To me, Dennis Kucinich is a very attractive politician. His out spoken, uncompromising positions on real issues, greatly impress me. But somehow, I couldn't fathom myself supporting him, when he last ran for president. Maybe it was because I wanted so much to guarentee that Bush would lose. (So much for guarentees.) I thought, while Kucinich's views are very close to mine, he is so radical, Americans will not elect him. That stood in the way of me seriously considering him, and he was a bachelor. I don't know why that would be a problem, but I felt it was. Well, Dennis has met and married his princess.
Her name is Elizabeth.
Looking at Elizabeth, reading about her life, and watching a couple of interviews with her, it's as if the disembodied souls of Princess Dianne, Mother Teresa of Calcuta, and Boudica fused in the ether, then reincarnated as Elizabeth Harper!
The following story is posted on Kucinich's website.. I snipped the jist of this magic meeting below.
Here is the link to the story of how they found each other.
How Kucinich Found Love,
by Evelyn Theiss
Published Sunday, October 30, 2005 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
On May 4, Elizabeth Harper walked with her boss into Dennis Kucinich's Capitol Hill office for a meeting and immediately noticed three things. In the reception area, she saw a visiting nun in white robes. In his inner office sat a shelf bearing an illustration depicting "light consciousness" and a bust of Gandhi. She studied the lean and intense congressman and felt an attraction. "Now this is an interesting man," she thought.
Dennis had also closely observed Elizabeth, a statuesque Englishwoman with waist-length red hair. "I saw her eyes go to the light consciousness picture, then to the Gandhi bust, then to me," he says. "It was like one, two, three. That's when I knew."
snip
Elizabeth and Dennis, by most laws of logic and logistics, should never have met. She grew up in the 1980s in the tiny English village of North Ockendon, in a cottage where Pea Lane meets Dennis Lane. At Maytree Cottage, she planted flowers, listened to her mother read stories by the wood stove in the winter, and with her younger sister tended stray animals. Dennis grew up in the 1950s. Sometimes, he and his six siblings and parents lived in the family car. When his mother became ill, the children stayed at the Parmadale Home for Children for months at a time.
snip
In 1996, Dennis, the once-marginalized boy mayor of Cleveland, continued his political comeback and was elected to U.S. Congress. That same year, Elizabeth graduated from high school and took a plane to Agra, India - site of the Taj Mahal - where she had signed up to volunteer at one of Mother Teresa's homes for India's poorest children.
They really shouldn't have met, these two people, with oceans and three decades between them. But they did share some things: a desire to work for peace, concern for the environment, a strong spirituality girded by Eastern traditions and - the thing that brought Elizabeth to his office last spring - a belief that monetary reform can offer a solution to poverty.
Well-educated woman lived among the poor
They had the opportunity to meet in person socially, at a luncheon at actress Shirley MacLaines' house. Dennis is a friend of MacLaine.
At MacLaine's house, they discovered each other.
snip
Later at lunch, the actress, a longtime friend of Dennis, invited Elizabeth and Zarlenga to stay overnight. "Dennis and I stayed up, sitting by the fire, talking until half past 6 in the morning," Elizabeth recalls. They professed their love for each other; within a few days they decided to marry.
"We realized our life vision was the same, our outlook was the same," Elizabeth says. "It was a leap of faith, but based on a deep knowing."
snip
"People who see us together understand - they see our connection," Elizabeth says. "And it's not like I'm some ditsy young thing and he's an old fogey. He has the wisdom of an ancient and the energy of youth."
Dennis says, "I've never seen myself as time-bound. When you make a connection on a soul level, age is not important." As for having a family - Elizabeth says she would like children some day - Dennis says, "There's no problem there."
Was this meant to be? It seems so. A year before he even met Elizabeth:
A group of supporters he visited in Brooklyn, N.Y., painted an 8-foot-long banner, heralding "Dennis Kucinich, the Peace Candidate."
The detailed painting had a series of figures, people of all races and ethnicities forming an even row, from one side of the banner to the other. Dennis put the banner away, and forgot about it until a few weeks ago. Then he took it out of the box and unfurled it to show Elizabeth. Stunned, he said, "Wow."
In the middle of the row of painted figures, standing head and shoulders above all of them, is a woman in a white gown, with long red hair.
© 2005 The Plain Dealer
Looks like a match made in heaven! Good Luck, Dennis and Elizabeth! Making a contribution to his campaign would be a wonderful wedding present!
Maybe with that pair in the White House, the US would become a presence for peace in the world. Here is an interview from TruthDig with both the Kucinichs following their peace iniciative in Lebanon.
This isn't really breaking news here on Daily Kos.
Delaware Dem did a snark announcement about this relationship in the middle of December.
Posted somewhat differently at Choice Changes!