Mrs. Kucinich: The one thing going for the Elf’s campaign

Say all you want about Dennis Kucinich’s shameless self-promotion, his futile White House ambitions, even his freaky little goblin ears. But at least he has one thing going for him this time around: His 29-year-old wife. Elizabeth wasn’t around in 2004, when her 60-year-old husband’s share of the primary vote was less than the margin of error. But the little guy’s back to tugging on pant legs, and by putting her smoking hotness to work on his 2008 campaign, he hopes to make himself a little harder to brush off. At least, that’s what two Florida papers took last week from a stop the couple made in Tampa. Reporters William March of the Tampa Tribune and Ben Montgomery of the St. Petersburg Times paid the obligatory inches to Kucinich’s tree-humping blather, then unzipped their notebooks for Elizabeth. March called her “striking” and Kucinich’s “newest campaign asset.” He won’t confess to writing any love letters, but doesn’t apologize for the headline editors slapped on his story: “Kucinich’s Words, Wife Turn Heads.” “She is certainly someone you notice,” he says. But Montgomery, his typing fingers paralyzed, couldn’t put the hotness into words. “Her hair is long and red and she runs her fingers through it often,” he wrote. They weren’t alone, either. After Kucinich’s speech, the throng of reporters leaned in close around the congressman and his wife. “Soon,” wrote Montgomery, “they were just standing around his wife.” – Jason Nedley