Coordinates	50°45′10″N18°53′15″N
Union
Nickname	Gridiron
First	November 6, 1869, Rutgers vs. Princeton
Contact	Full contact
Team	11 at a time
Category	Outdoor
Ball	Football
Olympic	No }}

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron. The ball can be advanced by running with it or throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored by carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line, catching a pass thrown over that goal line, kicking the ball through the opponent's goal posts or tackling an opposing ball carrier in his own end zone.

In the United States, the major forms are high school football, college football and professional football. Each of these three are played under slightly different rules. High school football is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations, while college football by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The major league for professional football is the National Football League (NFL). Other minor professional leagues also exist in the U.S., and may also have slightly different rules from those of the NFL.

The sport is also played in Europe, Japan, Mexico, and several other countries. The International Federation of American Football acts as an international governing body for the sport, but the organization has little standing in the United States.

American football is closely related to Canadian football but with some differences in rules and the field. Both sports can be traced to early versions of association football and rugby football.

History

The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line. Many games known as "football" were being played at colleges and universities in the United States in the first half of the 19th century.

American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, game play developments by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass.

The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US.

The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The first Professional "league" was the Ohio League, formed in 1903, and the first Professional Football championship game was between the Buffalo Prospects and the Canton Bulldogs in 1919. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed. The first game was played in Dayton, Ohio on October 3, 1920 with the host Triangles defeating the Columbus Panhandles 14–0. The league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Initially a sport of Midwestern industrial towns in the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League (AFL), began play in 1960; the pressure it put on the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.

Rules

Field and players

American football is played on a field . The longer boundary lines are ''sidelines'', while the shorter boundary lines are ''end lines''. Sidelines and end lines are out of bounds. Near each end of the field is a ''goal line''; they are apart. A scoring area called an ''end zone'' extends beyond each goal line to each end line. The end zone includes the goal line but not the end line. While the playing field is effectively flat, it is common for a field to be built with a slight crown—with the middle of the field higher than the sides—to allow water to drain from the field.

''Yard lines'' cross the field every , and are numbered every 10 yards from each goal line to the 50-yard line, or midfield (similar to a typical rugby league field). Two rows of short lines, known as inbounds lines or ''hash marks'', run at 1-yard (91.4 cm) intervals perpendicular to the sidelines near the middle of the field. All plays start with the ball on or between the hash marks. Because of the arrangement of the lines, the field is occasionally referred to as a ''gridiron'' in a reference to the cooking grill with a similar pattern of lines.

At the back of each end zone are two ''goalposts'' (also called ''uprights'') connected by a crossbar from the ground. For high skill levels, the posts are apart. For lower skill levels, these are widened to .

Each team has 11 players on the field at a time. Usually there are many more players off the field (an NFL team has a limit of 53 players on their roster, all of which can be dressed for a game). However, teams may substitute for any or all of their players during the breaks between plays. As a result, players have very specialized roles and are divided into three separate units: the offense, the defense and the special teams. It is rare for all team members to participate in a given game, as some roles have little utility beyond that of an injury substitute.

Start of halves

Similarly to association football, the game begins with a coin toss to determine which team will kick off to begin the game and which goal each team will defend. Unlike association football though, the options are presented again to start the second half; the choices for the first half do not automatically determine the start of the second half. The referee conducts the coin toss with the captains (or sometimes coaches) of the opposing teams. The team that wins the coin toss has three options: # They may choose whether to kick or receive the opening kickoff. # They may choose which goal to defend. # They may choose to ''defer'' the first choice to the other team and have first choice to start the second half. Whatever the first team chooses, the second team has the option on the other choice (for example, if the first team elects to receive at the start of the game, the second team can decide which goal to defend).

At the start of the second half, the options to kick, receive, or choose a goal to defend are presented to the captains again. The team which did not choose first to start the first half (or which deferred its privilege to choose first) now gets first choice of options.

Game duration

A standard football game consists of four 15-minute quarters (12-minute quarters in high-school football and often shorter at lower levels), with a 12-minute half-time intermission after the second quarter. At all levels, a down (play) that begins before time expires is allowed to continue until its completion, even after the clock reaches zero. The clock is also stopped after certain plays, therefore, a game can last considerably longer (often more than three hours in real time), and if a game is broadcast on television, TV timeouts are taken at certain intervals of the game to broadcast commercials outside of game action. If an NFL game is tied after four quarters, the teams play an additional period lasting up to 15 minutes. In a regular season NFL overtime game, the first team that scores wins, even if the other team does not get a possession; this is referred to as sudden death. However, in a post-season NFL game during the playoffs, if the first team with possession scores only a field goal, the other team is allowed the opportunity to match or better this score. This rule only affects playoff games in overtime in which the first team with possession scores a field goal: if the first team with possession scores a touchdown, the sudden death rules take effect. In a regular-season NFL game, if neither team scores in overtime, the game is a tie. In an NFL playoff game, additional overtime periods are played, as needed, to determine a winner. College overtime rules are more complicated.

Advancing the ball

Advancing the ball in American football resembles the ''six-tackle rule'' and the ''play-the-ball'' in rugby league. The team that takes possession of the ball (the offense) has four attempts, called downs, in which to advance the ball at least toward their opponent's (the defense's) end zone. When the offense succeeds in gaining at least 10 yards, it gets a first down, meaning the team starts a new set of four downs to gain yet another 10 yards or to score. If the offense fails to gain a first down (10 yards) after four downs, the other team gets possession of the ball at the point where the fourth down ended, beginning with their first down to advance the ball in the opposite direction.

Except at the beginning of halves and after scores, the ball is always put into play by a snap. Offensive players line up facing defensive players at the line of scrimmage (the position on the field where the play begins). One offensive player, the center, then passes (or "snaps") the ball backwards between his legs to a teammate behind him, usually the quarterback.

Players can then advance the ball in two ways: # By running with the ball, also known as rushing. # By throwing the ball to a teammate, known as a pass or as passing the football. If the pass is thrown down-field, it is known as a forward pass. The forward pass is a key factor distinguishing American and Canadian football from other football sports. The offense can throw the ball forward only once during a down and only from behind the line of scrimmage. However, the ball can be handed-off to another player or thrown, pitched, or tossed sideways or backwards (a lateral pass) at any time.

A down ends, and the ball becomes dead, after any of the following:

The player with the ball is forced to the ground (a tackle) or has his forward progress halted by members of the other team (as determined by an official).

A forward pass flies beyond the dimensions of the field (out of bounds) or touches the ground before it is caught. This is known as an incomplete pass. The ball is returned to the most recent line of scrimmage for the next down.

The ball or the player with the ball goes out of bounds.

A team scores.

Officials blow a whistle to notify players that the down is over.

Before each down, each team chooses a play, or coordinated movements and actions, that the players should follow on a down. Sometimes, downs themselves are referred to as "plays."

Change of possession

The offense maintains possession of the ball unless one of the following things occurs:

The team fails to get a first down— i.e., in four downs they fail to move the ball past a line 10 yards ahead of where they got their last first down. The defensive team takes over the ball at the spot where the 4th-down play ends. A change of possession in this manner is commonly called a turnover on downs.

The offense scores a touchdown or field goal. The team that scored then kicks the ball to the other team in a special play called a kickoff.

The offense punts the ball to the defense. A punt is a kick in which a player drops the ball and kicks it before it hits the ground. Punts are nearly always made on fourth down, when the offensive team does not want to risk giving up the ball to the other team at its current spot on the field (through a failed attempt to make a first down) and feels it is too far from the other team's goal post to attempt a field goal.

A defensive player catches a forward pass. This is called an interception, and the player who makes the interception can run with the ball until he is tackled, forced out of bounds, or scores.

An offensive player drops the ball (a fumble) and a defensive player picks it up. As with interceptions, a player recovering a fumble can run with the ball until tackled, forced out of bounds, or scoring. Passes that are thrown either backwards or parallel with the line of scrimmage (lateral passes) that are not caught do not cause the down to end as incomplete forward passes do; instead the ball is still live as if it had been fumbled. Lost fumbles and interceptions are together known as turnovers.

The offensive team misses a field goal attempt. The defensive team gets the ball at the spot where the previous play began (or, in the NFL, at the spot of the kick). If the unsuccessful kick was attempted from within of the end zone, the other team gets the ball at its own 20 yard line (that is, 20 yards from the end zone). If a field goal is missed or blocked and the ball remains in the field of play, a defensive player may pick up the ball and attempt to advance it.

While in his own end zone, an offensive ball carrier is tackled, forced out of bounds, loses the ball out of bounds, or the offense commits certain fouls in the end zone. This fairly rare occurrence is called a safety.

An offensive ball carrier fumbles the ball forward into the opposing end zone, and then the ball goes out of bounds. This extremely rare occurrence leads to a touchback, with the ball going over to the opposing team at their 20 yard line (Note that touchbacks during non-offensive special teams plays, such as punts and kickoffs, are quite common).

Scoring

A team scores points by the following plays: A touchdown (TD) is worth 6 points. It is scored when a player runs the ball into or catches a pass in his opponent's end zone. A touchdown is analogous to a try in rugby. Unlike rugby, a player does not have to touch the ball to the ground to score; a touchdown is scored any time a player has possession of the ball while any part of the ball is beyond the vertical plane created by the leading edge of the opponent's goal line stripe (the stripe itself is a part of the end zone).

After a touchdown, the scoring team attempts a try (which is also analogous to the conversion in rugby). The ball is placed at the other team's line (the line in the NFL). The team can attempt to kick it through the goalposts (over the crossbar and between the uprights) in the manner of a field goal for 1 point (an extra point or point-after touchdown (PAT)), or run or pass it into the end zone in the manner of a touchdown for 2 points (a two-point conversion). In college football, if the defense intercepts or recovers a fumble during a one or two point conversion attempt and returns it to the opposing end zone, the defensive team is awarded the two points.

A field goal (FG) is worth 3 points, and it is scored by kicking the ball through the goalposts defended by the opposition. Field goals may be place kicked (kicked when the ball is held vertically against the ground by a teammate) or drop kicked (extremely uncommon in the modern game due to the better accuracy of place kicks, with only two successful drop kicks in sixty-plus years in the NFL). A field goal is usually attempted on fourth down instead of a punt when the ball is close enough to the opponent's goalposts, or, when there is little or no time left to otherwise score. A safety, worth 2 points, is scored by the opposing team when the team in possession at the end of a down is responsible for the ball becoming dead behind its own goal line. For instance, a safety is scored by the defense if an offensive player is tackled, goes out of bounds, or fumbles the ball out of bounds in his own end zone. Safeties are relatively rare. Note that, though even more rare, the team initially on offense during a down can score a safety if a player of the original defense gains possession of the ball in front of his own goal line and then carries the ball or fumbles it into his own end zone where it becomes dead. However, if the ball becomes dead behind the goal line of the team in possession and its opponent is responsible for the ball being there (for instance, if the defense intercepts a forward pass in its own end zone and the ball becomes dead before the ball is advanced out of the end zone) it is a touchback: no points are scored and the team last in possession keeps possession with a first down at its own 20 yard line. In amateur football, in the extremely rare instance that a safety is scored on a try, it is worth only 1 point.

