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Lost but not forgotten: their candidate, his cause

Joseph Corrales and other loyal Dennis Kucinich supporters won't walk away, driven to be activists with the nomination out of reach.

ST. PETERSBURG - The situation is hopeless, and Joseph Corrales knows it. He slides behind the wheel of his Toyota pickup truck with his handmade "Kucinich for President" sign mounted in the back.

But you know, he said, sometimes you have to go on anyway.

Florida's Democratic primary Tuesday has become a one-horse race, with Sen. John Kerry from Massachusetts having lapped the field. What's left of it. Only the Rev. Al Sharpton and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich have yet to yield to Kerry and drop out.

Going into the Tuesday's primaries, Kerry had 1,506 of the 2,162 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Kucinich was sixth among the candidates with 22. The mainstream media, the leadership of the Democratic Party, even most of the general public have written off the man who made headlines in 1977 when he got elected mayor of Cleveland at age 31.

But Corrales is part of a small group of Kucinich loyalists who refuse to walk away. He says he'll make phone calls, knock on doors and talk to anyone who will listen right up to the time the polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

A 64-year-old retired Tampa firefighter who wears a ponytail but not a wristwatch, Corrales is not affiliated with any group or organization. A lifelong Democrat, he never got involved in a campaign on any level.

But for the first time in a long time, he's found a purpose in his life.

He's found a cause.

Even if it may be a lost one.

Fewer than 40 people came to St. Petersburg's Word of Life Fellowship Church on 16th Street S last Wednesday to hear Kucinich. The audience was mostly older people and teenagers. One kid standing in the back was carrying his skateboard.

At the same time that Kerry was traveling in a police-escorted motorcade toward a campaign appearance in Orlando, Kucinich ended his speech at the church, posed for photos with anyone who wanted one, and climbed into a dusty Chevy SUV with two aides and a security guard. They were headed for his Pinellas County campaign headquarters a few blocks away.

Corrales, an "Elect Kucinich" button pinned to his "Elect Kucinich" T-shirt, stood in the parking lot and watched the candidate pull away.

"I'd love to see him elected," Corrales said. "But at this point, it's an impossibility.

"But that's okay. I think his platform needs to be heard."

Corrales recited Kucinich's stands against the war in Iraq and against the Patriot Act. How he wants to preserve Social Security and not privatize it, and reduce the Pentagon budget and use the money for health care and education.

It's not easy, he said, backing a candidate who got only 9 percent of the vote and finished third in his home state's primary last Tuesday. Kerry's visit to Orlando was chronicled in every newspaper and on every TV station in the Tampa Bay area. Kucinich's visit to Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Tampa that same day was noted in the back pages, and only one TV station showed up at the church.

They say Kucinich has no name recognition, Corrales said. That he has no money and no "electability." That his ideas, including creating a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, are too extreme.

Even that he's too short.

But Kucinich insists he'll remain in the race until the last ballots are counted at the Democratic National Convention in July.

And Corrales insists he'll remain with him.

"This is all new to me," he said at Kucinich's headquarters, a cramped storefront sandwiched between the Flex Daycare Center and the Peace Sonian Spirit and Pride News office. "I used to drive my friends crazy by railing against politicians I thought were dishonest or hopelessly out of touch with average Americans.

"But I'm not angry now. I will become a political activist."

He could qualify already. He has gone door to door handing out Kucinich fliers until his knees ached. And then he rested and went on. On this day, at a time when he normally might be fishing for snook and trout from his kayak, he's darting about Pinellas County, driving Kucinich volunteers from one campaign stop to the next.

Corrales was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam, so he fought fires as a member of the Tampa Fire Department. He was there for 24 years before he retired 18 years ago. Divorced as long as he's been retired, Corrales supplements his pension by working part-time as a message therapist. He lives in Largo now and has three children and four grandchildren.

He found out about Kucinich through a friend and started reading about him.

And then something clicked. "The more I read," he said, "the more I liked him.

"I figure a few years from now, I'm gone anyway," Corrales said. "So I'm doing this for my grandchildren."

Before he left his campaign headquarters, Kucinich weaved through the crowd of supporters and thanked everyone for coming. A woman played an accordion, and the skateboard kid reappeared.

"People like him are what keep me going," Kucinich said of Corrales. "I'm so proud of all of them. That's sacred space."

And then the candidate was back in the Chevy and off to Tampa for another campaign stop, leaving the small group smiling and planning their next move.

"When I was a firefighter, it was exciting," Corrales said. "It got your heart really pumping sometimes.

"I'm finding this is doing the same thing.

"I'm alive."