Muslims For Kucinich

It was October 1967 when a college sophomore with an eye toward the presidency leaped into the game: Dennis Kucinich paid $42.50 and declared himself a candidate for the Cleveland City Council.

He lost that race. Two years later, he was back and he won.

At 23, the 5-foot-7 man with a boyish face and shaggy hair donned a trim black suit and ascended City Hall's marble steps with a cause: Champion of the underdogs.

Kucinich started as a fiery liberal, supported a Republican mayor for two years and emerged a self-described ''urban populist'' who could mobilize Cleveland's ethnic, blue-collar vote.

At 31, he became the youngest mayor of a major American city. At 33, he earned the dubious distinction of being mayor of the first city since the Great Depression to go into default.

Cleveland became late-night comedy fodder and the young mayor tread carefully even in his home town. At the Indians' 1978 season opener, Kucinich wore a bulletproof vest when he threw out the first pitch before thousands at Municipal Stadium. In a recall election, he barely escaped. The next year, Kucinich was out, losing to Republican George Voinovich, now Ohio's junior senator.

In one of life's second acts, Kucinich won a House seat in 1996 and has been re-elected ever since. Friends say Ohio's four-term congressman, now 56, has mellowed since his mayoral days and selectively picks his battles rather than making every issue ''us vs. them.''

''Dennis would probably be the first one to tell you that as mayor, he made some mistakes. He's grown and matured, and he's a totally different politician today,'' said former Rep. Louis Stokes, a Democrat who served in Congress with Kucinich and whose brother, the late Carl Stokes, was mayor of Cleveland when Kucinich was a councilman.

Kucinich's battle now is for the Democratic presidential nomination, a long-shot bid against nine hopefuls.

Clevelanders know him as Dennis, but few people outside of the crowd that favors polka, bowling and kielbasa know how to pronounce his last name. It's koo-SIN'-ich.

He has received scant media attention and raised just $1.7 million, but he has attracted enthusiastic crowds and won some eclectic endorsements, including country music singer Willie Nelson and lifestyle guru Marianne Williamson.

Some political observers say Kucinich is running to solidify himself as the national leader of the left. Others say he's more interested in someday taking over consumer group Public Citizen from longtime friend and supporter Ralph Nader.

Sounding at times like a street-corner preacher, Kucinich insists that he is serious about his candidacy. He wants to be a ''people's president.''

He also says he would create a ''workers' White House'' that would offer peace, universal health care and repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement.

''Dennis is for real,'' said Nader, who has known Kucinich since his mayoral days. ''He's very consistent in his public philosophy that the government exists to serve the people first, not the corporations. He's been very steadfast under that pursuit under enormous pressure.''

A Roman Catholic, Kucinich has been criticized for changing his abortion stance from opposing the procedure to supporting a woman's right to choose.

Political insiders who have seen Kucinich go from ''boy mayor'' to ''comeback kid'' say anyone who doesn't take him seriously doesn't know him.

''He likes to do things that people tell him that he can't do,'' said Jerry Austin, a longtime Democratic political consultant. ''If you go back to the 1967 race for city council, which he lost, I think his whole intent was running for president someday.''

The eldest of seven children born to a Croatian truck driver and Slovenian homemaker, Kucinich was thrust into a position of leadership early. He scrubbed floors so he and his younger siblings could attend Catholic school and taught his brothers and sisters to read.

''Dennis was an older brother that I really looked up to,'' said Gary Kucinich. ''I still remember Dennis coming to a lot of my sporting events, particularly my football games. He would always get me pumped up before the game. Winning was very important to him, even then.''

Before he turned 18, the Kucinich family had lived in 21 apartments, homes and cars. He says their frequent moves were often for the same reason: Too many kids, not enough money.

Kucinich moved out when he was 17. He rented a $50-a-month walk-up with a view of nearby steel mills, enrolled at Cleveland State University and worked as a copy boy at The Plain Dealer.

Tom Andrzejewski, a media consultant and former copy boy who used to drive Kucinich home after work, said Kucinich was competitive in everything from a gum ball catching contest to downing 10 martinis in 27 minutes on a dare.

''He was always the underdog,'' Andrzejewski said. ''His district has a lot of people who see themselves as underdogs, and Dennis appeals to them.''

At the paper one evening, Kucinich answered a phone call from a drunk proclaiming that he was running for the city council. Kucinich says that's when he realized that anyone could run for public office, and he decided to do just that.

When he became mayor in 1977, Kucinich's star was on the rise. He swept into City Hall with an energetic team of twenty-something aides who promised to cut fat from the city's payroll.

Then everything went wrong.

The city was hit with a big snowfall and Kucinich's inexperienced administration was blamed for shoddy service. The combative Kucinich fired his popular police chief live on TV, and his assistant director of public safety was caught ''mooning'' on the highway.

Kucinich became the butt of jokes and even the target of death threats and assassination attempts. One day, a gunshot pierced a wall of his home and went into the back of his chair when he got up to change the TV channel. He began wearing a bulletproof vest and traveling with a bodyguard.

The climax came when local banks threatened to call in a $15 million loan if the headstrong mayor didn't sell the city's municipal electrical system. Kucinich refused and the city was plunged into default. He survived a recall by 236 votes but lost re-election by a landslide to Voinovich.

Kucinich spent the next 15 years in the political wilderness.

His second marriage ended, he almost lost his house and no one in Cleveland would hire him. He moved out West, where he started writing a never-published autobiography and tried to overcome his negative attitude about politics with a spiritual adviser he met through actress Shirley MacLaine, a longtime friend.

Despite having friends who believe in reincarnation and meditation, Kucinich is vague about his beliefs. He says he has never done drugs despite a campaign promise to legalize medical marijuana and doesn't like talking about his personal life, including his family.

Kucinich has a 21-year-old daughter, Jackie, who is a college student on the East Coast. Most of his six siblings still live in the Midwest, where two are artists and one, a Vietnam veteran, is institutionalized. Kucinich didn't serve in the military because of a heart murmur.

Through the years, Kucinich never stopped running for political office. In the 1980s, he served briefly on the Cleveland City Council and lost or withdrew from races for Ohio secretary of state, governor and the U.S. House.

Then things turned around. Cleveland officials started saying that the low electricity rates were thanks to Kucinich's refusal to sell the utility.

Using a light bulb and the slogan ''Because he was Right,'' Kucinich won a 1994 seat in the Ohio Senate. Still, state senators braced for the worst, expecting the belligerent Kucinich.

''None of those things materialized,'' said Stanley Aronoff, a Republican who was Senate president during Kucinich's tenure. ''I actually found the two years that I spent with Senator Kucinich to be very enjoyable. He quite often would walk into my office and say, 'How could I make your day better?' and I would say, 'Keep your speeches short.'''

In 1996, Kucinich solidified his comeback with an upset victory over incumbent Republican Congressman Martin Hoke.

At his swearing-in ceremony, Kucinich summed up his political career: ''If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try again.''

In Congress, Kucinich, who also is running again for his House seat, is chairman of the liberal Progressive Caucus and has tried repeatedly to pass bills such as one to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. Critics say he spends too much time focusing on the impossible at the expense of getting things done.

''Life is too short to spend it wheel spinning,'' said former chief of staff John Edgell, now a Washington lobbyist. ''Do you want to make headlines, or do you want to make policy?''