mr Coffey: As you noted here, peace and prosperity does sound pretty good. But the questions remain: are the libertarian ideas of Ron Paul either politically practical or likely to bring it about? [...]
13 November 2007, 9:34 pmCommon Sense Political Thought » Archives » I’m beginning to develop a new respect for Dianne Feinstein:
[...] to Dennis Kucinich, in 47 states. Posted in Politics, Solutions from the Left | Trackback | del.icio.us | Top OfPage [...]
14 November 2007, 8:46 pm