Plunderbund

Name recognition? Do you honestly think that after all these years in Congress, after being Clevland’s Mayor, that it wasn’t until he ran for President that his constituents knew who he was?

Plenty of people have high name recognition, but it doesn’t mean they’ll win an election. (Dick Cheney probably has high name recognition for example.)

I’ll agree that the primary challengers fundraising reports isn’t anything that suggests D.K. is looking at a voter revolt (although $40 for an incumbent is pathetic), but Parma Mayor Dean DePiero has not made his decision as to whether or not to run. If he does, I’d bet he’ll raise more than $100k and do well enough to be a viable primary challenger.

Of course they know who he is. EVERYONE knows who he is.

Even people who don’t pay attention to politics know Dennis Kucinich.

And, I’m sure that a lot of that can be contributed to his presidential campaign- and the resulting appearances on Jay Leno, etc.

Right, but for the Congressional race, the only people that matter are his constitutents, who already knew the incumbent before his second doomed run for the presidency.

It’s interesting to see you try and turn his run for the presidency as a positive given that the main reason Kucinich is facing trouble at “home” is the fact that he’s running for President at what many view at the expense of the demands of his district and he’s blatantly lying about not running to get re-elected only to reverse course a month after the election.

Does Palmer and Farris’ campaign finance reports indicate that they can run a credible campaign against Kucinich? Nope, but that’s where our agreement ends.

That fact is going to have one or another impact on more serious challengers like Dean DePiero, the Mayor of Parma. He is either going to look at it and say there isn’t financial support for a primary challenge, or he’ll view it as that Palmer has not waged a more credible campaign than Ferris, and the filed is open for him to move in.

And that’s where $40 becomes relevant. Had Kucinich raised any serious money, serious challengers who have so far sat this race out might have been inclined to view the situtation as the former over the latter. Dennis’ $40 haul suggests that there isn’t much financial backing for his congressional re-election at home either.

I’m not arguing for or against Kucinich. I’m not saying he’s a good guy or a bad guy- I’m just saying he’s got a lot of money and he’ll probably win.

Since FEC regulations permit an unlimited transfer of funds between federal campaigns- he can easily transfer that million over to his congressional campaign when he eventually drops out of the presidential race.

And, again, I’m not arguing this is good for his constituents.

It’s probably not, actually.

But you’ll have to agree that he is a national celebrity and, as a result, is able to raise millions of dollars from outside his district that will eventually be used to breeze through his congressional primary and general election.