From 1977 to 1979, he served a term as mayor of Cleveland, where he narrowly survived a recall election and successfully fought an effort to sell the municipal electric utility before losing his reelection contest to George Voinovich.

[5] As a 2008 presidential candidate, Kucinich ran in support of single-payer health care, the impeachment of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, and the establishment of a "Department of Peace".

[8] As a result of redistricting following the 2010 census, redrawn congressional boundaries forced Kucinich to face Representative Marcy Kaptur in the newly-drawn 9th district.

A hit man from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer and missed the event.

[25] In 1984, John F. Sopko, then assistant counsel to the Minority Subcommittee staff, testified to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, "Intelligence information gleaned by the Maryland State Police and Cleveland Police Department confirmed that the murder contract was, in general terms, due to the fact that Kucinich had caused considerable problems for local dishonest businessmen, politicians and criminals."

Without a steady paycheck, Kucinich fell behind in his mortgage payments, nearly lost his house in Cleveland, and borrowed money from friends, including MacLaine, to keep it.

"[36] On December 10, 2003, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) announced the removal of its correspondents from the campaigns of Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton.

He continued his campaign because "the future direction of the Democratic Party has not yet been determined"[39] and chose to focus on Oregon "because of its progressive tradition and its pioneering spirit.

Even after Kerry won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Kucinich continued to campaign until just before the convention, citing an effort to help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party.

[42][43] At an October 2007 debate, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which she writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO.

"[49] In January 2008, Kucinich was excluded from a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC due to his poor showing in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries.

[59] It was also suggested that Kucinich's calls for universal health care and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq made him a thorn in the side of the Democrats' congressional leadership, as well as his refusal to pledge to support the eventual presidential nominee, which he later reconsidered.

Barbara Ferris criticized him for not bringing as much money back to the district as other area legislators and authoring just one bill that passed during his 12 years in Congress.

The new map shifted the bulk of Kucinich's territory, including his home, to the Toledo-based 9th District, represented since 1983 by fellow Democrat Marcy Kaptur.

In the general election, with 73% of the vote, Kaptur won a 16th term against Republican Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher and Libertarian Sean Stipe.

Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, co-sponsor Robert Wexler said, "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people, and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power.

[100][101] On July 14, 2008, Kucinich introduced a new resolution of impeachment against Bush, charging him with manufacturing evidence to sway public opinion in favor of the war in Iraq.

On April 17, 2007, Kucinich sent a letter to his Democratic colleagues saying that he planned to file an impeachment resolution against Dick Cheney, then Vice President of the United States.

Kucinich opened his press conference by quoting from the Declaration of Independence, and said, "I believe the Vice President's conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation.

[105] In March 2011, Kucinich said that President Obama's decision to approve air strikes against Gaddafi's forces in the Libyan Civil War was an "impeachable offense.

"[106][107] During his 2004 presidential campaign, Kucinich expressed support for a drug policy that "sets reasonable boundaries for marijuana use by establishing guidelines similar to those already in place for alcohol".

[111] In 2007, Kucinich voted to require the Department of Defense to present a detailed plan for transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

"[107] After the January 6 United States Capitol attack that attempted to overturn Trump's defeat, Kucinich denounced the storming as "an affront to the U.S.

He also asked why Democratic leaders didn't object when Obama told them of his plan for US participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone.

[127][128] On August 31, Al Jazeera reported that a document had been found in the Libyan intelligence agency's headquarters that according to the author appeared to be a summary of a conversation between Kucinich and an intermediary for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in which Kucinich asks for information about the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council (NTC), possible links between it and al-Qaeda, and evidence of corruption, to lobby US lawmakers to put an end to NATO airstrikes and suspend their support for the NTC.

[131] In response, Libyan officials invited Kucinich to visit that country on a "peace mission", but he declined, saying that he "could not negotiate on behalf of the administration.

[147] He voted for the expansion of hate crime laws in the United States and against banning LGBT adoption in Washington, D.C.[148] Kucinich has consistently opposed free trade, claiming that it costs American jobs and enables abusive working conditions in other countries.

[149] In a Democratic debate during the 2008 Presidential Election, Kucinich and Mike Gravel were the only two candidates to favor lowering the legal drinking age to 18.

They met while Harper was working as an assistant for the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute, which brought her to Kucinich's House of Representatives office for a meeting.

[158] In 2011, Kucinich sued a Capitol Hill cafeteria for damages after a 2008 incident in which he claimed to have suffered a severe injury biting into a sandwich and breaking a tooth on an olive pit.