Kucinich: Vote for Yourself

Don’t Democrats these days essentially think
it’s safer to play the center line?

Playing it safe
means forgoing marriage equality. That’s
accommodating a system that’s ready to deny
people fundamental human rights. To me, the minute you
stop fighting for your rights is the minute you start losing
your rights. That’s what’s happening in
America today. The wiretapping, the eavesdropping, the
government going into people’s health records and
financial records. We’ve stopped fighting for our
rights. The peace movement has basically given up.

So what I
represent is courage to stand up for what I believe in and
to demonstrate to other people that it’s
possible to stand up for what they believe in.
That’s the way to win. Victory isn’t measured
by what happens on a certain day in New Hampshire or
Iowa, Nevada or Michigan or South Carolina. Victory is
determined by one’s own integrity expressed every
moment. The minute we stop doing that, we become something
the system describes.

But why should it take courage to vote for what
you’ve been asking for?

I think
there’s a winner’s psychology, which the mass
media propels, that promotes a false consensus. And
actually it often disenfranchises people, because
people keep voting against their own interests.

The one great
gift the LGBT community has given to the world is personal
authenticity, integrity, and the courage to be who you are
in an open and uncompromised way. There’s real
power there. You’re going to give that up to
vote for someone because they might win and they
don’t stand for marriage equality? To me,
that’s antithetical to the entire movement and
counterproductive to the point of being worrisome.

This is the one
community that should be strong enough. If you make
concessions on the issue of marriage equality, the
possibility of it happening is going to diminish. The
reason any gains have been made is because people were
willing to go out on a limb. And you know what?
That’s where the fruit is -- out on the limb.

Anyone who has watched the final minutes of a football
game only has to look at quarterback’s face
to realize if he stops believing he can win, the
game is lost. Is there a point when you give up the game?

That’s a
good analogy. OK, let’s say it gets to be fourth down
with 99 yards to go. I’m not going to punt.

So you’re not getting out.

You got it.