Americans love a good comeback story, although I’ve not seen anything connecting him to a run in 2016. IIRC he did finish ahead of Hillary! in Iowa in 2008.
And it seems, at least for the dems, the more sleazy and/or corrupt things they get caught doing, the more popular they get with the base. Weird bunch, dems. Then again, I guess they wouldn’t be dems in the first place if they knew how to think properly, and/or have a normal sense of morals.