Dennis Kucinich

The desert metropolis of Phoenix was terrorized last week by sinister lights in the sky that hovered overhead while changing from a diamond shape to an "S" to a creepy cross. They were seen by air traffic controllers. The military denied involvement. Matt Drudge had the story at the top of his website. America panicked.

As the panic increased, a nameless "hoaxer" conveniently claimed responsibility -- balloons and burning flares were the cause of the unusual light show, he said. If so, the parched desert surrounding North Phoenix evaded a devastating wildfire, and with that the scare seemingly ended.

But what if the invasion had truly begun? Not the illegal-immigrant invasion from Mexico that the maverick John McCain supports, but an invasion by angry space monsters? Which of the three presidential front-runners is best prepared to lead our planet into a doomed war with the UFOs?

Dennis Kucinich saves his House seat.

Of all of the vulnerable incumbents in primaries tonight, Kucinich appeared the most in danger. Cimperman was well-funded and ran a very good campaign. Kucinich was frightened sufficiently enough to dump his WH campaign, and returned home to campaign full-time for his re-election bid.

But Kucinich rebounded sufficiently by raising $689K in the last few weeks of the campaign. He used those funds to run several "person-on-the-street" TV ads that touted his hometown appeal.

After the Cleveland Plain Dealer endorsement of Cimperman, and listening to the Ohio lefty blogosphere kvetch about Kucinich's Don Quixote presidential crusade, I did think for a second there that he might be in real trouble. But that district of his might as well be renamed "Fort Kucinich." He owns it as thoroughly as the title to his house. He raised almost a million in a few weeks for a congressional run?

He's not going anywhere.

Yesterday Dennis Kucinich euphemistically declared to the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he would be "transitioning out of the presidential campaign." Today at a union hall in Cleveland, Kucinich followed through and officially announced that he is out of the presidential race. He told cheering supporters, "I won't be president, but I can continue to fight for these important issues as the United States congressman representing the community that is first in my heart, Cleveland, Ohio."

Kucinich faces a primary challenge from four Democrats. His most formidable opponent appears to be Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, who accuses Kucinich of being a "part-time congressman". Cimperman holds a lead in fund raising, though Kucinich can transfer the $327,000 remaining from his presidential campaign to his House reelection campaign which would put him ahead of Cimperman.

Cimperman and Kucinich clashed earlier this month after a publicity stunt by Cimperman failed to amuse the congressman. Kucinich didn't take kindly when he found out that the councilman personally dropped off a mocked up missing person sign featuring Kucinich at Kucinich's office. In fact, Kucinich called the feds.

After the Jump--Kucinich to push impeachment next week.

What's law got to do with it?

A Las Vegas judge has ordered MSNBC to allow Dennis Kucinich to join the Democratic debate in Nevada Tuesday night, and threatened an injunction stopping the debate if he isn't included. Where he found this "right to be part of a televised debate" is anyone's guess. It's probably buried somewhere in the penumbras of the 1st, 4th, 9th and 14th Amendments -- kind of an inverse corollary to that elusive "right of privacy."

But the beauty of our legal system is that the judge never has to explain where he got the law. He only, apparently, has to explain that (a) he thinks it is unfair that he was uninvited after being invited, and (b) it is in the public's best interest to hear Kucinich.

Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has demanded a recount of ballots in last week's New Hampshire Democratic Primary.In similar news, the New York Jets have appealed the results of all four of this past weekend's playoff games.

In fairness to Kucinich, he says he doesn't expect his own vote total to change much, but wants to be sure everyone's votes get counted. He cited "credible reports, allegations, and rumors" about the integrity of the results.

Dennis Kucinich has posted his video responses on 10Questions.com. For those of you unfamiliar with this debate format, you can see my previous coverage here, with a rundown of the questions, my answers, and the candidates' answers to date. The 10 Questions format was included on Political Machine's Best Youtube Moments of 2007.

Here are Dennis' answers. After the jump, I'll run through his answers, and let you know how I think he did. In the meantime, I encourage you to go to 10 Questions and rate the answers, not on how much you liked them, but on whether or not the candidate actually answered the question. The site also allows you to mass email all of the candidates to demand their participation, another good idea. Although the deadline for candidates to respond has passed, it will send a message to them to think about being more responsive next time.

Lots of new TV spots being launched, here's a round-up.

The first ad is from Ron Paul (which barely features himself), it's a :30 second spot titled "Healthcare" airing in both Iowa and New Hampshire:

Let's play a game. Usually in endorsements, the question is whether the endorsee helps the endorser, by how much, and what, if anything, the endorser gets out of the deal. In this case we have Sean Penn endorsing Dennis Kucinich, and the game is very different. Who comes out worse in this deal?

On one side we have Sean Penn, who was seen struggling to bail out his own rowboat as he was trying to rescue Katrina victims but with photographer and publicist in tow. He's also well known for hobnobbing with South American dictators. Friend of liberal causes everywhere, Sean Penn has now tied himself to a sure-fire likeable loser Dennis Kucinich.

As we celebrate this long weekend of forced national gratitude, let us count the many terrible blessings of our political system. Every four years, those few of us who bother voting in the primaries get to pretend we have some important role as we cast our ballot for whatever candidate has raised enough corporate money to run television commercials for an entire year.

Let's gather together and say a prayer of gratitude for this long campaign's exciting collection of Leading Patriots running for our nation's highest office.

Fred Thompson, you have been on television, your latest wife is young and pretty, you helped Nixon during Watergate, and you also bravely provided legal and lobbying services to needy terrorists and abortionists. Thank you, Mr. Grumbles, for launching a loser campaign that ensures you'll never be president of anything, even though you pretended to be Ulysses S. Grant in a cable movie.

Barack Obama, you have done ... well, nothing that we've heard about, beyond running for president and writing a book about getting high. Thank you for proving, finally, that all it takes is good looks, an Ivy League diploma and a lot of corporate money to get somewhere in this country. Is it really so audacious to hope we might all become rich and famous? Yes, yes it is.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has been seen as something of a running joke of late. An also-ran presidential candidate in '04, he's back again to claim his lowly single-digit slice of polling percentages, and share the stage at debates with Democratic heavyweights. And at the most recent debate, Mr. Kucinich garnered nearly as many headlines as his opponents, but, yet again, for all the wrong reasons. The jokes about Kucinich's UFO sighting flew fast and furious. Days later, Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney, and to many it seemed that Mr. K had come completely unhinged.

One of the skeptics was "Dancing with the Stars" also-ran Tucker Carlson, the ever pompous quasi-conservative commentator for MSNBC. Carlson invited Kucinich on his show to discuss the issue of impeachment, no doubt thinking that he could skewer the Congressman, poking fun at him all the while. Well, it didn't turn out that way. Though I do not consider myself a Kucinich supporter, I admire the systematic, even-handed way that he dismantled Carlson's bogus line of attack.