Election 2004 The Candidates – The Single-Digit Club

Dennis J. Kucinich

Party: Democratic

Age: 57

Hometown: Cleveland

Current job:U.S. representative

Website: www.kucinich.us

Kucinich has attracted a tech-savvy following, for better or worse: One supporter recently hacked CBSnews.com, shifting the CBS homepage to a page playing a 30-minute video of Kucinich talking about issues such as universal health care and withdrawing the United States from Nafta and the World Trade Organization. He’s been a magnet for political drama before. In 1977, at the age of 31, Kucinich was elected mayor of Cleveland?the youngest person ever elected to lead a major American city. As mayor, his refusal to sell off the municipal power company sent the city into default.

As a presidential candidate, Kucinich supports free access to online content. He’s licensed his own blog under a Creative Commons license and allows anyone to share his content with attribution for noncommercial purposes. He also participates in other online forums. Last August he opined about copyright policy and media consolidation on cyberlaw guru Larry Lessig’s blog. Kucinich is against importing workers to fill high-tech jobs, having voted against increasing the cap on H-1B visas in 1998.

Carol Moseley Braun

Party: Democratic

Age: 56

Hometown: Chicago

Current job: Self-employed business consultant

Website: www.moseleybraun.org

In 1992, Moseley Braun was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, where she served one term. During that time, she voted against increasing the cap on H-1B visas. To strengthen the country’s economic competitiveness, Moseley Braun supports the transfer of federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream of the U.S. economy. Moseley Braun advocates the government and the private sector working together to develop environmentally sound technologies that would lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Alfred “Al” C. Sharpton Jr.

Party: Democratic

Age: 49

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Current jobs: Pentecostal minister, activist, founder of the National Action Network

Website: www.al2004.org

Sharpton, an outspoken and often flamboyant civil rights activist, got into a dustup last fall with rival and Democratic front-runner Howard Dean. Sharpton accused Dean of not reaching out to minority voters. Sharpton, who opposes online voting on the grounds that it would give an advantage to voters who can afford Internet access at home, challenged Dean in September to reject a Michigan plan to allow Internet voting in that state’s presidential caucus next month (Dean says he supports Internet voting if access to all voters is ensured). In October, around the same time as Jesse Jackson Jr. announced that he planned to support Dean, Sharpton was back on Dean’s case, saying he promoted some “antiblack” policies.

As an activist, one of Sharpton’s goals has been to bridge the digital divide. He is a supporter of an organization called Ecofaith, an Internet service provider allied with the Congress of Black National Churches.

-Julie Hanson