Kickoffs and free kicks

Each half begins with a kickoff. Teams also kick off after scoring touchdowns and field goals. The ball is kicked using a kicking tee from the team's own line in the NFL and college football (as of the 2007 season). The other team's kick returner tries to catch the ball and advance it as far as possible. Where he is stopped is the point where the offense will begin its drive, or series of offensive plays. If the kick returner catches the ball in his own end zone, he can either run with the ball, or elect for a touchback by kneeling in the end zone, in which case the receiving team then starts its offensive drive from its own 20 yard line. A touchback also occurs when the kick goes out-of-bounds in the end zone. (Punts and turnovers in the end zone can also result in a touchback). A kickoff that goes out-of-bounds anywhere other than the end zone before being touched by the receiving team is a foul, and the ball will be placed within the hash marks of the yard line where it went out of bounds, or from the kickoff spot, depending on which is more advantageous to the receiving team. Unlike with punts, once a kickoff goes 10 yards and the ball has hit the ground, it can be recovered by the kicking team. A team, especially one who is losing, can try to take advantage of this by attempting an onside kick.

After safeties, the team that gave up the points must free kick the ball to the other team from its own 20 yard line.

Penalties

Fouls (a type of rule violation) are punished with penalties against the offending team. Most penalties result in moving the football towards the offending team's end zone. If the penalty would move the ball more than half the distance towards the offender's end zone, the penalty becomes half the distance to the goal instead of its normal value.

Most penalties result in replaying the down. Some defensive penalties give the offense an automatic first down. Conversely, some offensive penalties result in loss of a down (loss of the right to repeat the down). If a penalty gives the offensive team enough yardage to gain a first down, they get a first down, as usual. The only penalty that results in points is if a team on offense commits a certain fouls, such as holding, in its own end zone, which results in a safety.

If a foul occurs during a down (after the play has begun), the down is allowed to continue and an official throws a yellow penalty flag near the spot of the foul. When the down ends, the team that did not commit the foul has the option of accepting the penalty, or declining the penalty and accepting the result of the down.

Variations

Limited contact

* touch football. A play ends when a defender touches the ball carrier (sometimes with two hands).

* flag football. A play ends when a defender removes a designated token ("flag") worn by the ball carrier.

* Wrap. A play ends when a defender wraps his arms round the ball carrier.

Fewer players

*nine-man football

*eight-man football

*six-man football

Smaller field

: The Arena Football League is a league that plays eight-man football, but also plays indoors and on a much smaller playing surface with rule changes to encourage a much more offensive game.

Catch and Run

: In this game, the children split into two teams and line up at opposite sides of the playing field. One side throws the ball to the other side. If the opposing team catches the ball, that player tries to run to the throwing teams touchdown without being tagged/tackled. If no one catches the ball or if the player is tagged/tackled, then that team has to throw the ball to the opposing team. This repeats until time runs out or the players decide to quit.

Players

Most football players have highly specialized roles. At the college and NFL levels, most play only offense or only defense.

Offense

The offensive line (OL) consists of five players whose job is to protect the passer and clear the way for runners by blocking members of the defense. The lineman in the middle is the center. Outside the center are the guards, and outside them are the tackles. Except for the center, who snaps the ball to one of the backs, offensive linemen generally do not handle the ball.

The quarterback (QB) receives the snap from the center on most plays. He then hands or tosses it to a running back, throws it to a receiver or runs with it himself. The quarterback is the leader of the offense and calls the plays that are signaled to him from the sidelines.

Running backs (RB) line up behind or beside the QB and specialize in running with the ball. They also block, catch passes and, on rare occasions, pass the ball to others or even receive the snap. If a team has two running backs in the game, usually one will be a halfback (HB) (or tailback (TB)), who is more likely to run with the ball, and the other will usually be a fullback (FB), who is more likely to block.

Wide receivers (WR) line up near the sidelines. They specialize in catching passes, though they also block for running plays or downfield after another receiver makes a catch.

Tight ends (TE) line up next to the offensive line. They can either play like wide receivers (catch passes) or like offensive linemen (protect the QB or create spaces for runners). Sometimes an offensive lineman takes the tight end position and is referred to as a tackle eligible.

At least seven players must line up on the line of scrimmage on every offensive play. The other players may line up anywhere behind the line. The exact number of running backs, wide receivers and tight ends may differ on any given play. For example, if the team needs only one yard, it may use three tight ends, two running backs and no wide receivers. On the other hand, if it needs 20 yards, it may replace all of its running backs and tight ends with wide receivers.

Defense

In contrast to members of the offense, the rules of professional football (NFL Rulebook) and American college football (NCAA Rulebook) do not specify starting position, movement, or coverage zones for members of the defensive team, except that they must be in the defensive zone at the start of play. The positions, movements and responsibilities of all defensive players are assigned by the team by selection of certain coverages, or patterns of placement and assignment of responsibilities. The positional roles are customary. These roles have varied over the history of American football. The following are customary defensive positions used in many coverages in modern American football.

The defensive line consists of three to six players who line up immediately across from the offensive line. They try to occupy the offensive linemen in order to free up the linebackers, disrupt the backfield (behind the offensive line) of the offense, and tackle the running back if he has the ball before he can gain yardage or the quarterback before he can throw or pass the ball. They are the first line of defense.

Behind the defensive line are the linebackers. They line up between the defensive line and defensive backs and may either rush the quarterback or cover potential receivers.

The last line of defense is known as the secondary, comprising at least three players who line up as defensive backs, who are either cornerbacks or safeties. They cover the receivers and try to stop pass completions. They occasionally rush the quarterback.

Special teams

The units of players who handle kicking plays are known as special teams. Three important special-teams players are the punter, who handles punts, the placekicker or kicker, who kicks off and attempts field goals and extra points, and the long snapper, who snaps the ball for extra points, field goals, and punts. Also included on special teams are the returners. These players return punts or kickoffs and try to get in good field position. These players can also score touchdowns.

Uniform numbering

In the NFL, ranges of uniform numbers are (usually) reserved for certain positions: 1–19: Quarterbacks, punters and placekickers 20–49: Running backs and defensive backs 50–79: Offensive and defensive linemen 10–19, 80–89: Wide receivers 40–49, 80–89: Tight ends 50–59, 90–99: Linebackers and defensive linemen (90–99) Players who switch positions in their career can keep their number if they played their prior position for at least a year and move from a position that is eligible to receive passes to another eligible position, or if he is moving from one ineligible position to another ineligible position.

NCAA and high school rules specify only that offensive linemen must have numbers in the 50–79 range, but the NCAA "strongly recommends" that quarterbacks and running backs have numbers below 50 and wide receivers numbers above 79. This helps officials, as it means that numbers 50 to 79 are ineligible receivers, or players that may not receive a forward pass (except in the rare instance when a Tackle lines up as the outermost lineman on his side of the line and the officials are notified that he will be an eligible receiver for that particular play). There are no numbering restrictions on defensive players in the NCAA, other than that a team may not have two players on the field at the same time with the same jersey number.

Basic strategy

Because the game stops after every down, giving teams a chance to call a new play, strategy plays a major role in football. Each team has a playbook of dozens to hundreds of plays. Ideally, each play is a scripted, strategically sound team-coordinated endeavor. Some plays are very safe; they are likely to get only a few yards. Other plays have the potential for long gains but at a greater risk of a loss of yardage or a turnover.

Generally speaking, rushing plays are less risky than passing plays. However, there are relatively safe passing plays and risky running plays. To deceive the other team, some passing plays are designed to resemble running plays and vice versa. These are referred to as play-action passes and draws, respectively. There are many trick or gadget plays, such as when a team lines up as if it intends to punt and then tries to run or pass for a first down. Such high-risk plays are a great thrill to the fans when they work. However, they can spell disaster if the opposing team realizes the deception and acts accordingly.

The defense also plans plays in response to expectations of what the offense will do. For example, a "blitz" (using linebackers or defensive backs to charge the quarterback) is often attempted when the team on defense expects a pass. A blitz makes downfield passing more difficult but exposes the defense to big gains if the offensive line stems the rush.

Many hours of preparation and strategizing, including film review by both players and coaches, go into the days between football games. This, along with the demanding physicality of football (see below), is why teams typically play at most one game per week.

Physicality

American football is a collision sport. To stop the offense from advancing the ball, the defense must tackle the player with the ball by knocking or pulling him down. As such, defensive players must use some form of physical contact to bring the ball-carrier to the ground, within certain rules and guidelines. Tacklers cannot kick or punch the runner. They also cannot grab the face mask of the runner's helmet or lead into a tackle with their own helmet ("spearing"). Despite these and other rules regarding unnecessary roughness, most other forms of tackling are legal. Blockers and defenders trying to evade them also have wide leeway in trying to force their opponents out of the way. Quarterbacks are regularly hit by defenders coming on full speed from outside the quarterback's field of vision. This is commonly known as a blindside.

To compensate for this, players must wear special protective equipment, such as a padded plastic helmet, shoulder pads, hip pads and knee pads. These protective pads were introduced decades ago and have improved ever since to help minimize lasting injury to players. An unintended consequence of all the safety equipment has resulted in increasing levels of violence in the game. Players may now hurl themselves at one another at high speeds without a significant chance of injury. The injuries that do result tend to be severe and often season or career-ending and sometimes fatal. In previous years with less padding, tackling more closely resembled tackles in Rugby football. Better helmets have allowed players to use their helmets as weapons. This form of tackling is particularly unwise, because of the great potential for brain or spinal injury. All this has caused the various leagues, especially the NFL, to implement a complicated series of penalties for various types of contact. Most recently, virtually any contact with the helmet of a defensive player on the quarterback, or any contact to the quarterback's head, is now a foul. During the late 1970s, the penalty in high school football for spearing included ejection from the game.

Despite protective equipment and rule changes to emphasize safety, injuries remain very common in football. It is increasingly rare, for example, for NFL quarterbacks or running backs (who take the most direct hits) to make it through an entire season without missing some time to injury. Additionally, 28 football players died from direct football injuries in the years 2000–05 and an additional 68 died indirectly from dehydration or other examples of "non-physical" dangers, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. Concussions are common, with about 41,000 suffered every year among high school players according to the Brain Injury Association of Arizona. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who played football in high school, commented on the contact of the sport: "Football is the last thing left in civilization where men can literally fling themselves bodily at one another in combat and not be at war."

Extra and optional equipment such as neck rolls, spider pads, rib protectors (referred to as "flak jackets"), and elbow pads help against injury as well, though they do not tend to be used by the majority of players due to their lack of requirement.

The danger of football, and the equipment required to reduce it, make regulation football impractical for casual play. Flag football and touch football are less violent variants of the game popular among recreational players.

Nutrition and dehydration

Football players typically begin their season while the weather is still extremely warm and with the dangerous combination of warm weather and high humidity, dehydration is a great risk for the players. The players are usually required to follow a hydration schedule. It is extremely important for players to drink enough fluids because dehydration can seriously reduce athletic performance and increase the risk of heat illnesses. Most trainers and coaches make it imperative for their players to drink fluids before they are thirsty.

Organization in the United States

In the United States, the major forms are high school football, college football and professional football. Most American high schools field football teams. In general, high school teams play only against other teams within the same state, but there are some exceptions like nearby schools located on opposite sides of a state line.

Most of college football in the United States is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and most colleges and universities around the country have football teams. These teams mostly play other similarly sized schools, through the NCAA's divisional system, which divides the schools into four divisions: Division I Bowl Subdivision, Division I Championship Subdivision, Division II, and Division III. Unlike the three smaller NCAA football divisions, the Division I Bowl Subdivision does not have an organized tournament to determine its national champion. Instead, teams are invited to compete in a number of post-season bowl games. In addition, the champions of six conferences in the Division I Bowl Subdivision receive automatic bids, and four other schools receive "at-large" bids, to those five bowl games under the highly lucrative Bowl Championship Series to help determine the national champion.

