I want to answer Kate here, because I do have pretty strong feelings about the topic:
"If Kucinich is your dream candidate, why not vote for him? (This isn't a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know your view!)"
Actually, it hadn't occurred to me he'd still be in it by the time Illinois's primary rolls around. They keep icing him out of media coverage. (Bill Moyers did a great piece on him and on Ron Paul last week, but non-PBS media is not doing so much with these candidates.)
But I definitely think it's a great idea to vote for "dream candidates" when it's safe to do so. By "safe" I mean, when the vote isn't desperately needed to keep a nightmare candidate out.
In my case, I voted for Ralph Nader in both '96 and 2000. And before you go blaming me for Bush, let me say that during those elections I lived in the District of Columbia which is both electorally insignificant and solidly democrat. No chance it was going to go republican in those elections, so I registered myself as far left as the ballot allowed to give the democratic party a message.
I used to do the same in the local elections in DC. It has tended to be true that the real mayoral election is the democratic primary in DC. So I registered democrat and voted for the candidate I liked best, then in the general election I voted for socialists.
I suppose it's pretty likely that Illinois will go solidly Obama, so if Kucinich is still in it at that point, I suppose I will probably vote for him. It will depend on late polls and how it looks at the last minute.