PRESIDENTIAL RACE U.S. Rep. Kucinich files for primary

The Ohio candidate is receiving about 1 percent support in polls.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich became the first Democrat to file for the presidential primary in Ohio, insisting Wednesday that his homegrown campaign will secure him not only the state's delegates but the national nomination and the White House.
The former Cleveland mayor is among three of the nine Democratic contenders who typically have about 1 percent support in polls, but Kucinich said he's steadily gaining support.
"This state will determine who the next president will be," Kucinich said to about two dozen cheering supporters at Ohio Democratic headquarters downtown. "I'm fully expecting to go to the convention with a strong block of delegates.
"It is quite possible that we could be looking at a wide-open Democratic convention where the president will really be chosen right from the floor."
George Bush beat Democrat Al Gore in 2000 by 3.6 percentage points in Ohio, the only Midwestern industrial state to back Bush.
Kucinich, 57, said the campaign hasn't distracted him from duties in his northeast Ohio congressional district, where he's seeking re-election. He's missed 57 of 677 congressional votes this year, about 8.4 percent, according to Congressional Observer Publications, a nonpartisan vote tracking service.
Issues
Kucinich repeated his campaign themes such as nationally paid health care and free college education, and criticized his competitors for supporting a continued U.S. presence in Iraq following the capture of Saddam Hussein.
"I'm saying it was wrong to go and it's wrong to stay," he said. Instead, the United States should "give up ambitions to run Iraq from Washington" and turn the rebuilding over to the United Nations, he said.
Kucinich then led a march to the Secretary of State's office to submit his petitions. A former state senator from 1994-96, Kucinich at first directed the crowd to the Statehouse, before state Rep. Dale Miller of Cleveland, his Ohio campaign coordinator, corrected that the office is a few blocks east.