The highest level major professional league in the United States is the 32-team National Football League (NFL). Another professional league, the 5-team United Football League, also currently operates. Several semi-professional, women's semi-professional football, and indoor football leagues are also played across the country.

Calendar

Traditionally, football is an autumn sport. A season typically begins in mid-to-late August and runs through December, into January. The NFL playoffs run further through January, and the Super Bowl is often played in the first week of February. As such, the sport is played in a wide range of weather conditions, from the heat and humidity of late summer, to the cold winds and snow in mid-winter. Unlike rainouts in baseball, play is only generally postponed or canceled in very extreme conditions such as lightning and hurricanes.

The NFL draft is usually held in April, in which eligible college football players are selected by NFL teams, the order of selection determined by the teams' final regular season records.

It is a long-standing tradition in the United States (though not universally observed) that high school football games are played on Friday night, college games on Saturday, and professional games on Sunday.

In the 1970s, the NFL began to schedule one game on Monday nights. Beginning in 2006, the NFL began scheduling games on Thursday and Saturday nights after the college football regular season concludes in mid-November, aired on the NFL Network.

Nationally televised Thursday-night college games have become a weekly fixture on ESPN, and most nights of the week feature at least one college game, though most games are still played on the traditional Saturday.

Certain fall and winter holidays—such as the NFL's Thanksgiving Classic and numerous New Year's Day college bowl games—have traditional football games associated with them.

Despite this, there are a few professional leagues that have played in the spring, mainly to avoid competition with the established leagues. Examples include the now defunct XFL, the United States Football League, and the proposed All American Football League. Indoor football is played primarily in spring for this same reason.

At most levels of competition, college football teams hold several weeks of practices in the spring. These practices typically end with an intramural scrimmage open to the public. In certain areas, high school football teams also hold spring practices.

Outside the United States

Outside the United States, the sport is referred to as "American football" (or a translation thereof) to differentiate it from other football codes such as association football (soccer), rugby football, Australian rules football and Gaelic football. In Australia and New Zealand the game is also known as gridiron football, or more commonly as gridiron, although in the United States the term ''gridiron'' refers only to the playing field itself. The term ''gridiron'' has also been used in the UK to describe the game. In much of the world, the term football is unambiguous and refers to association football (known commonly as 'soccer' in the United States).

Exportation by the established U.S. leagues and organizations

In 1977, the semi-pro football teams Newton Nite Hawks and Chicago Lions completed a five-game tour in Europe. These were the first professional or semi-professional American football teams to play organized games on the European continent. Games were played in Versailles, France; Lille, France; Landstuhl, Germany; Gratz Austria; and Vienna, Austria.

In 1985, Bethany College head coach and future College Football Hall of Fame member Ted Kessinger brought the first American football team to play in Sweden. The Bethany "Terrible Swedes" defeated the Swedish all-star team 72–7 in Stockholm Olympic Stadium.

The NFL has attempted to introduce the game to other nations and operated a developmental league, NFL Europa (also known as the World League of American Football and NFL Europe) with teams in various European cities, but this league was closed down following the 2007 season. The professional Canadian Football League and collegiate Canadian Interuniversity Sport play under the slightly different Canadian rules.

Major American leagues have also held some regular season games outside of the United States. On October 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers played the first regular season NFL game outside of the United States, in Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, From 2007, the NFL has played or has plans to play at least one regular season game outside of the United States during each season. The NCAA will also play games outside of the U.S. In 2012, The United States Naval Academy will play the University of Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland.

Leagues by country

 — Gridiron Australia is the overall governing body for American football in Australia. The country is actually divided into state-level leagues instead of one national-level league by itself: ACT Gridiron (Australian Capital Territory), Gridiron NSW (New South Wales), Gridiron Queensland (Queensland), South Australian Gridiron Association (South Australia), Gridiron Victoria (Victoria), and Gridiron West (Western Australia).

 — The Belgian Football League fields 16 teams. The finalists from the playoffs determine the champion during the Belgian Bowl.

 — The Brazilian American Football League has 14 teams partitioned into north and south conferences.

 — The Vaahteraliiga or the ''Maple League'' has eight teams. The league's name comes from the name of the championship trophy ''Vaahteramalja'' ("Maple Bowl"), which was donated to the newly formed association by the embassy of Canada in Finland.

 — The German Football League has 12 teams partitioned into north and south conferences. The finalists from the playoffs determine the German champion during the German Bowl.

 — 18 registered teams participate in the MAFL's two-division league structure. The sport has grown significantly since 2004 and with some top Division I teams participating in the CEFL.

 — The Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is a proposed professional league in India. When play begins in late 2012, there will be eight teams, representing various cities across India with populations of one million or more. The ELFI will be India's first professional American football league, and its launch is backed by the Government of India and the Sports Authority of India. All of the first season's games will be held in Pune at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex.

 — The Irish American Football League consists of 14 teams. Its championship game is the Shamrock Bowl.

 — Games are governed by the Israeli Football League.

 — The Italian Football League was founded in 2008, taking over previous league (National Football League Italy). It has 9 teams for the 2010 season.

 — The X-League is a professional league with 60 teams in four divisions, using promotion and relegation. After the post-season playoffs, the X-League champion is determined in the Japan X Bowl. There are also over 200 universities fielding teams, with the national collegiate championship determined by the Koshien Bowl. The professional and collegiate champions then face each other in the Rice Bowl to determine the national champion.

 — The ONEFA is a college league with 26 teams in 3 conferences.

 — American Football Wellington comprises five teams located in the Wellington area.

 — A rising number of teams (11 in 2010) compete in a two division league structure (division I which determines a national champion by a postseason playoff, and division 2 where newer and smaller teams are allowed to mature). Two teams (Oslo Vikings and Eidsvoll 1814s) regularly compete in either the European Football League or the EFAF Cup. Eidsvoll was the runner-up in EFAF Cup 2006.

 — Games are governed by the Polish American Football League.

 — Teams in the Nacionalna Liga Srbije compete in the Serbian Bowl.

 — The LNFA was founded in 1995, and currently consists of 15 clubs.

 — 70 amateur teams play in the BAFA Community Leagues (BAFACL) across a number of age ranges. The senior (adult) league has three levels: the Premiership, comprising six teams; Division 1, comprising 18 teams split across three regional conferences; and Division 2, comprising 23 teams split across four regional conferences. While the lower level teams have their own championship games during BritBowl Weekend, only Premier Division teams face each other in the BritBowl which is held in Worcester's Sixways Stadium. Unlike the NFL, the BAFACL season is played through the summer (April to September), with the British university season spanning the autumn and winter.

The IFAF and the American Football World Cup

The International Federation of American Football (IFAF) is the ''de facto'' governing body for American football, with 45 member associations from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. The organization is headquartered in La Courneuve, France. Although the IFAF has relatively little standing in the U.S. compared to the NFL, NCAA, and the other established aforementioned bodies, these same organizations also give support to USA Football, the designated U.S. representative to the IFAF.

The IFAF also oversees the American Football World Cup, which is held every four years. Japan won the first two World Cups, held in 1999 and 2003. Team USA, which had not participated in the previous World Cups, won the title in 2007.

A long term goal of the IFAF is for American football to be accepted by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport. The only time that the sport was played was at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, but as a demonstration sport.

See also

American football on Thanksgiving

Comparison of American and Canadian football

Comparison of American football and rugby league

Fantasy football (American)

Glossary of American football

Lists of American football players

List of American football stadiums by capacity

List of American football teams in Belgium

List of American football teams in Germany

List of American football teams in the Netherlands

List of defunct sports leagues

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Sports nutrition

Sprint Football

Steroid use in American football

Strat-O-Matic Football

Street football (American)

References

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

''Sports Illustrated'' magazine dated December 4, 2005; "Football America", a series of articles attesting to the pervasive popularity of American football in the United States at all levels.

External links

Movie of 1903 football game between the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan

National Football League Official Signals.

Brief explanation of the sport by the BBC aimed at a non-american audience

American Youth Football

Category:Sports originating in the United States Category:1869 introductions Category:Football codes

af:Amerikaanse voetbal ang:Americanisc fōtball ar:كرة القدم الأمريكية az:Amerikan futbolu be:Футбол амерыканскі bs:Američki nogomet bg:Американски футбол ca:Futbol americà cs:Americký fotbal da:Amerikansk fodbold pdc:Footballe de:American Football et:Ameerika jalgpall es:Fútbol americano eo:Usona piedpilko eu:Amerikar futbol fa:فوتبال آمریکایی hif:American football fo:Amerikanskur fótbóltur fr:Football américain fy:Amerikaansk Fuotbal ga:Peil Mheiriceánach gd:Ball-coise Aimearaganach gl:Fútbol americano ko:미식축구 hi:अमेरिकी फ़ुटबॉल hr:Američki nogomet id:Sepak bola Amerika is:Amerískur fótbolti it:Football americano he:פוטבול kn:ಅಮೇರಿಕದ ಫುಟ್‌ಬಾಲ್ lv:Amerikāņu futbols lt:Amerikietiškasis futbolas hu:Amerikai futball ml:അമേരിക്കൻ ഫുട്ബോൾ mr:अमेरिकन फुटबॉल ms:Bola sepak Amerika nl:American football ja:アメリカンフットボール no:Amerikansk fotball nn:Amerikansk fotball pl:Futbol amerykański pt:Futebol americano ro:Fotbal american ru:Американский футбол sco:American fitbaa sq:Futboll Amerikan scn:Futtibboll Miricanu simple:American football sk:Americký futbal sl:Ameriški nogomet sr:Амерички фудбал sh:Američki fudbal fi:Amerikkalainen jalkapallo sv:Amerikansk fotboll tl:Amerikanong sipaang-bola ta:அமெரிக்கக் காற்பந்தாட்டம் th:อเมริกันฟุตบอล tg:Футболи амрикоӣ tr:Amerikan futbolu uk:Американський футбол ur:امریکی فٹ بال vi:Bóng bầu dục Mỹ zh-classical:美式足球 yi:אמעריקאנער פוסבאל zh-yue:美式足球 zh:美式足球

Coordinates	50°45′10″N18°53′15″N
name	Timothy W. Carpenter
state senate	Wisconsin
district	3rd
term start	January 2003
preceded	Brian Burke
state assembly2	Wisconsin
district2	20th
term start2	January 1985
term end2	January 2003
preceded2	John R. Plewa
succeeded2	Christine Sinicki
party	Democrat
birth date	February 24, 1960 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
residence	Milwaukee, Wisconsin
profession	}}

Timothy W. "Tim" Carpenter is a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Senate, representing the 3rd District since 2003. He earlier served in the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 20th District from 1985 through 2003.

Early life, education and career

Carpenter was born on February 24, 1960 in Milwaukee and graduated from Pulaski High School. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a master's degree from University of Wisconsin–Madison after studying at its La Follette Institute.

Wisconsin legislature

Carpenter was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1984 and served nine terms representing the 9th Assembly District until 2002, holding the post of Speaker ''Pro Tempore'' in 1993. He was first elected to represent Wisconsin's 3rd Senate District in 2002. During the 2007–08 biennium, he served as President ''Pro Tempore'' of the Wisconsin State Senate.

Carpenter currently chairs the Senate Committee on Public Health, Senior Issues, Long Term Care, and Job Creation. He is also a member of the following Senate Committees: Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief, and Revenue; and Veterans & Military Affairs, Biotechnology & Financial Affairs.

Carpenter is also is a member of several joint committees made of legislators from both the Senate and the Assembly. He is Co-Chair of the Law Revisions Committee. He was also the Chair of the Legislative Council Study Committee on addressing recidivism in High-Risk Juvenile Offenders.

