An Iraq war veteran running in a red state--and the DCCC has left him hang

[Robbien]

. . .


Hackett, a Marine reservist who returned from Iraq in March, is running in an August 2 special election to replace Republican Rob Portman, the former congressman from Ohio’s 2nd District who recently became President Bush’s trade representative.

In many respects, Hackett is a Democrat in the John Edwards mold. A tall 43-year-old trial lawyer who looks even younger, Hackett is an economic populist and a centrist on social issues. Though he is pro-choice, Hackett bluntly calls abortion “a bad thing.” While that may leave some Democrats ambivalent, he seems to have won more than a few converts in Anderson.

. . .

Though the 2nd District is deep red -- the GOP’s Portman held it for 12 years and always won at least two-thirds of the vote -- local Democratic Party officials believe Hackett has a shot. And with Republicans stumbling both nationally and in Ohio, a Hackett victory could be hugely galvanizing in next year’s elections.

Hackett’s race is the first federal election since November, the first opportunity for Democrats to prove that they can run hard in red states. Given the stakes, you might think that the national party would have been pouring resources into the race. You would be wrong.

As of early July, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which gives money to House candidates, had offered none to Hackett’s campaign, according to local party officials. Not until July 12, nearly a month after Hackett decisively won the Democratic primary, did the DCCC put a notice on its blog asking readers to contribute to his campaign. Only after an outpouring of calls from local party activists, and with just three weeks remaining in the race, did the DCCC reportedly commit its own resources to the campaign. When asked about the Hackett race, DCCC spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg would not comment.

“We keep hearing that they’re going to be helpful, but it’s been frustrating,” says Tim Burke, chair of the Democratic Party in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, Anderson, and a large slice of the 2nd District.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10044

[Larkspur]

1. DFA supports Paul Hackett for Ohio US Rep

Cincinnati DFA Members Meet with Paul Hackett http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/006662.html DFA raise around $80K for Paul last week. ActBlue has him up to $147K as of today.

I also read somewhere that the DNC is sending help to Hackett.

[Robbien]

2. True, he started getting support last week but has had to run

his campaign alone up until then. He received no help for the primary run and even after he won, he was still being ignored for the next month. That's not the way the DNC should operate if it expects to ever stop being a minority party.

[Lexingtonian]

3. may be, or maybe not.

Still, it's special election -very low turnout, usually- in a 63% Bush district. The primaries had 12,000 turn out for 2 Democrats running seriously and 40,000 for 4 or 5 Republicans running seriously. The story of special elections is that usually the same people who show up for the primaries show up for the general.

Schmidt won with 13,000 in a bitter primary, Hackett was the high favorite in his and it was amicable- he's got those 12,000. The Schmidt-Hackett contest will, as a best case, be about splitting the 27,000 voters who voted in the Republican primary. (If Schmidt gets the local Christian Right churches to turn out en masse for her, it's not going to be much of a contest on election day.)

If the idea is to win a sufficient majority of 27,000 people who voted in the Republican primary, would it really be smart of the DCCC and Dean to show up overtly???

If Democrats are trying to pull something off in that district, the way to do it is without fanfare and via back doors. And without giving Schmidt much of a target to attack.

As it is, the RNC supposedly has sent in its specialist team that only gets dispatched when a race they feel they should win has less than a 10% margin. This in a district that gave Bush a 25% margin. Something is afoot.

[Robbien]

4. You have a point

about waving the DNC banner around. But from the article it appears the DCCC hasn't been of any help, back door or otherwise, until recently.

Also, I have not heard about the RNC specialist team going in. The last I heard was that Schmidt's campaign was mostly self-financed and she had to kick in another $20,000 last week. From that I assumed the RNC was ignoring the race figuring it was a lock for the RNC. Now that this team is going in, the race will be getting ugly.

[bemildred]

5. And that's why I support DFA. nt

[PA Mamma]

6. Just read this on Kos...

A quote was from Eric Minamyer, campaign advisor to Jean Schmidt.

I understand that Hackett did not participate in combat at all. It is still dangerous over there as I can personally attest. Let's just not act as though we led marines in combat if we did not, okay...

I have asked the question time and again, what role did he actually play? Given all the opportunities he has had to say "I served in combat" one fair conclusion is that he did not.

Apparently, questioning Paul Hackett's service is a new strategy of Jean Schmidt's desperate campaign that is over $60,000 in debt...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/25/175110/234

More:
http://blog.oh02.com/