Over the last 57 years, Dennis Kucinich has thrown in his name for elected office at every level of government, from Cleveland City Council to president of the United States.
In that time, he has been knocked out of the political ring and has ducked under the ropes to climb back in. Now he is trying to return to Congress a dozen years after fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur defeated him in a redrawn district in 2012.
Last Tuesday, Kucinich filed petitions with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to run as an independent in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District. Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a former aide to President Donald Trump, currently holds the job. Matt Diemer is contesting the seat on the Democratic side.
“Today I begin again,” Kucinich said after filing, “to create a basis for a re-United States transcending labels and partisan politics.”
Kucinich has tried a few new beginnings since leaving Congress. He ran for governor in 2018 and Cleveland mayor in 2021, losing in the primaries both times. Last year, he helped launch Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid.
Though his political career began more than half a century ago, Kucinich contends that he still has something to offer today’s voters.
“I will bring to Congress the enthusiasm and the energy of youth together with the wisdom of experience,” the 77-year-old former Cleveland mayor and congressman said. “For years I’ve been told I’m ahead of my time. Well, today, today I’m on time.”
He is trumpeting a populist message he says holds bipartisan appeal. America should build up its economy rather than spend money on foreign wars “in search of dragons to slay,” he said.
Kucinich enters this new battle while still litigating old ones. He is pursuing defamation lawsuits against the Plain Dealer and a Cleveland City Council staffer, accusing both of besmirching his name during the 2021 mayoral race.
Plus, the once-boy mayor has a historical score to settle. A few years ago, he published The Division of Light and Power, a book on his tumultuous Carter-era mayoral term. Across the book’s 600 pages, Kucinich argued that he was right about Muny Light all along.
In Kucinich’s telling, it was the banks that forced Cleveland into default in 1978 when he refused their demand to sell the city-owned utility now known as Cleveland Public Power.
He revisited that history in his remarks at the board of elections last week.
“Cleveland’s municipal electric system survives to this very day,” he said.
And if Kucinich gets his way, his political future has a shot at survival, too.
Suggested Reading
Dennis Kucinich finally gets his due: a portrait at Cleveland City Hall
Kucinich had long been deprived of a decoration enjoyed by Cleveland’s prior mayors, a portrait on display in the seat of city government.