2011 Wisconsin protests

During the protests in Wisconsin, Carpenter, along with the 13 other Democratic State Senators, fled the state to deny the State Senate a quorum on Governor Scott Walker's controversial "Budget Repair" legislation. Based on the revelations from a prank phone call on Gov. Walker, detailing plans to pass his bill, Carpenter called upon Gov. Walker to resign.

2004 U.S. Congressional campaign

In 2004, Carpenter unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for United States House of Representatives in the 4th congressional district, losing the primary election to fellow state senator Gwen Moore.

Personal life

Carpenter is a supporter of LGBT issues and is one of two openly gay members of the Wisconsin Legislature, alongside Rep. Mark Pocan (D–Madison). He is a member of the Sierra Club and the Jackson Park Neighborhood Association.

References

External links

Senator Tim Carpenter at the Wisconsin State Legislature

*constituency site

Tim Carpenter official campaign site

3rd Senate District, Senator Carpenter in the Wisconsin Blue Book (2005–2006)

Category:1960 births Category:LGBT state legislators of the United States Category:Living people Category:Members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Category:People from Milwaukee, Wisconsin Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Category:University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee alumni Category:Wisconsin Democrats Category:Wisconsin State Senators

Coordinates	50°45′10″N18°53′15″N
name	Andrea Miller
url	www.yourtango.com
commercial	yes
language	English
current status	active
slogan	Smart Talk About Love
founder	Andrea Miller
registration	Optional
launch date	2008
website type	News & Blogging }}

Andrea Miller is the founder and CEO of Tango, a media company focused on romantic love.

Career

Miller launched Tango Magazine in February 2005 with a nationally-distributed magazine, integrated website and e-newsletter. Tango was selected by Amazon.com as one of the best magazine launches and won the Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneurs for Best New Product of 2005. The magazine transitioned to a digital only operation in 2007 and was subsequently relaunched under the name YourTango in October 2008.

Miller is a graduate of Tulane University (B.S. Mechanical Engineering) and Columbia Business School (M.B.A.) where she was the managing editor of The Bottom Line, the school's student newspaper. Prior to launching Tango Magazine, Miller's career was in finance and consulting, including positions with Goldman Sachs, ICF Consulting and Enron’s international finance team. While with Enron, Miller was based in Mumbai, India for three years.

Miller is a licensed private pilot and a co-head of the New York Chapter of 85 Broads, an independent global network of current and former Goldman Sachs female professionals. Miller also actively seeks to promote entrepreneurship among women; she is the founder of the Women Entrepreneurs Network, an active network of females who represent some of the tri-state area’s most talented and promising young entrepreneurs, affiliated with Columbia Business School.

Miller has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Fox News, ABC, and radio stations across the U.S., as well as in numerous national publications such as USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Business Week. She is a frequent panelist and guest speaker in university classes at Harvard University, Columbia University, Fordham University, The Wharton School, and New York University.

References

Category:American magazine publishers (people) Category:Columbia Business School alumni Category:Tulane University alumni Category:Goldman Sachs people Category:Enron Category:Living people Category:Harvard University people

Coordinates	50°45′10″N18°53′15″N
name	Jesse Jackson
nationality	American
image name	Jesse Jackson at Max Palevsky Cinema crop.jpg
office	United States Shadow Senatorfor the District of Columbia
party	Democratic
term start	January 3, 1991
term end	January 3, 1997
alongside	Florence Pendleton
preceded	none
succeeded	Paul Strauss
birth date	October 08, 1941
birth place	Greenville, South Carolina
birthname	Jesse Louis Burns
occupation	American civil rights activist minister
spouse	Jacqueline Lavinia Brown (m. 1962)
children	Santita Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Jonathan Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson, Ashley Laverne Jackson (with Karin Stanford)
alma mater	North Carolina A&TChicago Theological Seminary
religion	Baptist}}

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is his eldest son. In an AP-AOL "Black Voices" poll in February 2006, Jackson was voted "the most important black leader".

Early life and education

Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns Straggs, a 16-year-old single mother. His biological father, Noah Louis Robinson, a former professional boxer and a prominent figure in the community, was married to another woman when Jesse was born. He was not involved in his son's life. In 1943, two years after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, who would adopt Jesse 14 years later. Jesse went on to take the surname of his stepfather.

Jackson attended Sterling High School, a segregated high school in Greenville, where he was a student-athlete. Upon graduating in 1959, he rejected a contract from a professional baseball team so that he could attend the racially integrated University of Illinois on a football scholarship. One year later, Jackson transferred to North Carolina A&T located in Greensboro, North Carolina. There are differing accounts for the reasons behind this transfer. Jackson claims that the change was based on the school's racial biases which included his being unable to play as a quarterback despite being a star quarterback at his high school. ESPN.com suggests that claims of racial discrimination on the football team may be exaggerated because Illinois's starting quarterback that year was an African American, although it does not mention factors besides the quarterback's race which may have contributed to this perception (such as team dynamics or interpersonal interactions with other players on the team). Jackson also mentions being demoted by his speech professor as an alternate in a public-speaking competition team despite the support of his teammates who elected him a place on the team for his superior abilities. Jackson left Illinois at the end of his second semester after being placed on academic probation.

Following his graduation from A&T, Jackson attended the Chicago Theological Seminary with the intent of becoming a minister, but dropped out in 1966 to focus full time on the civil rights movement. He was ordained in 1968, without a theological degree; awarded an honorary theological doctorate from Chicago in 1990; and received his Master of Divinity Degree based on his previous credits earned, plus his life experience and subsequent work, in 2000.

Civil rights activism

In 1965, he participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches organized by James Bevel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders in Alabama. When Jackson returned from Selma, he threw himself into efforts by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to establish themselves a beachhead in Chicago.

In 1966, King and Bevel selected Jackson to be head of the SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, and SCLC promoted him to be the national director in 1967. Following the example of Reverend Leon Sullivan of Philadelphia, a key goal of the new group was to foster “selective buying” (boycotts) as a means to pressure white businesses to hire blacks and purchase goods and services from black contractors. One of Sullivan's precursors was Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a wealthy South Side doctor and entrepreneur and key financial contributor to Operation Breadbasket. Before he moved to Chicago from Mississippi in 1956, Howard, as the head of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, had successfully organized a boycott against service stations that refused to provide restrooms for blacks.

When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the day after his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at the Mason Temple, Jackson was in the parking lot one floor below. Jackson's appearance on NBC's ''Today Show,'' wearing the same blood-stained turtleneck that he had worn the day before, drew criticism from several King aides; some King associates also dispute Jackson's description of his personal involvement and also of the sequence of events surrounding the assassination.

Jackson has been known for commanding public attention since he first started working for King in 1966. His primary goal for this attention has been to give blacks a sense of self-worth.

Beginning in 1968, Jackson increasingly clashed with Ralph Abernathy, King's successor as chairman of SCLC. In December, 1971, they had a complete falling out. Abernathy suspended Jackson for “administrative improprieties and repeated acts of violation of organizational policy.” Jackson resigned, called together his allies, and Operation PUSH was born during the same month. The new group was organized in the home of Dr. T.R.M. Howard who also became a member of the board of directors and chair of the finance committee.

In 1984, Jackson organized the Rainbow Coalition, which later merged, in 1996, with Operation PUSH. The newly formed Rainbow PUSH organization brought his role as an important and effective organizer to the mainstream. Al Sharpton also left the SCLC in protest to follow Jackson and formed the National Youth Movement.

In March 2006, an African-American woman accused three white members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team of raping her. During the ensuing controversy, Jackson stated that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would pay for the rest of her college tuition regardless of the outcome of the case. The case against the three men was later thrown out and the players were declared innocent by the North Carolina Attorney General.

Jackson took a key role in the scandal caused by comedic actor Michael Richards' racially charged comments in November 2006. Richards called Jackson a few days after the incident to apologize; Jackson accepted Richards' apology and met with him publicly as a means of resolving the situation. Jackson also joined black leaders in a call for the elimination of the "N-word" throughout the entertainment industry.

On November 18, 1999 seven Decatur students were expelled for two years after participating in a brawl at a high school football game. The incident was caught on home video and became a national media event when CNN ran pictures of the fight. After the students were expelled, Jesse Jackson decided it was time to speak out. Jackson argued that the expulsions were unfair and racially biased. He called on the school board to reverse their decision.

International activism

During the 1980s, he achieved wide fame as an African American leader and as a politician, as well as becoming a well-known spokesman for civil rights issues. His influence extended to international matters in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1983, Jackson traveled to Syria to secure the release of a captured American pilot, Navy Lt. Robert Goodman who was being held by the Syrian government. Goodman had been shot down over Lebanon while on a mission to bomb Syrian positions in that country. After a dramatic personal appeal that Jackson made to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Goodman was released. Initially, the Reagan administration was skeptical about Jackson's trip to Syria. However, after Jackson secured Goodman's release, United States President Ronald Reagan welcomed both Jackson and Goodman to the White House on January 4, 1984. This helped to boost Jackson's popularity as an American patriot and served as a springboard for his 1984 presidential run. In June 1984, Jackson negotiated the release of twenty-two Americans being held in Cuba after an invitation by Cuban president Fidel Castro.

On the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Jackson made a trip to Iraq, to plead to Saddam Hussein for the release of foreign nationals held there as the "human shield", securing the release of several British and twenty American individuals.

He traveled to Kenya in 1997 to meet with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi as United States President Bill Clinton's special envoy for democracy to promote free and fair elections. In April 1999, during the Kosovo War, Jackson traveled to Belgrade to negotiate the release of three U.S. POWs captured on the Macedonian border while patrolling with a UN peacekeeping unit. He met with the then-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević, who later agreed to release the three men.

His international efforts continued into the 2000s. On February 15, 2003, Jackson spoke in front of over an estimated one million people in Hyde Park, London at the culmination of the anti-war demonstration against the imminent invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and the United Kingdom. In November 2004, Jackson visited senior politicians and community activists in Northern Ireland in an effort to encourage better cross-community relations and rebuild the peace process and restore the governmental institutions of the Belfast Agreement. In August 2005, Jackson traveled to Venezuela to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, following controversial remarks by televangelist Pat Robertson in which he implied that Chávez should be assassinated. Jackson condemned Robertson's remarks as immoral. After meeting with Chávez and addressing the Venezuelan Parliament, Jackson said that there was no evidence that Venezuela posed a threat to the U.S. Jackson also met representatives from the Afro Venezuela and indigenous communities.

In 2005, he was enlisted as part of the United Kingdom's "Operation Black Vote", a campaign run by Simon Woolley to encourage more of Britain's ethnic minorities to vote in political elections ahead of the May 2005 General Election.

Jackson inherited the title of the High Prince of the Agni people of Côte d'Ivoire from Michael Jackson. In August 2009, he was crowned Prince Côte Nana by Amon N'Douffou V, King of Krindjabo, who rules more than a million Agni tribespeople.

Political activism

1984 presidential campaign

On November 3, 1983, he announced his campaign for presidency. In 1984, Jackson became the second African American (after Shirley Chisholm) to mount a nationwide campaign for President of the United States, running as a Democrat.

In the primaries, Jackson, who had been written off by pundits as a fringe candidate with little chance at winning the nomination, surprised many when he took third place behind Senator Gary Hart and former Vice President Walter Mondale, who eventually won the nomination. Jackson garnered 3,282,431 primary votes, or 18.2 percent of the total, in 1984, and won five primaries and caucuses, including Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Virginia, and one of two separate contests in Mississippi.

