Presidential Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich was in Des Moines Wednesday on the final stop of his three-day, 11-state tour to officially declare his candidacy for president.

“It’s good to be back in Iowa,” said Ohio Rep. Kucinich to a crowd gathered in the gymnasium of the Wilkie House in Des Moines. “Who else but Iowa to take us in a new direction?”

Kucinich rallied the crowd with an energetic speech summarizing his platform for presidency. His speech addressed many issues, but largely focused on health care, education and Iraq.

“We’ve seen funds for education cut and we’ve seen more and more money going to the Pentagon,” he said. “Colleges are not able to meet their budgets because federal funding to states is getting cut.”

Kucinich explained his plan to repeal Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and invest that money in education.

Kucinich has suggested cutting the proposed 2004 military budget by 15 percent or $60 billion, and allocating that money to pre-kindergarten education.

“This week Congress is being asked for another $87 billion to pay for the occupation in Iraq,” he said. “It’s time to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of Iraq.”

Since voting against the war in Iraq in Congress one year ago, Kucinich has maintained a strong resistance to the war and stressed the importance of replacing American and British troops with U.N. forces.

Kucinich said there are currently 45 million Americans without health care. He proposed a universal health care plan that provides dental, vision, mental and long-term health care, as well as prescription drug benefits.

Kucinich’s plan reorganizes national health insurance, removing private insurance companies from the health care system.

“We need to get out of health care for profit — we need health care for people,” Kucinich said.

A recent CNN/USA Today Gallup Poll of registered Democratic voters showed Kucinich positioned in last place behind the Democratic presidential hopefuls.

“It’s not necessary to be up in the polls at this point,” Kucinich said. “We are not running a campaign of pouring money into advertising to raise ourselves in polls.”

Kucinich admitted his campaign has not drawn much attention on a national level, but was confident he would succeed.

“We are going to be the surprise of the election,” he said. “We’ve built a campaign that can sustain itself without attention from the media.”