Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, above, a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, closed out the New York Mercantile Exchange last week with NYMEX chairperson Richard Schaeffer in Battery Park City. At right, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at City Hall Monday. He threw his hat in the ring earlier this year after most of his Democratic colleagues said they opposed cutting off war funds in Iraq, but he came to Lower Manhattan to support a single-payer health care plan. “Insurance companies make money not paying claims,” he said. “Take the profit out of health care, that’s the solution.” Councilmembers Oliver Koppell, Gale Brewer and Charles Barron joined Kucinich at the event. Advocacy groups are planning to march in Lower Manhattan on March 29 for a single-payer system. Although Kucinich got few votes in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, he was the last candidate to leave the race before John Kerry’s nomination.
