OH-02: The Cook Political Report post-mortem

[Pirate Smile]

From Daily Kos:

From the Cook Political Report email newsletter:

For national Republicans looking for lessons from GOP nominee Jean Schmidt's narrow win last night over Democrat Paul Hackett in the special election in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District to replace newly-sworn in U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, it is that in this current political environment, being tagged as a "rubber stamp" for this President can be a problem, even in one of the most Republican districts in the country.

Hackett, an attorney and Iraq war veteran, did a very good job of both playing up his service in Iraq and down-playing his party identification (even using clips of President Bush praising military service in his ads), both of which proved to be critical moves in a district where Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry took just 36 percent of the vote. At the same time, Hackett was able to criticize the President and his handling of the war in the press, going so far as to call him a S.O.B., yet still get 48 percent of the vote in the second-most Republican district in Ohio and 57th most Republican in the nation, as measured by our Partisan Voting Index.

For Ohio Republicans, this is a wake-up call that they have very big problems in the Buckeye State as they gear up for 2006 when an open governorship, a potentially vulnerable Senate incumbent with problems in his own base, and theoretically up to eight House seats that Democrats could realistically target will be on the ballot. Of those eight House seats, not one is as remotely as Republican as the Portman district.

-snip-
In short, Republicans in 49 states should take note that the "don't send a rubber stamp for President Bush to Congress" argument very nearly worked in an extremely Republican district, something that should be cause for concern. In Ohio, the lesson should be that virtually nothing is safe given the current climate, and that the climate is unlikely to change before the 2006 election. While it would be a mistake for Democrats to read too much into this special election result since things in Ohio are much worse for the GOP than elsewhere. At the same time, it would be a grave mistake for Republicans to read too little into what happened, as there are plenty of seats that they could lose in Ohio and that some of what happened can be reasonably extrapolated to the rest of the country.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/3/235349/3382

[wli]

1. I'm sure the neocons are on the horn with Diebold et al as we speak

Making sure the 2006 Democratic landslide will be completely undone by election rigging.

[gumby]

2. Bingo!

Bottom line. A Dirty-Dog Republican will ALWAYS beat Dudley Do-Right Democrat each and every time now.