Tongue Studs & Kama Sutra - Meet the Kucinichs

A British girl from
Essex, in southern England, may be the first lady with a tongue stud to
have set her sights on the White House.

The wife of Dennis Kucinich, a left-wing Democratic congressman and 2008 Presidential Candidate, is a 29-year-old hippie chick from Upminster at the end of the London Underground’s District line.

Elizabeth
Kucinich, née Harper, has been on the stump with her husband, a
60-year-old anti-war campaigner from Cleveland, mingling with the likes
of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama backstage at the Democratic
presidential debates.

“There’s a kind of camaraderie,” she said.

A 6-foot-tall willowy redhead who has been compared to Arwen Evenstar, the "Lord Of The Rings character played in the films by Liv Tyler, she towers over her diminutive husband.

“Who cares?” she said in an interview. “I like wearing high heels so I’m used to being taller than most men I stand next to.”

Nor is she bothered by their 31-year age difference.

“I have never noticed it at all,” she said. “Dennis is a very mature but young-at-heart gentleman and we complement each other.”

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Kucinich met her husband-to-be two years ago when she visited his office in the House of Representatives
with her boss as a volunteer worker for the American Monetary
Institute, an offbeat group dedicated to reforming the “unjust monetary
system.

"It was love at first sight for both of them. Immediately after their meeting, Dennis Kucinich phoned a friend and said: “I’ve met her [my future wife].”

He was mesmerized to receive a business e-mail from Harper with her usual
signature line from "Kama Sutra," one of her favorite films: “Knowing
love, I shall allow all things to come and go, to be as supple as the
wind and take everything that comes with great courage. My heart is as
open as the sky.”

He proposed at their second
meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., and they married three months later. The
actress Shirley MacLaine attended their wedding.

“I
knew at once I really wanted to marry this man,” Elizabeth Kucinich
said. “When you know it, why hang around?” It was Dennis’s third
marriage, but by the time he met Elizabeth he had been single for more
than 20 years.

If Dennis were elected, they would make a great team, Elizabeth said.

"Can you imagine what it would be like to have real love in the White House and a true union between the masculine and the feminine?”

There were clues in her childhood that they were destined for each other,
Elizabeth believes. She lived with her mother, a divorcée, on the
outskirts of London in a farm laborer’s dilapidated house that was
lovingly restored over the years.

"The address was 4, Dennis’s Cottages, Dennis’s Lane,” she said.

Her Moth runs a healing and therapy center and passed on her love of new age philosophy to her daughter.

Known at school in Essex as “the Jolly Green Giant” because of her height,
she studied religion and theology at Kent University and spent time in
India and Tanzania, where she worked for Voluntary Service Overseas.

It was in India that she encountered somebody with a tongue stud and later
had her own implanted — a bar with two delicate balls on either side.

On her MySpace Web site she lists one of her favorite bands as Coldplay
and says her heroes are “my beautiful husband and anyone else who
embraces peace."

She describes Dennis as a “very
philosophical, deep thinking person” rather than a new age type, but he
is a vegan, unlike her — she still cannot resist occasional dairy
products.

At Kent she unexpectedly signed up for
a master’s degree in conflict resolution after meeting the course
lecturer in a pub. She knew she had chosen the right subject when her
final exam took place on September 11, 2001.

“The rest of the world was sending out its love to America but U.S.
officials just wanted to kick out," she said. "I remember thinking then
I’d love to come to America and help them to reconcile with the rest of
the world.”

A shy girl in class, she has now
learned to speak in front of thousands of peaceniks and activists on
behalf of her husband and his presidential campaign.

As the wife of a congressman, she mixes with politicians across the
political divide. Earlier this month she attended a reception for the
Queen at the British embassy with Dennis, and was thrilled to meet her.

“I have great respect for the royal family because of their dedication to public service,” she said.

Another of her heroines is Diana, Princess of Wales. When she died, Elizabeth’s mother rang her daughter in tears.

“I was in shock for a very long time,” Elizabeth said. “She held an
incredible position in my heart. I was devastated. There hasn’t been
anyone able to bring that compassion back into public life.”

If Dennis makes it to the White House, Diana will be the first lady’s role
model. Americans, who always loved the princess, would like that, but
they might tell Elizabeth to lose the tongue stud.