Super PAC Aimed at Booting Incumbents Backs…Seven-Term Congressman Dennis Kucinich
As mentioned in today's morning links, there is a pleasingly quirky Super PAC making waves this election cycle. The goal: Throw the bums out:
The Campaign for Primary Accountability, founded by the son of a Houston construction magnate, is targeting longtime incumbents in House districts that are otherwise safe for their party. Group leaders say these long-term lawmakers who face scant competition have created a "permanent political class" that has poisoned politics.
But apparently there's some wiggle room on just who counts as a bum.
Some of the most aggressive spending so far has been to back seven-term Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich. The longtime congressman (who has been in politics since being elected to Cleveland City Council at the age of 23) doesn't qualify as part of the permanent political class because he was running in a new district this cycle—his previous sinecure having disappeared thanks to redistricting.
The big attack on Kucinich's opponent? She owns a "fancy condo in the D.C. suburbs":
Kucinich also has D.C. digs, of course. And here's what the press was saying about his future plans after a loss this week:
Kucinich said his main goal for the remainder of his term is to try to get adequate funding to complete the Innerbelt bridge project.
Some speculate he could move to the State of Washington and run for run of three open seats there without an incumbent. He would have to decide by May 18th whether to do that. And he would have to move from Cleveland to Washington to do that.
"I have a commitment to this community. That's why I ran," he said, stopping short of ruling it out.
A spokesman for the bum-tossing group with $1.9 million to burn told The Washington Post that they like Kucinich because he is "independent" and not "beholden to party leadership." If the motto of the group was "Keep Washington Weird," Kucinich would make a lot of sense as a poster boy. But pols who buck their parties can still be Washington insiders (see: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)), and Kucinich is no exception.
