Hackett ouster, like Kerry moderation: POLITICS AS USUAL

[JamRock]

Hackett had to go because political parties want candidates to support a “party line.”
Hackett's loose-cannon style made him a risk to the party effort to take the Ohio senate seat.

John Kerry suffered the same lack of party support for his early efforts to enter politics and had to moderate his sharp language and maverick tendencies before he was acceptable.

Hackett like Kerry is also subject to the “war crime” rumor-mill that is ginned up in political fights.

The “swift-boat” attacks against Kerry throughout his career were far more vicious than any that could be contemplated against Hackett. Hackett made a choice not to fight it.

The Party pushed Edwards over Kerry’s preference for Clark for the V.P. selection for similar reasons of “party line” tendencies.

This is sometimes very unpleasant,

but that's the way it is.

[MercutioATC]

1. Here's how I've decided to deal with this:

1) Reid and Schumer got nastygrams.

2) Hackett's getting a supportive handwritten letter.

3) Brown's getting both a nastygram and a nasty handwritten letter.

4) I'm not donating a penny to any organizations. All of my contributions will be made to individual (worthy) candidates...and my nastygrams and letter to Brown explain this.

5) Howard Dean gets a letter explaining this, too (his early response was great, but he's kinda softened on the issue since then).

6) I hold my nose and vote for Brown in November...with SERIOUS misgivings.



Not very satisfying, I'm afraid.

[Che_Nuevara]

2. Welcome to America.

Please hold on to your malcontent as you exit the car.

[jackbourassa]

3. Hackett wasn't ousted...

He quit.

[MercutioATC]

4. I'm really not gonna deal with another one of you now.

Let's just leave it at "I disagree".

If you want my reasoning, search my post history over the last three days or just go to any Hackett thread.

Geez, do they roll you guys off of an assembly line somewhere?


:eyes:

[LittleClarkie]

9. "Geez, do they roll you guys off of an assembly line somewhere?"

I didn't think there was enough call for "people who disagree with MercutioATC" to set up a factory.

[MercutioATC]

10. It's not just me.

There are only 8 or 9 people here bleating "He quit" and not dealing with the issues surrounding his withdrawal. Other posters, even if they disagree, seem to be willing to at least discuss things.

There are a LOT of people here who are upset with Reid and Schumer's behavior. There are some who are also disappointed with Brown's involvement.

Don't build a factory for me...but, if you do, at least make the automatons bright enough to spout more than one or two phrases.

[jackbourassa]

28. Merc, I've debated this issue to death

It's time to let it drop. He quit.

[jackbourassa]

30. The thing that bothers me most about this situation...

Is that some people here don't seem to realize that Brown is actually more progressive than Hackett.

[jackbourassa]

27. Definitions

To oust: to be forcibly or involuntarily removed from...

To quit: to voluntarily withdraw from...

No one forced Hackett out of anything. He quit. So he didn't have the support of the party. That doesn't mean anything. He could have stayed and fought it out. But he chose not to. He quit.

[ruggerson]

5. If you had the very people who urged you to get in the race

suddenly start calling your donors and urging them NOT to give you money, you might have second thoughts about your candidacy too.

[Old and In the Way]

7. A point seemingly lost on many DUer's here.

If Hackett had such strong grassroots appeal why did he quit?

This reminds me on the Dean vs. Kerry primary posting wars....

[MercutioATC]

8. Dean wasn't lobbied to run by the party.

It's a different situation, entirely.

[Old and In the Way]

15. So what?

It's a primary, think this is the first time the Party has played preferences? He quit.

[MercutioATC]

16. I see a difference. Obviously, you don't.

We disagree. BIG surprise.

:sarcasm:

[Old and In the Way]

21. Well, it is nice to run into you outside of the 9/11 basement ,Merc.

:hi:

[MercutioATC]

24. Agreed :) We only seem to meet in the dungeon.

Predictably :), we still disagree, but it IS good to discuss other topics.

:hi:

[Telly Savalas]

11. "hold your nose" to vote for Brown?

A lot of us are stuck with conservative Democrats or outright DINOs. We'd be delighted to be able to cast our ballot for a progressive like Brown.

But this fall, I'll get an absentee ballot, and hold my nose to vote for some right-wing Democrat, because it's either him or some Republican bozo that's so extreme he'd make Cheney look like FDR.

[MercutioATC]

13. I have the "luxury" of voting for a good Dem whose principles I don't

admire.

So yes, I'll be holding my nose, but I'll still be voting for him.

[jackbourassa]

29. Hackett was WAY more conservative than Brown

A fact lost on many people.

[FloridaPat]

6. So Democracy is officially dead. And we now know that the Democrats

are not the opposition party. They are the enabling party for the country to be run by the "big boys". Leaving the country looks better every day.

[JamRock]

33. Not my point really. Q is whether party priorities will win elections

[saltpoint]

12. A piece from THE NATION reports that Paul Hackett's own pollster had

unhappy news for him in the Buckeye State :

_ _ _

Paul Hackett, who has dropped out of the race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination with his usual theatrical flourishes, says he quit the contest because of the pressure he claims he felt from national Democratic bigwigs.

