Outsider Zeese's Passion Puts Him in Inner, If Not Winner's, Circle

Outsider Zeese's Passion Puts Him in Inner, if not Winner's, Circle

Posted by TBN On 11/04/2006

Intensity defines Kevin Zeese's actions -- from his culinary abilities to his passionate commitment to politics outside the two main parties.

Even though he is a distant third in the polls in Maryland's U.S. Senate race, he is running to win.

Zeese, 51, who considers himself as the only anti-war candidate and is representing an unprecedented three parties in Tuesday's election, is trying to break into a campaign largely divided between Democrat Rep. Ben Cardin and Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, with no more than $60,000 in his pocket.

It is a testament to his persistence and determination that he was included at least in three major debates in the race.

"Our country is going in so many wrong directions that we need a change, and I don't see either of the status quo parties would make that kind of change," Zeese said. "They are too indebted to the money special interests."

Zeese is not new at campaigns: In the 2004 presidential election he was the press secretary of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who later encouraged Zeese to run.

"He's done what no one else has done before" by representing the Green, Populist and Libertarian parties, and by getting into the major parties debate, Nader said. "I go around the country and for a Green candidate who is being excluded from a debate I would give Kevin as an example of how if you persist and you have a sense of strategy, you get on the debate."

More people should do what Zeese is doing to "to break the two parties' elective dictatorship," Nader said, "so the voters will have more voices and choices."

In his Takoma Park house, wearing a blue suit with a tie and no shoes, Zeese describes himself as a third choice, and he is exasperated when Cardin and Steele call themselves independents. "They sound like me!" he said.

His passion for politics is evident everywhere he is. At his home, books about economics, politics, history and law are piled from the entrance up the stairs to the second-floor studio. A collection of campaign buttons, plus photos of Zeese with former candidates or activists, and family photos, fight for space on the walls and in the bookcases.

"Every one in this house is politically motivated," he said.

Linda Schade, with whom he lives, is an activist and former Green candidate for Maryland's State House. He has two sons: Alex, 23, who works on his campaign, and Daniel, 18, who is the not-that-into-politics side of the family yet became a senator at Virginia Commonwealth University, Zeese said proudly. He and Dina, his ex-wife, were married for 20 years.

Originally from New York, Zeese grew up in a politically active house, where his father was teacher and his mother a nurse. Very articulate since a teenager, Zeese was popular and a good tennis player, said Elise Walton, a childhood friend. He was a good square dancer, she recalled, especially of The Virginia Reel.

"He is very agnostic about what he chooses to support, but it all comes from his principles," Walton said. "He is not going to go for an argument because it's going to buy him a favor or a connection with a group of people."

Zeese got into politics when Republican John Lindsay ran for mayor. "In those days Republicans in New York were liberals," he said.

After that campaign, Zeese voted Democratic until 1996, when he first

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