The Democratic Presidential Primary isn’t the only excitement going down in Cleveland on March 4th. Dennis J. Kucinich, is facing an intense primary against four Democratic challengers, the most serious of whom, Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman, has raised almost $1/2 million. Kucinich received 75% of the vote against a low-profile challenger two years ago, however, the anti-Kucinich vote will be much higher this year, as his opponents have called Kucinich an idealist who cares more about running for President than looking out for his district.

Despite the fact that I disagree with Kucinich on a vast array of issues and I think, in a lot of respects, he has done some less-than-positive things for the Democratic Party, I still hope he wins this primary. I think for the purpose of policy making it’s important to have some idealistic and sometimes fringe representatives around to keep everybody honest. However, to a point Kucinich has overstepped these bounds. But hopefully this close primary will teach him a lesson or two about the importance of party unity in achieving policy goals.

The number of candidates and high turnout that are expected for the presidential primary make this election extremely difficult to predict. However, I think that the Democrats in Cleveland will give Kucinich 38-45% of the vote and Cimperman will be about 5-8% points behind. Kucinich’s wife Elizabeth is always worth a bump of a few points in the polls.

Kucinich and Elizabeth during the presidential primary campaign.

Kucinich as the “Boy Mayor” of Cleveland at the age of 31. Elizabeth was 1 year old when this photo was taken.