DENNIS KUCINICH IS OUT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE-- AND NOW HE'LL HAVE TO FIGHT TO RETAIN HIS OHIO CONGRESSIONAL SEAT

Dennis Kucinich announced that he will announce that his campaign for the presidency-- or whatever it was he was doing-- is over. Lately I've been getting worried about his highly ineffectual campaign (for the presidency). I was worried because he was making the anti-war forces look small and insignificant and because it has been looking like he might actually have trouble keeping his House seat. It seems like one or another Democrat running against him gets endorsed every few days. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson endorsed City Councilman Joe Cimperman and Paul Hackett endorsed Rosemary Palmer. Maybe I shouldn't care; I kind of blame the impotence of the House Progressive Caucus on Kucinich's lameness as a leader. And his voting record... not so great. I mean, he is hardly the progressive icon his supporters think he is-- not even on the war in Iraq.

A day before he finally let it be known that he would withdraw from his quixotic presidential run, the Washington Post ran an ominous piece on the possibility of him not being re-elected.

As if presidential dark horse Dennis Kucinich didn't have enough problems with his White House run, now he appears to be panicking over the spirited primary challengers seeking his seat in the House. Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman and North Olmstead Mayor Thomas O'Grady kicked off primary challenges last month, amid rising complaints that Kucinich's quest for higher office and his crusades to impeach Vice President Cheney have left the people of his district neglected. But in Kucinich land, the political landscape is never so simple.

In an "urgent personal appeal" Wednesday to his campaign supporters sent out by e-mail and released on YouTube, Kucinich laid the blame for his political travails a the feet "corporate interests"-- particularly local Cleveland ones-- and described an urgent need for funds so he could run television ads.

"I want to thank you for your support of our efforts to end the war, to create a not-for-profit healthcare system and take America in a new direction, so that we can have a government we can truly call our own. In connection with that, as you know, I'm running for re-election to the United States Congress and I need your help to make sure that I stay in Congress," he wrote. "Right now I'm under attack by corporate interests, most of them from the city of Cleveland, who have an agenda that has nothing to do with the people of my community, nor with most people in this country. And so what I'm asking you to do is to help me stay in Congress, so that I can continue to represent the people of my community, the state of Ohio and the United States of America."

“I want to continue to serve in Congress,” Kucinich told his hometown paper. I wonder if it's too late. Probably not-- but he'd better get busy.