As he had gained 21% of the popular vote but only 8% of delegates, he afterwards complained that he had been handicapped by party rules. While Mondale (in the words of his aides) was determined to establish a precedent with his vice presidential candidate by picking a woman or visible minority, Jackson criticized the screening process as a "p.r. parade of personalities". He also mocked Mondale, saying that Hubert Humphrey was the "last significant politician out of the St. Paul–Minneapolis" area.

Remarks about Jews

While talking with the Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman in January 1984, Jackson referred to New York City as "Hymietown". Hymie is a pejorative term for Jews. Jackson first denied having the conversation and said Jews were conspiring against him. Later, he acknowledged Coleman's account, indicated that he considered the conversation with the reporter private, and said he had been wrong to use the term. Jackson apologized during a speech before national Jewish leaders in a Manchester, New Hampshire synagogue, but continuing suspicions have led to an enduring split between Jackson and many in the Jewish community.

Among Jackson's other remarks were that Richard Nixon was less attentive to poverty in the U.S. because "four out of five [of Nixon's top advisors] are German Jews and their priorities are on Europe and Asia"; that he was "sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust"; and that there are "very few Jewish reporters that have the capacity to be objective about Arab affairs". In 1979, Jackson said on a trip to the Middle East that Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was a "terrorist," and Israel was a "theocracy." Jackson has since apologized for at least some of these remarks, but they badly damaged his campaign, as "Jackson was seen by many conservatives in the United States as hostile to Israel and far too close to Arab governments."

Years later, Jackson was invited to speak in support of Jewish Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

1988 presidential campaign

Four years later, in 1988, Jackson once again offered himself as a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. This time, his successes in the past made him a more credible candidate, and he was both better financed and better organized. Although most people did not seem to believe he had a serious chance at winning, Jackson once again exceeded expectations as he more than doubled his previous results, prompting R.W. Apple of the New York Times to call 1988 "the Year of Jackson".

He captured 6.9 million votes and won 11 contests; seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont). Jackson also scored March victories in Alaska's caucuses and Texas's local conventions, despite losing the Texas primary. Briefly, after he won 55% of the vote in the Michigan Democratic caucus, he was considered the frontrunner for the nomination, as he surpassed all the other candidates in total number of pledged delegates.

In early 1988, Jackson organized a rally at the former American Motors assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, approximately two weeks after new owner Chrysler announced it would close the plant by the end of the year. In his speech, Jackson spoke out against Chrysler's decision, stating "We have to put the focus on Kenosha, Wisconsin, as the place, here and now, where we draw the line to end economic violence!" and compared the workers' fight to that of the civil rights movement in Selma, Alabama. As a result, the UAW Local 72 union voted to endorse his candidacy, even against the rules of the UAW. However, Jackson's campaign suffered a significant setback less than two weeks later when he was defeated handily in the Wisconsin primary by Michael Dukakis. Jackson's showing among white voters in Wisconsin was significantly higher than in his 1984 run, but was also noticeably lower than pre-primary polling had indicated it would be. The discrepancy has been cited as an example of the so-called "Bradley effect."

Jackson's campaign had also been interrupted by allegations regarding his half-brother Noah Robinson, Jr.'s criminal activity. Jackson had to answer frequent questions about his brother, who was often referred to as "the Billy Carter of the Jackson campaign".

On the heels of Jackson's narrow loss to Dukakis the day before in Colorado, Dukakis' comfortable win in Wisconsin terminated Jackson's momentum. The victory established Dukakis as the clear Democratic frontrunner, and he went on to claim the party's nomination, but lost the general election in November.

Campaign platform

In both races, Jackson ran on what many considered to be a very liberal platform. Declaring that he wanted to create a "Rainbow Coalition" of various minority groups, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Arab-Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, family farmers, the poor and working class, and homosexuals, as well as European American progressives who fit into none of those categories, Jackson ran on a platform that included:

creating a Works Progress Administration-style program to rebuild America's infrastructure and provide jobs to all Americans,

reprioritizing the War on Drugs to focus less on mandatory minimum sentences for drug users (which he views as racially biased) and more on harsher punishments for money-laundering bankers and others who are part of the "supply" end of "supply and demand"

reversing Reaganomics-inspired tax cuts for the richest ten percent of Americans and using the money to finance social welfare programs

cutting the budget of the Department of Defense by as much as fifteen percent over the course of his administration

declaring Apartheid-era South Africa to be a rogue nation

instituting an immediate nuclear freeze and beginning disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union

supporting family farmers by reviving many of Roosevelt's New Deal–era farm programs

creating a single-payer system of universal health care

ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment

increasing federal funding for lower-level public education and providing free community college to all

applying stricter enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and

supporting the formation of a Palestinian state.

With the exception of a resolution to implement sanctions against South Africa for its apartheid policies, none of these positions made it into the party's platform in either 1984 or 1988.

Stand on abortion

Although Jackson was one of the most liberal members of the Democratic Party, his position on abortion were originally more in line with pro-life views. In 1975, Jackson endorsed a plan for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Jackson once endorsed the Hyde Amendment, which bars the funding of abortions through the federal Medicaid program. He wrote an article published in a 1977 National Right to Life Committee News report:

"There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life...that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.

What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."

However, since then, Jackson has adopted a pro-choice view, believing that abortion is a right and that the government should not prevent a woman from having an abortion.

Later political activities

He ran for office as "shadow senator" for the District of Columbia when the position was created in 1991, and served as such through 1997, when he did not run for re-election. This unpaid position was primarily a post to lobby for statehood for the District of Columbia.

In the mid-1990s, he was approached about being the United States Ambassador to South Africa but declined the opportunity in favor of helping his son, Jesse Jackson, Jr., run for the United States House of Representatives.

Jackson was initially critical of the "Third Way" or more moderate policies of Bill Clinton, so much so that Clinton was "petrified about a primary challenge from" Jackson in the 1996 election. However, he became a key ally in gaining African American support for Clinton and eventually became a close advisor and friend of the Clinton family. Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest honor bestowed on civilians. His son, Jesse Jackson, Jr., also emerged as a political figure, becoming a member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Jesse Jackson on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. In 2003, Jackson surprised many observers by declining to endorse the campaigns of either Al Sharpton or former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the two African American candidates, in the race for the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nomination. Instead, Jackson remained largely silent about his preference in the race until late in the primary season, when he allowed Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, another presidential candidate, to speak at a Rainbow/PUSH forum on March 31, 2004. Although he did not explicitly voice an endorsement of Rep. Kucinich, Jackson described Kucinich as "assuming the burden of saying 'you make the most sense, but you can't win.'" He also writes for ''The Progressive Populist''.

Jackson was a target of the 2002 white supremacist terror plot.

2004 presidential election

Jackson gathered information and support to investigate the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, particularly the voting results in Ohio and its recount. He called for a congressional debate on the matter, asking for a fair count and national voting standards, saying that the elections in the United States are each run with different standards by different states with partisan tricks, racial bias, and widespread incompetence and are an open scandal.

Jackson said that he held some hope that the election could be overturned, although he admitted that that was very doubtful. Jackson compared the voting irregularities of Ohio to that of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, saying that if Ohio were Ukraine, the U.S. presidential election would not have been certified by the international community. Jackson called Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell inappropriately partisan and said that Blackwell may have been pressured by President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney to deliver Ohio to the Republican Party.

Based on information obtained in hearings held by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and discovered during a flawed recount of the Ohio presidential vote called for by Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik, Jackson suggested that the Ohio voting machines were "rigged" and that some African-Americans were forced to stand in line for six hours in the rain before voting. When asked for evidence, Jackson replied, "Based on distrusting the system, lack of paper trails, the anomaly of the exit polls."

On January 6, 2005, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff released a 100 page report on the Ohio election. This challenge to the Ohio election was rejected by a vote of 74-1 by the United States Senate and 267-31 in the House. Many high-ranking Democrats chose to distance themselves from this debate, including John Kerry, despite Jesse Jackson personally asking Kerry for help. The call for election reform legislation and voting rights protection nonetheless continued.

Terri Schiavo case

In early 2005, Jackson visited the parents in the Terri Schiavo case; he supported their unsuccessful bid to keep her alive.

Firearms protest and arrest

On June 23, 2007 Jackson was arrested in connection with a protest at a gun store in Riverdale, a poor suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Jackson and others were protesting due to allegations that the gun store had been selling firearms to local gang members and was contributing to the decay of the community. According to police reports, Jackson refused to stop blocking the front entrance of the store and let customers pass. He was charged with one count of criminal trespass to property.

2008 presidential election

In March 2007, Jackson declared his support for then-Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 democratic primaries. Jackson later criticized Obama in 2007 for "acting like he's white," in response to the Jena 6 beating case.

On July 6, 2008, during an interview with Fox News, a microphone picked up Jackson whispering to fellow guest Dr. Reed Tuckson: "See, Barack's been, ahh, talking down to black people on this faith-based... I want to cut his nuts off." Jackson was expressing his disappointment in Obama's Father's Day speech chastisement of black fathers. Only a portion of Jackson's comments were released on video. A spokesman for Fox News stated that Jackson had "referred to blacks with the N-word" in his comments about Obama; Fox News did not release the entire video or a complete transcript of his comments. Subsequent to his Fox News interview, Jackson apologized and reiterated his support for Obama.

On November 4, 2008, Jackson was present at the Obama victory rally in Chicago's Grant Park, waiting for Obama to appear. In the several moments before Obama spoke, Jackson was seen in tears.

Electoral history

New York State Right to Life Party Presidential convention, 1980

Ellen McCormack: 79,609 (67.33%)

Ronald Reagan: 34,293 (29.00%)

No candidate: 2,729 (2.31%)

Jesse Jackson: 1,606 (1.36%)

1984 Democratic presidential primaries

Walter Mondale: 6,952,912 (38.32%)

Gary Hart: 6,504,842 (35.85%)

Jesse Jackson: 3,282,431 (18.09%)

John Glenn: 617,909 (3.41%)

George McGovern: 334,801 (1.85%)

Unpledged: 146,212 (0.81%)

Lyndon LaRouche: 123,649 (0.68%)

Reubin O'Donovan Askew: 52,759 (0.29%)

Alan Cranston: 51,437 (0.28%)

Ernest Hollings: 33,684 (0.19%)

1984 Democratic National Convention

Walter Mondale: 2,191 (56.41%)

Gary Hart: 1,201 (30.92%)

Jesse Jackson: 466 (12.00%)

Thomas F. Eagleton: 18 (0.46%)

George McGovern: 4 (0.10%)

John Glenn: 2 (0.05%)

Joe Biden: 1 (0.03%)

1988 Democratic presidential primaries

Michael Dukakis: 9,898,750 (42.47%)

Jesse Jackson: 6,788,991 (29.13%)

Al Gore: 3,185,806 (13.67%)

Dick Gephardt: 1,399,041 (6.00%)

Paul M. Simon: 1,082,960 (4.65%)

Gary Hart: 415,716 (1.78%)

Unpledged: 250,307 (1.07%)

Bruce Babbitt: 77,780 (0.33%)

Lyndon LaRouche: 70,938 (0.30%)

David Duke: 45,289 (0.19%)

James Traficant: 30,879 (0.13%)

Douglas E. Applegate: 25,068 (0.11%)

1988 Democratic National Convention

Michael Dukakis: 2,877 (70.09%)

Jesse Jackson: 1,219 (29.70%)

Richard H. Stallings: 3 (0.07%)

Joe Biden: 2 (0.05%)

Dick Gephardt: 2 (0.05%)

Lloyd Bentsen: 1 (0.02%)

Gary Hart: 1 (0.02%)

Shadow Senator from District of Columbia, 1990

Two candidates who won the highest number of vote take two shadow seats.

