Casper the friendly ghost to endorse Mike Gravel

A couple days ago I speculated Dennis Kucinich was trying to gain traction for his Presidential campaign by leaking, through his friend Shirley MacLaine, an anecdote about the time the Congressmen took a meeting with a flying saucer.

Little did I know Kucinich wasn't just attempting to appeal to a tiny group of anally probed crazies, who, in the vein of Ron Paul supporters, could keep Kucinich's primary push alive through enthusiastic Internet harassment.

In fact, Kucinich was deftly making a play for a much larger piece of the electoral pie.

A new poll from the AP reveals that a whopping 34 percent of Americans believe in UFOs. The exact same percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts, it turns out.

The poll also found only 31 percent of the public approves of George W. Bush. Marking what is perhaps the first time in American history that more people believe in UFOs and ghosts than they do the President of the United States.

Not a good showing for Bush, and certainly not a good showing for America. But, for the former boy mayor of Cleveland, things are looking up.

Kucinich decides to go with the crazy

In a book to be released next month, Shirley MacLaine, who is the godmother of Dennis Kucinich's daughter, claims the six-term Ohio Congressmen and presidential candidate once spotted a UFO while visiting the actress's home. She writes:

Dennis found his encounter extremely moving. The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him.

There are three explanations for this: First of which is that MacLaine, who has long been America's leading advocate of reincarnation, has completely lost her mind and dreamt the whole thing up.

Or it could be Dennis Kucinich was drawn to the balcony by the smell of roses and spotted something that looked like a gigantic triangular craft.

But, cynic that I am, I'm betting on the third explanation: The one where Kucinich plants the story to drum up interest in his campaign.

It must by tough for Kucinich to look across the primary aisle and see the success of his true believer counterpart Ron Paul. And by success I don't mean the kind of move-up-in-the-polls success that has come to define politics. But instead the success of amassing a group of fervent supporters who are willing to stuff every on-line poll on your behalf, to wreck so much spam-like havoc on popular political websites that they get banned as a group, and to send you a surprisingly large cache of money -- literally dug up from under their mattresses.

Unfortunately for Kucinich, Paul has already cornered the market on 9/11 Truthers, militiamen, survivalists, and those with blood vendettas against the Federal Reserve Board.

Hence Kucinich's naked appeal to the equally fervent UFO crowd. Sure it's not going to get him elected anything, but it just might give him the opportunity to keep loudly preaching to the bitter end.

So don't be surprised when Kucinich shows up to the next debate dressed as his favorite Star Trek character.