Al Giordano gives advice to Dennis Kucinich

My first advice to the Kucinich campaign: Use your paid advertising in the New Hampshire-Boston market to show the confrontation with Koppel and tell the story of WMUR Manchester's flagship - ABC - getting revenge on your candidate for having told the truth that all Americans and New Hampshire citizens know is the truth:

KUCINICH: ...and I can tell you, Ted, you know, we started at the beginning of this evening, talking about an endorsement. Well, I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country...

Dennis: You've GOT $750,000 in the bank, more than enough to saturate the New Hampshire media markets with such a message. If WMUR bans your ad, that will be a national story. If ABC's Boston affiliate WCVB Channel 5 bans it, well, you've got yourself a lawsuit, plus an FCC complaint, in the town where the Democratic National Convention will take place next summer.

Begin, today, the teach-in about "where the media takes politics in this country." If you do, if you make THEM, the real usurpers of democracy, the Commercial Media, the issue, you will have found your issue... which is our (as in "We, the People") issue... and the voters will come.

You'll be surprised how fast it happens if you do it right.  article

I read the debate transcript last night. Al's article does a pretty good job of summarizing, and I absolutely totally concur that Dennis Kucinich showed some real guts and was essentially the only candidate who took Koppel to task and laid out precisely what the issues are.

... and I can tell you, Ted, you know, we started at the beginning of this evening, talking about an endorsement. Well, I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country.

To start with endorsements...

(APPLAUSE)

We start talking about endorsements, now we're talking about polls, and then we're talking about money [- whose campaign has how much money to spend]. Well, you know, when you do that, you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people.

Kerry also made an effort to force the discussion onto real issues of what Americans are concerned about domestically, but Kucinich was the only one who tied it all together. Al doesn't talk about Kucinich's last comments, so I'll add them here:

KUCINICH: I'll be brief. First of all, thank you Ted Koppel and ABC News.

I would suggest that Iraq is actually what this debate is about. And if you don't make the connection between the $155 billion we've spent in less than a year, the $400 billion in the bloated Pentagon budget and the fear that's driving this nation into greater and greater involvement in Iraq, if you don't make that connection, then you're never going to understand why we don't have money for health care and housing and education.

Our entire domestic agenda is at risk because of our occupation of Iraq. That's why I suggest it is urgent to put this on the agenda, to end the occupation, to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out.

By those comments, and by his boldness in taking Koppel to task about "where the media" are taking politics, in my book, Kucinich has placed himself several levels above anyone I've seen on the political front, not just his Democrat competitors in these primaries. Read the transcript and decide for yourself.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.