Jesse Jackson (D): 105,633 (46.80%)

Florence Pendleton (D): 58,451 (25.89%)

Harry T. Alexander (I): 13,983 (6.19%)

Milton Francis (R): 13,538 (6.00%)

Joan Gillison (R): 12,845 (5.69%)

Keith M. Wilkerson (D.C. Statehood): 4,545 (2.01%)

Anthony W. Peacock (D.C. Statehood): 4,285 (1.90%)

John West (I): 3,621 (1.60%)

David L. Whitehead (I): 3,341 (1.48%)

Sam Manuel (Socialist Workers): 2,765 (1.23%)

Lee Black (I): 2,728 (1.21%)

In popular culture

In the 1970s, Jesse Jackson recited his poem "I Am – Somebody" on ''Sesame Street'', as the child audience repeated his verses.

Jackson performed the marriage ceremony for Sammy Davis, Jr. and Altovise Davis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 11, 1970.

Discrimination complaint

In April 2011, Tommy R. Bennett, an openly gay man who worked at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition from July 11, 2007 through December 23, 2009, filed a complaint with the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations against Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, claiming harassment and termination on the basis of Bennett's sexual orientation.

Personal life

Jackson married Jacqueline Lavinia Brown (born 1944) on, December 31, 1962, and they had five children: Santita (1963), Jesse Jr. (1965), Jonathan Luther (1966), Yusef DuBois (1970), and Jacqueline Lavinia (1975). On Memorial Day, May 25, 1987, he was made a Master Mason on Sight by Grand Master Senter of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Illinois; thereby making Jesse Jackson a Prince Hall Freemason.

In 2001, it was revealed Jackson had an affair with a staffer, Karin Stanford, that resulted in the birth of a daughter, Ashley, in May 1999. According to CNN, in August 1999, The Rainbow Push Coalition had paid Stanford $15,000 in moving expenses and $21,000 in payment for contracting work. A promised advance of an additional $40,000 against future contracting work was rescinded once the affair became public. This incident prompted Jackson to withdraw from activism for a short time. Separate from the 1999 Rainbow Coalition payments, Jackson pays $4,000 a month in child support.

See also

"I Am - Somebody" - a well-known Jesse Jackson poem

Notes

References

Bibliography

. .

External links

Jesse Jackson - Keep Hope Alive

Affiliates

Quotes

Ubben Lecture at DePauw University

1984 DNC speech transcript and audio

1988 DNC speech transcript and audio

Jesse Jackson Calls for "War on Poverty" - video interview by ''Democracy Now!''

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century African-American activists Category:African American religious leaders Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:African American United States presidential candidates Category:American adoptees Category:American football quarterbacks Category:Baptist ministers from the United States Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Chicago Theological Seminary alumni Category:Illinois Fighting Illini football players Category:Jackson family (Chicago) Category:North Carolina A&T Aggies football players Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:People from Greenville, South Carolina Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Spingarn Medal winners Category:United States presidential candidates, 1984 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States Shadow Senators from District of Columbia Category:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni

ar:جيسي جاكسون bg:Джеси Джексън cs:Jesse Jackson de:Jesse Jackson es:Jesse Jackson fr:Jesse Jackson ko:제시 잭슨 hr:Jesse Jackson id:Jesse Jackson it:Jesse Jackson he:ג'סי ג'קסון nl:Jesse Jackson ja:ジェシー・ジャクソン no:Jesse Jackson pl:Jesse Jackson pt:Jesse Jackson ru:Джексон, Джесси simple:Jesse Jackson sh:Jesse Jackson fi:Jesse Jackson sv:Jesse Jackson tr:Jesse Jackson yi:דזשעסי דזשעקסאן yo:Jesse Jackson

Coordinates	50°45′10″N18°53′15″N
name	Dennis Kucinich
nationality	American
state	Ohio
district	10th
party	Democratic
term start	January 3, 1997
preceded	Martin Hoke
state senate2	Ohio
state2	Ohio
district2	23rd
term start2	January 3, 1995
term end2	January 2, 1997
preceded2	Anthony Sinagra
succeeded2	Patrick Sweeney
office3	Mayor of Cleveland
term start3	1977
term end3	1979
order3	53rd
predecessor3	Ralph J. Perk
successor3	George Voinovich
birth date	October 08, 1946
birth place	Cleveland, Ohio
spouse	Helen Kucinich (divorced)Sandra Lee McCarthy (1977–1986, divorced)Elizabeth Kucinich (2005–present)
children	Jackie Kucinich
alma mater	Cleveland State UniversityCase Western Reserve University
religion	Roman Catholic
residence	Cleveland
website	Congressman Dennis Kucinich }}

Dennis John Kucinich (; born October 8, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997, and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 elections.

The district includes most of western Cleveland as well as suburbs such as Parma and Lakewood. He is currently the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He is also a member of the Education and Labor Committee.

From 1977 to 1979, Kucinich served as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, a tumultuous term in which he survived a recall election and was successful in a battle against selling the municipal electric utility before being defeated for reelection by George Voinovich.

Through his various governmental positions and campaigns, Kucinich has attracted attention for consistently delivering "the strongest liberal" perspective. This perspective and his actions, such as bringing articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and being the only Democratic candidate in the 2008 election to have voted against invading Iraq, has often been in sharp contrast to the more moderate tone the Democratic Party has often adopted.

Personal life

Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 8, 1946, as the eldest of the seven children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. His father, a truck driver, was of Croatian ancestry; his Irish American mother was a homemaker. Growing up, his family moved 21 times and Kucinich was often charged with the responsibility of finding apartments they could afford.

He attended Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1973, he graduated from Case Western Reserve University with both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree in speech and communication. Kucinich was baptized a Roman Catholic. Kucinich married Sandra Lee McCarthy in 1977; they had a daughter named Jackie in 1981 and divorced in 1986. He married his third wife, Elizabeth Harper, a British citizen, on August 21, 2005. The two met while Harper was working as an assistant for the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute, which brought her to Kucinich's House of Representatives office for a meeting.

Dennis was raised with four brothers, Larry, Frank, Gary and Perry; and two sisters, Theresa and Beth Ann. On December 19, 2007, Perry Kucinich, the youngest brother, was found dead in his apartment. On November 11, 2008, his youngest sister, Beth Ann Kucinich, also died.

Recognition

In 2003, Kucinich was the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award, an annual award bestowed by the Religious Society of Friends-affiliated organization Promoting Enduring Peace.

Early career

Kucinich's political career began early. After running unsuccessfully in 1967, Kucinich was elected to the Cleveland City Council in 1969 at the age of twenty-three. In 1972, Kucinich ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, losing narrowly to incumbent Republican William E. Minshall, Jr. After Minshall's retirement in 1974 Kucinich sought the seat again, this time failing to get the Democratic nomination, which instead went to Ronald M. Mottl. Kucinich ran as an Independent candidate in the general election, placing third with about 30% of the vote. In 1975, Kucinich became clerk of the municipal court in Cleveland and served in that position for two years.

Cleveland mayoralty, 1977–1979

Kucinich was elected Mayor of Cleveland in 1977 and served in that position until 1979. At thirty-one years of age, he was the youngest mayor of a major city in the United States, earning him the nickname "the boy mayor of Cleveland". Kucinich's tenure as mayor is often regarded as one of the most tumultuous in Cleveland's history. After Kucinich refused to sell Muni Light, Cleveland's publicly owned electric utility, the Cleveland mafia put out a hit on Kucinich. A hit man from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized and missed the event. When the city fell into default shortly thereafter, the mafia leaders called off the contract killer.

Specifically, it was the Cleveland Trust Company that suddenly required all of the city's debts be paid in full, which forced the city into default, after news of Kucinich's refusal to sell the city utility. For years, these debts were routinely rolled over, pending future payment, until Kucinich's announcement was made public. In 1998 the council honored him for having the "courage and foresight" to stand up to the banks and saving the city an estimated $195 million between 1985 and 1995.

Post-mayoralty

After losing his re-election bid for Mayor to George Voinovich in 1979, Kucinich initially kept a low profile in Cleveland politics. He criticized a tax referendum proposed by Voinovich in 1980, which voters eventually approved. He also struggled to find employment and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he stayed with a friend, actress Shirley MacLaine. During the next three years, Kucinich worked as a radio talk-show host, lecturer, and consultant. It was a difficult period for Kucinich financially. Without a steady paycheck, Kucinich fell behind in his mortgage payments, nearly lost his house in Cleveland, and ended up borrowing money from friends, including MacLaine, to keep it. On his 1982 income tax return, Kucinich reported an income of $38. When discussing this period, Kucinich stated, "When I was growing up in Cleveland, my early experience conditioned me to hang in there and not to quit... It's one thing to experience that as a child, but when you have to as an adult, it has a way to remind you how difficult things can be. You understand what people go through."

In 1982, Kucinich moved back to Cleveland and ran for Secretary of State; however, he lost the Democratic primary to Sherrod Brown. In 1983, Kucinich won a special election to fill the seat of a Cleveland city councilman who had died. His brother, Gary Kucinich, was also a councilman at the time.

In 1985, there was some speculation that Kucinich might run for mayor again. Instead, his brother Gary ran against (and lost to) the incumbent Voinovich. Kucinich, meanwhile, gave up his council position to run for Governor of Ohio as an independent against Richard Celeste, but later withdrew from the race. After this, Kucinich, in his own words "on a quest for meaning," lived quietly in New Mexico until 1994, when he won a seat in the Ohio State Senate. "He was in political Siberia in the 1980s," said Joseph Tegreene years later. "It was only when it became clear to people that he was right... he got belated recognition for the things that he did."

In 1996, Kucinich was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 10th district of Ohio. He defeated two-term Republican incumbent Martin Hoke by three percentage points. However, he has never faced another contest nearly that close, and has since been re-elected six times.

On August 27, 2008, he delivered a widely publicized speech at the Democratic National Convention.

House of Representatives

Committee assignments

Committee on Education and the Workforce

* Subcommittee on Workforce Protections

* Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

* Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending (Ranking Member)

Domestic policy voting record

Kucinich helped introduce and is one of 93 cosponsors (as of Feb. 22, 2010) in the House of Representatives of the United States National Health Care Act or HR 676 proposed by Rep. John Conyers in 2003, which provides for a universal single-payer public health-insurance plan.

Although his voting record is not always in line with that of the Democratic Party, on March 17, 2010, after being courted by President Barack Obama, his wife and others, reluctantly agreed to vote with his colleagues for the Healthcare Bill without a public option component.

Kucinich voted against the USA PATRIOT Act, against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and was one of six who voted against the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act. He also voted for authorizing and directing the Committee on the Judiciary to investigate whether sufficient grounds existed for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Kucinich criticized the flag-burning amendment and voted against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. His congressional voting record has leaned strongly toward a pro-life stance, although he noted that he has never supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion altogether. In 2003, however, he began describing himself as pro-choice and said he had shifted away from his earlier position on the issue. Press releases have indicated that he is pro-choice and supports ending the abstinence-only policy of sex education and increasing the use of contraception to make abortion "less necessary" over time. His voting record since 2003 has reflected mixed ratings from abortion rights groups.

He has criticized Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) for promoting voting machines that fail to leave a traceable paper trail. He was one of the thirty-one who voted in the House to not count the electoral votes from Ohio in the United States presidential election, 2004.

