Former Rep. and two-time presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has spent the last year refusing to rule out a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio. While Kucinich hasn't announced he's in yet, he set up a fundraising committee on Monday.
Kucinich is, shall we say, not our favorite option in the May primary. While Kucinich portrayed himself as a progressive hero during his quixotic 2004 and 2008 presidential bids, he emerged as a Trump defender last year. Kucinich, who has been a Fox commentator for years, praised Trump's inauguration speech (you know, the "American carnage" one), and argued in February that U.S. intelligence agencies forced Michael Flynn to resign as Trump's national security advisor. In May, he agreed with Sean Hannity that the "deep state" was out to get Trump, and in a July Fox appearance, he called Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskay "a bunch of nothing." Kucinich has also repeatedly met with and defended Syria's murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad.
There's a crowded Democratic primary in May, and it's possible that Kucinich has enough name recognition and support to win. However, he may not have much oomph left. In 2012, Kucinich and fellow Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur were drawn into the same congressional district, and while Kucinich openly mulled running for the House in other states (he seemed particularly interested in Washington), he decided to stay put. Kaptur represented about 47 percent of the new seat to Kucinich's 39 percent, and she won the primary by a convincing 56-40 margin.
Kucinich has been off the ballot over the last six years, though he did play a high-profile role for a ballot initiative in November of last year to lower the price the state pays for prescription drugs. Kucinich starred in several TV ads for Issue 2, but it lost 79-21.
Plenty of other Democrats are competing in the May primary. Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general who just departed as director of the national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, looks like the frontrunner, but he hasn't scared off ex-state Rep. and 2014 treasurer nominee Connie Pillich; state Sen. Joe Schiavoni; ex-Rep. Betty Sutton; or Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. Ex-state Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill is still in the race for some reason.