Kucinich Drops Out of '08 Presidential Race

Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet at 1:46 PM on January 24, 2008.

Frankly I'm very surprised by this news. I figured Rep. Kucinich would stick around all the way to the convention:

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is abandoning his second bid for the White House.

In an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the congressman said he was quitting the race and would made a formal announcement Friday.

"I want to continue to serve in Congress," he told the newspaper.

Kucinich said he will not endorse another Democrat in the primary.

Kucinich's honesty, integrity and advocacy for progressive values will be sorely missed on the campaign trail. Here's another example of Kucinich candor that I read this morning (emphasis mine):

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio may get excluded from Democratic presidential debates, as he has been recently, but no one can deny him the floor in the House.

And today Mr. Kucinich took to the floor to fire off his latest salvo at the Bush administration: his plans to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Bush on Jan. 28 — the day of Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speech.

Accusing the administration of lying about the need for the war in Iraq, Mr. Kucinich said he did not need to hear the president’s assessment. “We know the State of the Union,” he declared. “It’s a lie.”

Even if Kucinich won't endorse, I doubt his supporters will not vote for someone in the primaries. He consistently polls around 2 percent in almost every state which in a still competitive race for the nomination is significant enough to deliver a victory in a close state if all of his support broke one way. Should be interesting to see how things develop now that only Obama, Clinton and Edwards remain.

Tagged as: kucinich

Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.