Democrat Kucinich: long shot who keeps on running

By Andrea Hopkins

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich has just 1 percent support in the polls, six candidates ahead of him and next to no chance of becoming U.S. president. But don't tell him that.

A six-term anti-war congressman from Cleveland, Kucinich was the last Democrat standing against Sen. John Kerry in 2004 -- if only because he refused to quit. And he's convinced his second run for the presidential nomination will be more successful.

"I'm in this campaign to win," Kucinich said after an Ohio campaign stop. "People are looking for an alternative."

Voters looking for an alternative to mainstream U.S. politics will certainly find that in Kucinich, a 60-year-old vegan who survived homelessness as a child and a Mafia death threat early in his career to become a key figure in the growing anti-war movement.

During Monday night's CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, Kucinich wore the liberal label proudly.

"You notice what CNN did? They didn't put anybody to the left of me," Kucinich said, to audience laughter.

"I'm not sure it would be possible to find anybody," host Anderson Cooper shot back with a smile.

At every campaign stop, Kucinich reminds voters he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning -- not always a popular position during the 2004 election but one now shared by seven of 10 Americans.