August 03, 2005

The DNC had targeted this Congressional race Big Time, even dubbing it a "bellweather" for the upcoming 2006 elections. Too bad they lost!
But they got a NYSlimes headliner anyway.
Breathe in the Liberal bias deeply:
Republican Edges Out Iraq Veteran for Ohio Congress Seat

A former Republican state legislator narrowly won a special Congressional election in southern Ohio on Tuesday, ending an underdog bid by her Democratic opponent to become the first combat veteran from the Iraq war
[Actually, Hackett was stretching the truth more than a bit to say he'd been in "combat."
They guy was a desk jockey, albeit one for the Marines in Iraq.--Jen]
to serve in Congress.

With all of the precincts reporting, Jean Schmidt, the Republican, had nearly 52 percent of the vote, edging out her challenger, Paul L. Hackett, a major in the Marine Forces Reserve, by about 4,000 votes.

"Voters declared that they support our president and approve of his leadership," Ms. Schmidt, 53, told supporters gathered at a suburban Holiday Inn late Tuesday evening. "They want us to stay the course so the enemies of freedom cannot bring their terrorism to our shores again."

But Mr. Hackett's showing was unexpectedly strong in this district, a Republican bastion that snakes along the Ohio River from affluent Cincinnati suburbs to struggling Appalachian hamlets. President Bush won the district with 64 percent of the vote last year, and Republicans have held its Congressional seat for two decades.

"Tonight was a victory for democracy," Mr. Hackett, 43, told supporters at a downtown Cincinnati theater. "People had a real choice." Mr. Hackett has said he expects to sign up for another tour of duty in Iraq, possibly next summer.

The race was to fill the seat vacated by Representative Rob Portman, who resigned this year to become Mr. Bush's trade representative, and it gained national attention not only because of Mr. Hackett's combat service but also because he harshly criticized President Bush.

Mr. Hackett called Mr. Bush a "chicken hawk" for failing to serve in Vietnam
[Sigh. Here they go again with the "chicken hawk" meme, which was extremely popular with the Dems 2 years ago.
President Bush volunteered to fly missions in Vietnam and was turned down by his higher-ups because they weren't using his type of planes there anymore for missions.--J.T.]
and "a cheerleader for the enemy" for challenging Islamic militants to "bring it on" against American troops. He also sharply questioned his policies on tax cuts and Social Security.
[Apparently, Mr. Hackett actually ran on a "more, higher taxes" platform.
And he wonders why he lost?]

But in a nod to Mr. Bush's popularity here, Mr. Hackett used a clip of the president praising military veterans in a television commercial, prompting the Republican National Committee to issue a letter of protest against his campaign.

Democrats had hoped that a victory by Mr. Hackett would not only be a sharp blow to Mr. Bush's national standing but also set a template for future campaigns by Democratic war veterans.
["Democratic war veterans..."--almost sounds like an oxymoron!
IOW, they ran this guy as John Kerry II.
Hackett was "reporting was duty," but as with Kerry, nobody wanted him for the mission.--Jen]
They had also hoped that the race would show the weakness of the Ohio Republican Party, which dominates state government but has been shaken in recent months by a widening scandal involving Gov. Bob Taft's administration and the state's workers compensation fund.

But Republicans viewed Mr. Hackett's attacks as a call to arms, and they poured money and resources into the district to ensure his defeat. Mr. Bush taped a telephone message to voters, and the National Republican Congressional Committee bought $325,000 in air time for a television spot this past weekend.
Perhaps most important, the Republican organization in Clermont County, Ms. Schmidt's base, turned out voters in greater numbers than expected, pushing her over the top. The returns showed that Ms. Schmidt won handily in most of the affluent Cincinnati suburbs, while Mr. Hackett won the district's more rural counties.

In the final days of the campaign, Ms. Schmidt accused the Hackett campaign of misleading voters by claiming that he would be the first Iraq war veteran to serve in Congress. In fact, the Schmidt campaign said, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois, has been serving in the Iraq war as a Navy Reserve officer.

But in an interview, Mr. Kirk said he had not gone to Iraq for the military, and instead worked one weekend a month in an intelligence unit at the Pentagon. Mr. Hackett spent seven months in Iraq leading a civil affairs unit in Ramadi and Fallujah before returning to Ohio in March.

Of course, the NYT does a marvelous job of helping the Dems save face in this bellweather loss.
Don't let them fool you: it wasn't only the GOP who
"poured money and resources into the district."
The DNC was rumored to have James Carville himself strategizing the campaign, while war vet Max Cleland went to Ohio to push Hackett and he was joined by austronaut John Glenn (every Baby Boomer's childhood hero).
If the ActBlue website is correct, that site alone raised over $450,000 for Hackett's campaign.
(I'd never heard of ActBlue until I found the link over at the über Lefty KosFiles.
They must have numerous 527 fundraising groups now, in addition to the usual ones like MoveOn.org, DU, the DNC, etc.)
Hackett ran a dirty campaign, which figures if Carville ran it, calling his Commander-in-Chief not only a "chicken hawk," but an SOB, too, even though, as even the NYTimes was forced to point out, his TV ad began with videotape of the President which made it look as if Bush endorsed him and vice versa.
Curiously missing from his ads was the fact that he was running as a Democrat, as if he were ashamed of it.
I can't guess why! (snicker)
This is another good win in the R column, but I do wish it hadn't been quite so close.
A "man" like this needs to be beaten like a red-headed stepchild.

PoliPundit and RedState have some interesting takes of their own on what this bellweather race means for both parties.