Dennis Kucinich is certainly of a different breed in the Democratic Party. He currently represents the 10th District of Ohio (much of Cleveland) in the U.S. House of Representatives, a post he has held since January 7, 1997. From 1977 to 1979 Kucinich served as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland, Ohio where he struggled through a recall election for his unpopular policy decisions. He is twice-divorced, with a daughter, Jackie, from his marriage to Sandra Lee McCarthy and married his third wife, Elizabeth Harper, a British citizen in 2005. He is currently campaigning for the Democratic convention's nomination for President in 2008.

Early Life

Dennis John Kucinich was born October 8, 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio. The baptized Roman Catholic eldest of seven children, Dennis' father Frank was a truck driver of Croatian ancestry and his Irish-American mother was a homemaker. In school Kucinich played as a third-string varsity quarterback and later attended Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1973, he graduated from Case Western Reserve University with both a BA and MA in speech and communication.

A Rocky Start

Kucinich began his political career early. His first campaign was in 1967 for the Cleveland City Council; he was only 21 years old. After an unsuccessful campaign in 1967, Kucinich was successful two years later and was seated in the City Council. His aspirations high, Kucinich ran in 1972 for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing narrowly for incumbent Republican William E. Minshall, Jr. In 1974, Kucinich failed to receive the Democratic nomination for the then retired Minshall's seat. Kucinich ran anyway, as an Independent in the general election, and gained a suprising 30% of the vote; however, he still lost to the Democratic candidate. A year later, in 1975, Kucinich became clerk of the municipal court in Cleveland and served there for two years.

Mayor of Cleveland

In 1977 Kucinich was elected Mayor of Cleveland at age 31, then the youngest mayor to ever run a major American city. His mayoralty was plagued from the start; in 1978, the major banks of Cleveland demanded that Kucinich sell the city's 70 year-old municipal electric system Muni Light to a private competitor. Kucinich's refusal to comply led the banks to stop the roll-over of the city debt, as was customary. Cleveland was pushed into default and as a result Kucinich lost his re-election bid in 1979 to George Voinovich. Over the years, however, details surfaced which threw light onto Mayor Kucinich's wisdom during his mayoralty. It was discovered that five of the six banks demanding the selling of Muni Light held nearly 1.8 million shares of CEI stock, the private company it would be sold too. Additionally, eight of the eleven directors of CEI were also directors of four of the six banks involved. Between 1985 and 1995, Kucinich saved customers an estimated $195 million dollars and preserved countless union jobs.

On a "Quest for Meaning"

The following three years after his re-election loss, Kucinich wandered to Los Angeles, California in search of employment in the private sector; on his 1982 income tax return, he claimed a mere $38. In 1982, Kucinich moved back to Cleveland, ran for Secretary of State, and lost in the primary. A year later Kucinich won a special election to fill the seat of a Cleveland city councilman who had died. He gave up the postion in 1985 to run for governor of Ohio as an Independent, but later withdrew. Soon after his withdrawal, Kucinich went into seclusion in New Mexico in what he called his "quest for meaning." Re-emerging in 1994, Kucinich won a seat in the State Senate and was back again from his hiatus into the tumultuous battleground of politics, one which had not so far been kind to him.

House of Representatives

In 1996, Kucinich was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 10th district of Ohio. Defeating two-term Republican incumbent Martin Hoke, Kucinich has not yet faced a serious threat to his seat. He serves on the Congressional Education and Labor Committee and the Government Reform Committee. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is a self-described "Wellstone Democrat." He is one ofthe 75 co-sponsors of the House of Representatives United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) proposed by Rep. John Conyers (need link) and providing a universal single-payer public heath insurance plan for all citizens. While Kucinich is typically in line with the Democrats with such votes against the Patriot Act, Kucinich does not always follow party line. During the Clinton year, Kucinich voted for the resolution investigating the President's role in the Lewinsky scandal; most of the Democrats opposed the resolution. Kucinich, however, later opposed the impeachment of Clinton. He is against proposed flag-burning bans, has always voted pro-life but declared himself pro-choice in 2003 and is against the Diebold Election Systems for their leaving no paper trail for votes. He was one of the 31 from the HOR who voted to not count the contested Ohio electoral votes in the 2004 presidential election.

On foreign policy, Kucinich is stictly anti-war. He opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and views the Bush Administration's handling of Iran as a path to war. He is against space-based weapon systems, advocates a U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is against the similar CAFTA, wants a U.S. signature on the Kyoto Protocol, and standing alone with Ron Paul, voted against the Rothman-Kirk Resolution which calls on the U.N. to charge the Iranian president with genocide.

Presidential Hopeful

In 2004, Kucinich campaigned for the Democratic nomination for President. He is currently campaigning again for the 2008 election. His platform includes: universal health care, repealing of the Patriot Act, withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA, withdrawal from Iraq, abolishing the death penalty, clean energy, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, legalizing same-sex marriage, slavery reparations and banning possession of handguns. In April 2007, Kucinich introduced HOR Resolution 333, articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney, for his involvement in manipulating pre-war evidence on Iraq. While not slanted to win any major states in the election, Kucinich may very well help shape the future Democratic Party's platform.

Kucinich Abandoned White House Bid on 25 Jan 2008 (Source: AP).

Biography Links

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