Foreign policy record

Kucinich has criticized the foreign policy of President Bush, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and what he perceives as growing American hostility towards Iran. He has always voted against funding it. In 2005, he voted against the Iran Freedom and Support Act, calling it a "stepping stone to war". He also signed a letter of solidarity with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 2004.

He advocates the abolition of all nuclear weapons, calling on the United States to be the leader in multilateral disarmament. Kucinich has also strongly opposed space-based weapons and has sponsored legislation, HR 2977, banning the deployment and use of space-based weapons.

Kucinich advocates US withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because, in his view, it causes the loss of more American jobs than it creates, and does not provide adequate protections for worker rights and safety and environmental safeguards. He is against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) for the same reason.

Kucinich is also in favor of increased dialog with Iran in order to avoid a militaristic confrontation at all costs. He expressed such sentiments at an American Iranian Council conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey which included Chuck Hagel, Javad Zarif, Nicholas Kristof, and Anders Liden to discuss Iranian-American relations, and potential ways to increase dialog in order to avoid conflict.

He believes the US should move aggressively to reduce emissions that cause climate change due to global warming and should ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a major international agreement signed by over 160 countries to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by each signatory.

Kucinich and Ron Paul are the only two congressional representatives who voted against the Rothman-Kirk Resolution, which calls on the United Nations to charge Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the genocide convention of the United Nations Charter based on statements that he has made. Kucinich defended his vote by saying that Ahmadinejad's statements could be translated to mean that he wants a regime change in Israel, not death to its people and supporters, and that the resolution is an attempt to beat "the war drum to build support for a US attack on Iran." In October 2009, Kucinich and Ron Paul were the only two congressional representatives to vote against H.Res.175 condemning the government of Iran for “state-sponsored persecution of its Bahá’í minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.”

On January 9, 2009, Kucinich was one of the dissenters in a 390-5 vote with 22 abstentions for a resolution recognizing Israel's "right to defend itself [against Hamas rocket attacks]" and reaffirming the U.S.'s support for Israel. The other 4 "no" votes were Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Maxine Waters of California, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Ron Paul of Texas.

Kucinich is the only congressional representative to vote against the symbolic "9/11 Commemoration" resolution. In a press statement he defended his vote by saying that the bill did not make reference to "the lies that took us into Iraq, the lies that keep us there, the lies that are being used to set the stage for war against Iran and the lies that have undermined our basic civil liberties here at home."

In a visit to the rest of the Middle East in September 2007, Kucinich said he did not visit Iraq because "I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation." Kucinich was criticized for his visit to Syria and praise of the President Bashar al-Assad on Syria's national TV. He praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees. "What most people are not aware of is that Syria has taken in more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees," Kucinich said. "The Syrian government has actually shown a lot of compassion in keeping its doors open, and being a host for so many refugees."

Despite Kucinich's committed opposition to the war in Iraq, in the days after the September 11, 2001 attacks he did vote to authorize President Bush broad war making powers, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. The Authorization was used by the Bush Administration in its justification for suspension of ''habeas corpus'' in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and its wiretapping of American citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Kucinich voted along with 419 of his House colleagues in favor of this resolution, while only one Congresswoman opposed, Representative Barbara Lee.

In March 2010, the House rejected a Kucinich resolution regarding the War in Afghanistan by a vote of 356-65. The resolution would have required the Obama administration to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Kucinich reportedly based the resolution on the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

In March 2011, Kucinich criticized the Obama administration's decision to participate in the UN intervention in Libya without Congressional authorization. He also called it an "indisputable fact" that President Obama's decision is an impeachable offense since he believes the U.S. Constitution "does not provide for the president to wage war any times he pleases," although he has not yet introduced a resolution to impeach Obama On August 25, 2011 it was published that secret documents where seen by the guardian.co.uk That Gaddafi had contacted Kucinich.

2004 Presidential campaign

Kucinich was criticized during his 2004 campaign for changing his stance on the issue of abortion. His explanation was "I've always worked to make abortions less necessary, through sex education and birth control. But the direction that Congress has taken, increasingly, is to make it impossible for women to be able to have an abortion if they need to protect their health. So when I saw the direction taken, it finally came to the point where I understood that women will not be truly free unless they have the right to choose."

Ralph Nader praised Kucinich as "a genuine progressive", and most Greens were friendly to Kucinich's campaign, some going so far as to indicate that they would not have run against him had he won the Democratic nomination. However, Kucinich was unable to carry any states in the 2004 Democratic Primaries, and John Kerry eventually won the Democratic nomination at the Democratic National Convention.

Press coverage

On December 10, 2003, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) announced the removal of its correspondents from the campaigns of Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton.

The announcement came one day after a Democratic presidential debate hosted by ABC News' Ted Koppel, in which Koppel asked whether the candidacies of Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Sharpton were merely "vanity campaigns", and Koppel and Kucinich exchanged uncomfortable dialog.

Kucinich, previously critical of the limited coverage given his campaign, characterized ABC's decision as an example of media companies' power to shape campaigns by choosing which candidates to cover and questioned its timing, coming immediately after the debate.

ABC News, while stating its commitment to give coverage to a wide range of candidates, argued that focusing more of its "finite resources" on those candidates most likely to win would best serve the public debate.

Polls and primaries

In the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination race, national polls consistently showed Kucinich's support in single digits, but rising, especially as Howard Dean lost some support among peace activists for refusing to commit to cutting the Pentagon budget. Though he was not viewed as a viable contender by most, there were differing polls on Kucinich's popularity.

He placed second in MoveOn.org's primary, behind Dean. He also placed first in other polls, particularly Internet-based ones. This led many activists to believe that his showing in the primaries might be better than what Gallup polls had been saying. However, in the non-binding Washington, D.C. primary, Kucinich finished fourth (last out of candidates listed on the ballot), with only 8% of the vote. Support for Kucinich was most prevalent in the caucuses around the country.

In the Iowa caucuses, he finished fifth, receiving about 1% of the state delegates from Iowa; far below the 15% threshold for receiving national delegates. He performed similarly in the New Hampshire primary, placing sixth among the seven candidates with 1% of the vote. In the Mini-Tuesday primaries, he finished near the bottom in most states, with his best performance in New Mexico where he received less than 6% of the vote, and still no delegates. Kucinich's best showing in any Democratic contest was in the February 24 Hawaii caucus, in which he won 31% of caucus participants, coming in second place to Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and winning Maui County, the only county won by Kucinich in either of his presidential campaigns. He also saw a double-digit showing in Maine on February 8, where he got 16% percent in that state's caucus.

On Super Tuesday, March 2, Kucinich gained another strong showing with the Minnesota caucus, where 17% of the ballots went to him. In his home state of Ohio, he gained 9% in the primary.

Kucinich campaigned heavily in Oregon, spending 30 days there during the two months leading up to the state's May 18 primary. He continued his campaign because "the future direction of the Democratic Party has not yet been determined" and chose to focus on Oregon "because of its progressive tradition and its pioneering spirit." He even offered to campaign jointly with Kerry during Kerry's visit to the state, though the offer was ignored. He won 16% of the vote.

Even after Kerry won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Kucinich continued to campaign until just before the convention, citing an effort to help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party. He was the last candidate to end his campaign. He endorsed Kerry on July 22, four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention.

2008 Presidential campaign

On December 11, 2006 in a speech delivered at Cleveland City Hall, Kucinich announced he would seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for President in 2008. His platform for 2008 included:

Creating a single-payer not-for-profit system of universal health care that provides full coverage for all Americans by passage of the United States National Health Care Act.

The immediate, phased withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq; replacing them with an international security force.

Guaranteed quality education for all; including free pre-kindergarten and college for all who want it.

Immediate withdrawal from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Immediate repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Fostering a world of international cooperation.

Abolishing the death penalty.

Environmental renewal and clean energy.

Creating a moratorium on Genetically Modified Organism (GMO).

Implementation of H.R. 676, which integrates traditional medicine with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Ban offshore drilling.

Halt all Biochemical Aerial Spraying of Pesticides and other toxins.

Preventing the privatization of social security.

Providing full social security benefits at age 65.

Creating a cabinet-level "Department of Peace"

Ratifying the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol.

Introducing reforms to bring about instant-runoff voting.

Protecting a woman's "right to choose" while decreasing the number of abortions performed in the U.S.

Lowering the voting age to 16

Ending the War on Drugs.

Legalizing same-sex marriage.

Strongly promoting workers' rights.

Ending the H-1B and L-1 visa Programs

Restoring rural communities and family farms.

Strengthening gun control.

Legalizing medicinal marijuana and decriminalizing non-medical possession.

Kucinich described his stance on the issues as mainstream. "My politics are center for the Democratic party," he said in an interview before an AFL-CIO sponsored debate.

Kucinich told his supporters in Iowa that if he did not appear on the second ballot in any caucus that they should back Barack Obama:

"I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice ... because of my singular positions on the war, on health care and trade," Kucinich said. "But in those caucus locations where my support doesn't reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice."

At a debate of Democratic presidential candidates in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which the author writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO from her home in Washington State. Russert asked if MacLaine's assertion was true. Kucinich confirmed and emphasized that he merely meant he had seen an ''unidentified'' flying object, just as former US president Jimmy Carter has. Russert then cited a statistic that 14% of Americans say they have witnessed a UFO. The next day, Russert's "UFO question" drew harsh criticism from Kucinich's fellow candidate, former Senator from Alaska, Mike Gravel:

"Once again Russert assumed his role as the establishment's Hatchetman. Last debate, he sandbagged me with the bankruptcy question. This time he clocked Dennis with the UFO. When is Russert going to ask Hillary about the billing records or the cattle futures during a debate? Russert is America's most overrated journalist..."

On November 16, 2007, Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for Kucinich at the Los Angeles-based Hustler-LFP headquarters, attended by Kucinich and his wife, which has drawn criticism from Flynt's detractors. Attendees included such notables as Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Melissa Etheridge, Tammy Etheridge, Stephen Stills, Kristen Stills, Frances Fisher, and Esai Morales. Campaign representatives declined to comment.

In December 2007, author Gore Vidal endorsed Kucinich for president.

Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign was advised by a steering committee including Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Founder Steve Cobble, long-time Kucinich press secretary Andy Junewicz, former RFK, McCarthy, Humphrey, McGovern and Carter political consultant Michael Carmichael, former Carter Fundraiser Marcus Brandon, Ani DiFranco Tour Manager Susan Alzner, West Point Graduate and former Army Captain Mike Klein, former Communications Director of Democrats Abroad Sharon Manitta and New Jersey-based political consultant Vin Gopal. The campaign was seen as a platform to push progressive issues into the Democratic Party, including a not-for-profit health care system, same-sex marriage, increasing the minimum wage, opposing capital punishment, and impeachment.

On Monday, January 7, 2008 actor Viggo Mortensen endorsed Kucinich's presidential campaign in New Hampshire. On Thursday, January 10, 2008, Kucinich asked for a New Hampshire recount based on discrepancies between the machine-counted ballots and the hand-counted ballots. He stated that he wanted to make sure "100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted."

On Tuesday, January 15, 2008, Kucinich was "disinvited" from a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC. A ruling that the debate could not go ahead without Kucinich was overturned on appeal. Kucinich later responded to the questions posed in the MSNBC debate in a show hosted by Democracy Now!

Kucinich dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination on Thursday, January 24, 2008, and did not endorse any other candidate. He later endorsed Barack Obama after he had won the nomination. On Friday, January 25, 2008, he made a formal announcement of the end of his campaign for president and his focus on reelection to Congress.

Congressional campaigns

Kucinich has always been reelected to Congress by sound margins in his strongly Democratic-leaning district. Kucinich has so far won primary challenges against him for the Democratic nomination convincingly.

