of the vote but still no delegates. Kucinich's best showing in any Democratic contest was in the February 24 Hawaii caucus, in which he won 31% of caucus participants, finishing second behind Senator John Kerry and winning Maui County, the only county Kucinich won in either of his presidential campaigns. He also had a double-digit showing in Maine on February 8, receiving 16% percent in the state's caucus. On Super Tuesday, March 2, Kucinich had another strong showing in the Minnesota caucus, receiving 17% of the vote. In Ohio, he received 9%. Kucinich campaigned heavily in Oregon, spending 30 days there during the two months leading up to the state's May 18 primary. He continued his campaign because "the future direction of the Democratic Party has not yet been determined" and chose to focus on Oregon "because of its progressive tradition and its pioneering spirit." He won 16% of the vote. Even after Kerry won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Kucinich continued to campaign until just before the convention, citing an effort to help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party. He was the last candidate to end his campaign. He endorsed Kerry on July 22, four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. 2008 On December 11, 2006, in a speech at Cleveland City Hall, Kucinich announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Kucinich told his supporters in Iowa that if he did not appear on the second ballot in a caucus that they should back Barack Obama. At an October 2007 debate, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which she writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO. Asked if it was true, Kucinich confirmed it. In November 2007, Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for Kucinich that drew criticism from Flynt's detractors. Campaign representatives declined to comment. Kucinich was endorsed by author Gore Vidal and actor Viggo Mortensen. In January 2008, he asked for a New Hampshire recount based on alleged discrepancies between the machine-counted ballots and the hand-counted ballots. He stated that he wanted to make sure "100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted." In January 2008, Kucinich was excluded from a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC due to his poor showing in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. A ruling that the debate could not go ahead without him was