Dennis Kucinich:  

Life The oldest of seven children, Dennis was born in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio to Frank and Virginia Kucinich. The family lived in 21 places, including a couple of cars, by the time he was 17 years-old. One of his most vivid memories was watching his family count out money on an old white counter top to see if they had enough for their bills. He attended Catholic grade and high schools. One nun, noticing that other students were commenting on the fact that he seemed only to wear one purple pair of pants, obtained another pair for him. Such acts of kindness and compassion seared themselves into his memory and led him to a life of public service. At 17 he left home, took jobs as an orderly and also as a copy editor while enrolling full-time at Case Western University. After graduation he began his political career serving as a councilman and later as Clerk of Courts. At 31, he ran for mayor of Cleveland attempting to become the youngest mayor of a major American city in history. He was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977 on the promise to save the city’s municipally-owned electric system which offered customers significantly lower rates than the private utility. A year later, Cleveland’s banks demanded that he sell the city’s 70 year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private competitor (in which the banks had a financial interest) as a precondition of extending credit to the city. The attempted political blackmail failed as did several assassination attempts. He remembered his parents counting out coins on the dresser and refused to sell the people’s power. In an incident unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into default for a mere $15 million despite being offered triple collateral to protect the loan. The principled stand destroyed his political career. He lost his reelection bid. He was demonized as the mayor who threw Cleveland into default. Fifteen years later, the citizens of Cleveland - recognizing he had saved them hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal power bills and also forced the private utility to keep bills low to compete – voted him into the Ohio Senate. His campaign signs featured a light bulb and the expression “Because he was right.” In 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored Dennis for “..having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city’s municipal electric system.” In 1996, Dennis unseated a two-te...Expand for more