Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who collapsed Thursday after jumping sides on a number of key issues.

Candidate collapses trying to take all sides on all issues

"Mr. Kucinich simply overexerted himself," said Dr. Kenneth Schantz, chief cardiovascular surgeon at Des Moines Regional Hospital, where Kucinich was treated and released. "Telling every voter exactly what they want to hear is quite a task when you're speaking to four-thousand students. He's lucky to have survived, frankly."

Kucinich is now in stable condition and resting comfortably pending release.

Kucinich, whose 2002 anti-war message prompted 23,000 e-mails encouraging him to run for President, shifted his noted "criminalize the performing of abortions" stance to a significantly more popular pro-choice position shortly before announcing his run for the Presidency. Since then, the divorced father of one has sought to make clear in speeches and television appearances that he is "always on the side of the voter."

"These other candidates, they're either for something or they're completely against it," said Kucinich on Meet the Nation in September. "Me, I'm a 'for' person. Voters should know that whatever position they have on an important issue, Kucinich is for it."

Though Kucinich's pro-everything stance appears to have struck a chord with voters nationwide, the 57-year-old left-wing candidate's collapse confirmed that he is struggling to maintain the demanding pace of issue side-jumping as he begins to address increasingly larger audiences.

"You've got to give him credit, he's a workhorse," said Dr. Schantz. "There he was in the emergency room, practically facing death, and he's reassuring me that he is absolutely in favor of keeping health care privatized, even though we all know he's pushed for socialized medicine for decades. 'You deserve to be paid more than lesser physicians,' he's telling me, and here we're trying to get him to calm down and save his strength. That's earning your votes, there. He's got mine, that's for sure."

Kucinich said that he hopes to be back out taking all sides on all issues by the end of the week. The candidate also said that he fully expects to have regained enough strength by the end of the campaign to suddenly change parties if his advisers feel it will capture him a few extra votes.

October 2003