2006

Kucinich defeated another Democratic primary challenger by a wide margin and defeated Republican Mike Dovilla in the general election with 66% of the vote.

2008

His opponents included Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman and North Olmsted Mayor Thomas O'Grady. In February 2008 Kucinich raised around $50,000 compared to Cimperman's $228,000, but through a YouTube money raising campaign he managed to raise $700,000, surpassing Cimperman's $487,000.

Cimperman, who was endorsed by the Mayor of Cleveland and ''The Plain Dealer'', criticized Kucinich for focusing too much on campaigning for president and not on the district. Kucinich accused Cimperman of representing corporate and real estate interests. Cimperman described Kucinich as an absentee congressman who failed to pass any major legislative initiatives in his 12-year House career. In an interview, Cimperman said he was tired of Kucinich and Cleveland being joke fodder for late-night talk-show hosts, saying "It's time for him to go home." An ad paid for by Cimperman's campaign stated that Kucinich has missed over 300 votes, but by checking the ad's source, the actual number was 139. However, Kucinich is well known for his constituency service.

A report suggested that representatives of Nancy Pelosi and American Israel Public Affairs Committee would "guarantee" Kucinich's re-election if he dropped his bid to impeach Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, though Kucinich denies the meeting happened. It was also suggested that Kucinich's calls for universal health care and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq made him a thorn in the side of the Democrats' congressional leadership, as well as his refusal to pledge to support the eventual presidential nominee, which he later reconsidered.

Kucinich took part in a debate with the other primary challengers. Barbara Ferris criticized him for not bringing as much money back to the district as other area legislators and authoring just one bill that passed during his 12 years in Congress. Kucinich responded "It was a Republican Congress and there weren't many Democrats passing meaningful legislation during a Republican Congress."

Kucinich won the primary, receiving 68,156 votes out of 135,589 cast to beat Cimperman 52% to 33%.

Kucinich defeated former State Representative Jim Trakas in the November 4, 2008 general election with 153,357 votes, 56.8% of those cast.

2010

Kucinich defeated Republican nominee Peter J. Corrigan and Libertarian nominee Jeff Goggins in the November 2, 2008 general election with 101,343 votes, 53.1% of those cast.

Political positions

Based on his voting record in Congress, the American Conservative Union (ACU) gave Kucinich a conservative rating of 9.73%, and for 2008, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave him a liberal rating of 95%.

Monetary reform

In the aftermath of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Kucinich has called for the Federal Reserve System to be put under control of U.S. Treasury. Additionally, banks shall no longer be allowed to create money, putting an end to fractional-reserve banking. He cites Stephen Zarlenga as the initiator of that proposal.

Plan for Iraq

On January 8, 2007 Dennis Kucinich unveiled his comprehensive exit plan to bring the troops home and stabilize Iraq. His plan includes the following steps:

# Announce that the US will end the occupation, close the military bases, and withdraw. # Announce that existing funds will be used to bring the troops and the necessary equipment home. # Order a simultaneous return of all US contractors to the US and turn over the contracting work to the Iraqi government. # Convene a regional conference for developing a security and stabilization force for Iraq. # Prepare an international security peacekeeping force to replace US troops, who then return home. # Develop and fund a process of national reconciliation. # Restart programs for reconstruction and creating jobs for the Iraqi people. # Provide reparations for the damage that has been done to the lives of Iraqis. # Assure the political sovereignty of Iraq and ensure that their oil is not stolen. # Repair the Iraqi economy. # Guarantee economic sovereignty for Iraq. # Commence an international truth and reconciliation process, which establishes a policy of truth and reconciliation between the people of the US and Iraq.

Kucinich has criticized the Bush administration for supporting the People's Mujahedin of Iran terrorist group in Iraq and other insurgent groups that have attacked the Iranian state.

Space Preservation Act of 2001

Kucinich introduced the first Space Preservation Act, on October 2, 2001, with no cosponsors. The bill was designed to "preserve the cooperative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind." The bill was referred to the House Science, the House Armed Services, and the House International Relations committees. The bill died in committee (April 9, 2002) because of an unfavorable executive comment received from the Department of Defense.

Impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney

On April 17, 2007, Kucinich sent a letter to his Democratic colleagues saying that he planned to file impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney, then Vice President of the United States. Kucinich planned to introduce the impeachment articles on April 24, 2007, but in light of Cheney's visit to his doctor for an inspection of a blood clot, Kucinich decided to postpone the scheduled press conference "until the vice president's condition is clarified."

Kucinich held a press conference on the evening of April 24, 2007, revealing House Resolution 333 and the three articles of impeachment against Cheney. He charges Cheney with manipulating the evidence of Iraq's weapons program, deceiving the nation about Iraq's connection to al-Qaeda, and threatening aggression against Iran in violation of the United Nations charter. Kucinich opened his press conference by quoting from the Declaration of Independence, and stated: "I believe the Vice President's conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation. Today, I have introduced House Resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment Relating to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I do so in defense of the rights of the American people to have a government that is honest and peaceful."

During the first Democratic Presidential debate at South Carolina State University, none of the other candidates' hands went up when the moderator, Brian Williams, asked if they would support Kucinich's plan to impeach Cheney. In response, Kucinich retrieved a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution from his coat and expressed the importance of protecting and defending constitutional principles.

}}

As of January 29, 2008, 24 other Congressional representatives have become cosponsors. Six of these are members of the House Judiciary Committee: Tammy Baldwin, Keith Ellison, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Steve Cohen and Sheila Jackson-Lee. In addition, Congressman Robert Wexler, supported by Representatives Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, have begun openly calling for impeachment hearings to begin.

Cheney impeachment articles introduced

On November 6, 2007, Kucinich used special parliamentary procedure and moved for a vote on impeaching the Vice President. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Speaker Pelosi opposed the measure and stood by previous comments that, "impeachment is not on our agenda," and they initially moved to table the bill. When that attempt failed, Mr. Hoyer quickly moved to refer the bill to the House Judiciary Committee. That motion succeeded.

Opposition to H1B/L1 visa programs

Kucinich has been a vocal opponent of the H1B and L1 visa programs. In an article on his campaign website, he states:

Plan to ban handguns

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre in Blacksburg, Virginia, Kucinich proposed a plan that he says would address violence in America. Kucinich is currently drafting legislation that includes a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.

The congressman has pushed for gun control, even as a city councilman. He kept a pistol in his house for a period in 1978 (under the recommendation of the police) when he was the target of a Mafia plot. He no longer keeps the pistol.

Support for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine

Kucinich is also involved in efforts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, requiring radio stations to give liberal and conservative points of view equal time, which he and other critics of talk radio argue is not presently the case. Fellow Democrat Maurice Hichney, Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders, and others have joined him in this effort. Conservatives have criticized these plans, alleging that what they believe to be a liberal-dominated Hollywood, academia, new media, and mainstream media would not be subject to these regulations.

Animal welfare and rights

Kucinich addresses the issue of factory farming in his policy encouraging independent, family-owned, and organic farming. This would help lead to "the meat that we consume coming from happy and healthy free-range animals," Kucinich states on his campaign website.

Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress. He has maintained a diet for many years that excludes animal products in accordance with his conviction that "all life on our Earth [is] sacred."

Free Market Drug Act

Kucinich believes that the prices for patented drugs are unreasonably high, and that patent monopolies have created a restricted, unfree drug market. "Simply put, if drug manufacturers were operating in a free market like most other businesses in the US, drug prices would be significantly lower." On September 29, 2004, he introduced H.R. 5155, the ''Free Market Drug Act''; a system where the National Institutes of Health would fund research, thus disconnecting the manufacturing of drugs from research and increasing competition among private manufacturers.

Energy policy

As mayor of Cleveland in the 1970s, Kucinich favored the city's existing ''Municipal Light System'' and opposed construction of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant and Perry Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Erie. Kucinich opposed a planned regional radioactive waste dump, and has long advocated renewable energy and efficient energy use.

In 2010 Kucinich stated that new nuclear reactors are not cost-effective, and that they are a slow way of meeting electricity needs as it takes five or six years for new reactors to come on line. He also said that new nuclear reactors are a risky way to meet electricity needs.

Attempts to impeach George W. Bush

On June 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on the floor of the House of Representatives. On June 11, the resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, co-sponsor Robert Wexler stated: "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power."

On July 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced an additional article of impeachment accusing Bush of misleading Congress into war.

On July 14, 2008 Kucinich introduced a new resolution of impeachment against George W. Bush, charging him with manufacturing evidence to sway public opinion in favor of the war in Iraq. This resolution was also sent to the judiciary committee.

Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi opposed the impeachment efforts. None of them ever progressed to a full House vote.

Youth rights

In a Democratic debate during the 2008 Presidential Election, Kucinich and Mike Gravel were the only two candidates who favored lowering the legal drinking age to 18 as it is in the vast majority of the world. Kucinich further said that the voting age should be lowered to 16.

Military intervention in Libya

Kucinich objected to the 2011 military intervention in Libya missile strikes and questioned whether they weren't impeachable offenses. Kucinich also questioned why Democratic leaders didn’t object when President Barack Obama told them of his plan for US participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone. He said Obama's action in Libya was "a grave decision that cannot be made by the president alone", and stated that failing to first seek approval of Congress was in violation of the Constitution.

Collaboration with the Gaddafi regime

On August 31, Al Jazeera revealed that documents had been found in the headquarters of the Libyan intelligence agency describing conversations between Kucinich and an intermediary for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi in which the congressman asked for information regarding that could help him lobby against the intervention, block recognition of the rebel National Transitional Council, and defend Seif al-Islam against International Criminal Court war crimes charges. Kucinich defended himself in a message to ''The Atlantic Wire'', saying ''"Al Jazeera found a document written by a Libyan bureaucrat to other Libyan bureaucrats. All it proves is that the Libyans were reading the Washington Post... I can't help what the Libyans put in their files... Any implication I was doing anything other than trying to bring an end to an unauthorised war is fiction."''

Electoral history

See also

2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries

2008 Democratic presidential candidates

United States presidential election, 2008

List of United States Representatives from Ohio

Kucinich Resolution

References

External links

Congressman Dennis Kucinich ''official U.S. House site''

Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich ''official campaign site''

The Peace Alliance

Campaigns Wikia - Dennis Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich Interview at PR.com, November 17, 2008

Pictures of Helen Kucinich with Dennis Kucinich

Category:Anti-corporate activists Category:American environmentalists Category:American people of Croatian descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American vegans Category:Case Western Reserve University alumni Category:Cleveland City Council members Category:Cleveland State University alumni Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Mayors of Cleveland, Ohio Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio Category:Ohio Democrats Category:Ohio State Senators Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio Category:United States presidential candidates, 2004 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:Youth rights individuals Category:1946 births Category:Living people

Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 2nd Class Category:Christian vegans

br:Dennis J.Kucinich cs:Dennis Kucinich da:Dennis Kucinich de:Dennis Kucinich es:Dennis Kucinich eo:Dennis Kucinich fa:دنیس کوسینیچ fr:Dennis Kucinich hr:Dennis Kucinich is:Dennis Kucinich it:Dennis Kucinich nl:Dennis Kucinich ja:デニス・クシニッチ no:Dennis Kucinich pl:Dennis Kucinich pt:Dennis Kucinich ru:Кусинич, Деннис simple:Dennis Kucinich sh:Dennis Kucinich fi:Dennis Kucinich sv:Dennis Kucinich tr:Dennis Kucinich yi:דעניס קוסיניטש zh:丹尼斯·库辛尼奇