Dennis Kucinich

In the Cleveland area, I have been instrumental in helping to save or create thousands of jobs. People know me there as a person who gets involved.

So actually war is politically profitable, financially profitable, morally depraved.

Oh, my family lived in 21 places before I was 17.

I think the Lord's Prayer is a very powerful prayer. And the prayer of St. Francis.

Anyone who really studies Catholicism deeply is aware of the mystical nature of our faith. Even references to Christ's mystical body has connections to that principle.

What I said was that in a democratic society, people must be permitted to make their choices and that the choices of women should not be subordinate to the choices of men, otherwise women are less than equal, are second-class citizens.

There are many people making a difference. I mean, Dr. King never held an office. Gandhi never held an office. There are people who are archetypes in our society who have never held office and made a difference.

I happened to have the privilege of serving in Congress. It will be 16 years at the end of this term. And I think I made a difference here on important issues.

Look, I've lost before. And there's always a tomorrow.

And my approach has always been to stand up and speak out on behalf of the economic rights of people.

When you have real power you don't threaten. People know what your capabilities are.

People are fed up with the politics where candidates just rip each other apart and then the voters lose in the end because no one really knows what anybody stands for.

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war.

My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates.

First off, I never favored a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion or to overturn Roe v. Wade.

You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I'm not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people.

There's an ethical dimension to my life and all of our lives, from the time we get up in the morning to the time we sleep, including what we sleep on. So I don't separate my choices from ethical choices at any time.

Life should not be a funeral march to the grave. We should have the capacity for being able to lift up not just public dialogue, but lift up each other in a greater cause of nationhood.

The fact of the matter is we went after Iraq for oil. And the fact of the matter is that the United States has degraded our role as a great nation by attacking this nation that had no capacity to attack the United States and no intention of doing so, that didn't have anything to do with 9/11, didn't have weapons of mass destruction.

But beyond all that, the question that is continually begged is why isn't America leading the way toward total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.

Today we're faced with over 500 casualties, a cost of over $200 billion. And it could rise - the casualties could go into thousands and the cost could go over half a trillion - if we stay there for years.

We have weapons of mass destruction we have to address here at home. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Unemployment is a weapon of mass destruction.

The tax code is not the only area where the administration is helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It has spent $155 billion for an unnecessary war driven by fear.

Bush is going in the wrong way. And I dare say, that is what the strategy of his administration is, is just to wipe out government's purpose for any social and economic justice at all. And I'm going to take the country in an opposite direction than he's taking it.