Hey everybody; Josef here, and I want to take a moment to introduce myself a little bit for my first blog entry.

I'm a 23-year-old college student from Florida with a burning passion for upholding the concept of universal human rights, and that's one reason why I joined the Dennis Kucinich Presidential Campaign.

Before I moved to Cleveland for the semester, I interned for State Senator Ted Deutch. As a thank-you to his interns, the Senator and his wife invited me to be one of their guests at this year's Jefferson-Jackson gala in West Palm Beach, where Congressman Dennis Kucinich was one of the keynote speakers. Before we were seated for dinner, there was a "mixer" for all of the guests to meet and greet each other. When the other two interns and I spotted the Congressman from across the room, we felt like we had just seen a rock star in person... it was very surreal and very exciting. We tried our best to contain our dorky glee and not gawk, but the Senator's wife, Jill, took notice and nudged at her husband to go and introduce us.

My friends and I momentarily freaked out amongst ourselves when we realized we were about to be face-to-face with such an esteemed American figure whose political history we had followed for quite some time.

Anyway, so Ted (a/k/a Senator Deutch), didn't hesitate to put us out there; introducing us interns to Representative Kucinich by saying, "Hey Dennis, these are my three interns, and they're big fans of yours who wanted to meet you, but they're too shy to come over on their own. Would you mind saying hello?" Dennis was really very kind to us, and we all ended up chatting for a long time (once we got our gushing out of the way). By the end of the conversation, we had discussed everything related to international and domestic human rights, from his global trade policies (he's against the WTO and NAFTA— even marching with protestors at the WTO hearings in Seattle— because they exploit humanity for cheap labor via sweatshops and the like) to politely lobbying him to divest his personal investments from companies doing business with Sudan, as a means of helping stop the genocide in Darfur (his response: "Personal investments? The only asset I have is my house in Cleveland that I bought for $21,000 in the 1970s! I'm the poorest member of the U.S. Congress, in case you haven't heard. But I applaud your efforts..."). Yeeeeeah, we were pretty embarassed.

By the end of our conversation, the other interns and I wanted to really help this guy get elected, so we asked him what we could do to help. The best way for any of us students out there who want to see Dennis get elected is to start a Students For Kucinich group on your campus. You can do that by contacting our office at 1-877-41-DENNIS (1-877-413-3664), or by e-mailing us. What we'll do is help you mobilize a group at your school, and send you all the materials you'll need to get things started. We're even working on having Dennis himself speak with your group one-on-one via weekly conference calls, so you too can experience that personal dialogue that I am grateful to have had.

Our generation really needs to listen to what Dennis Kucinich has to say. While it's fine that the "big three" (who shall remain nameless because they don't need any more press) are busy pushing an agenda designed to woo our parents' and grandparents' votes, the truth is that our generation is being dramatically overlooked on issues that will directly impact us in the next few years. Issues like college education, a potential draft for Bush's Iraq War, and "living" wages as opposed to "minimum" wages are just some of these kinds of issues that Dennis Kucinich is speaking up about on our behalf. We have to send a message to the old folks in Washington, D.C. Establishment that we demand to hear about issues relevant to us— and we have a voice in Dennis Kucinich.

So let's band together and show everyone that there are Students For Kucinich. Contact us today and get a group started at your school tomorrow.

XO,
Josef