That may well have been a factor in Hackett's decision.

But it appears that an even bigger factor was a poll that showed Hackett trailing far behind his progressive primary opponent, U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown. With the filing deadline for the May Democratic primary rapidly approaching, Hackett was confronted with new numbers from his own pollster, which showed Brown was ahead among likely voters by an almost 2-1 margin -- 46 percent for the congressman to 24 percent for Hackett.

_ _ _

The link is: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=59896

I'm not persuaded that Hackett has been praised enough by national, high-profile Demopcratic operatives, but many Ohio Dems have indicated to me that they truly admire him. That isn't to say they are opposed to a win by Sherrod Brown. It is to suggest that they think Mike Dewine is a soulless mannequin most of the time and a horse's ass the rest of the time.

Jean Schmidt nearly lost to Paul Hackett in the special congressional election and she richly deserves to be turned out by voters in November. Sadly, that district is usually a deep red district, and I am fearful that she will win re-election.

John Kerry is not correspondent to or with Hackett's decision to withdraw, in my opinion. I believe Kerry-Edwards won in Ohio. I believe if that result had been realized, no one named 'Alito' or 'Roberts' or 'Bolton' etc. would be appointed to influential positions in our government. I have a hunch that both Brown and Hackett would affirm that notion.

[MercutioATC]

14. Consider the facts.

Brown is a career politician in Ohio who has run in both local and statewide races over the last 30 years.

Hackett's an attorney who ran in one regional race last year.

Brown has much greater name recognition than Hackett.


In spite of that, Hackett and Brown raised approximately the same amount of money in the first four months of the race (about $500k). Hackett also has better cross-party polling than Brown which is an issue in Ohio...NO Dem's going to win this race without crossover votes.


I don't find it surprising that, four months into the race, Hackett was behind Brown in a primary poll...although I think that would change with an additional ten months of campaign behind them.


The real issue is the general election. Ohio is a red state. To win, a Dem can't just count on Dem votes, they need the crossover votes. Hackett has ALREADY polled better than Brown on cross-party voting...with low name recognition. I think that statistic would only swung further in Hackett's favor had the race continued. Regardless, Brown's cross-party numbers are abyssmal, and that's what he NEEDS to get elected.

I really don't think Brown can take it.

[saltpoint]

17. All your points are valid, especially against the backdrop of recent

Blackwell-instigated shenanigans by the GOP. I will name names: the Butler County Republican apparatus is a den of thieves if ever there was one. Christ himself would flee in terror at their skullduggery, underhandedness, and outright fraud.

In that same ten months, we don't know what trends impact usually-red voting districts in a given state, but I don't dispute that Hackett could have made a race for the senate seat; nor do I discount Brown's gaining support, especially from pro-union and still-activist-union Cuyahoga County and other regions in Ohio's northeast, the same wave of blue votes that propelled Howard Metzenbaum to defeat John Glenn in a Senate primary there years ago. The two races have a great deal in common as far as "different kinds of Democrats" is concerned, with Brown as Glenn and Hackett as fightin' Howard.

(I was a Metzenbaum volunteer, Mercutio, so please forgive my theatrics there.)

My cousin is an advisor to Indiana Congressional candidates in mid-north-central Indiana. He wants me to focus on the longer-term impact of Bush's absolutely catastrophic domestic policies, including a gutting of health care initiatives and funding, and a gutting of the money government uses to operate in the first place. Ohio used to be a fatter electoral prize, but population has decreased as manufacturing and industry have moved on, either to Sun Belt venues or Mexico and India. My cousin believes that the Senate seat will go blue this time, despite no significant shift in red votes in Butler, Warren, and Hamilton Counties (all in the SW part of the state.)

Montgomery County (in and around Dayton) was the only blue county in Ohio's SW for Kerry-Edwards last time -- officially. A lot of folks I know in the state say that Butler County was the nucleus of an election fraud that cost U.S. voters the very high penalty of a second Bush term.

___
Mercutio: I am not always on the DU boards. When I am, I look forward to your posts, no matter the subject. If you are not now a teacher, please consider becoming one. And all the best to you.

[MercutioATC]

18. Thanks, but I don't know if I have the patience :)

I don't know how a primary race between Brown an Hackett would have turned out. They both had advantages and disadvantages. Maybe Brown WOULD have won. I wouldn't have had a problem with that.

My issue is with the behavior of party leaders...Schumer and Reid (and Brown, in that he was involved in the situation and hasn't addressed it at ALL since Hackett resigned). I readily admit that sometimes I'm an idealist. I believe that integrity is more important than results. Some consider that foolish.

My issue is that I'm now faced with two options:

1) Voting for DeWine (which I just can't do), or

2) Voting for Brown, a man for whom I've lost a great amount of respect.



This predicament would not have arisen had people (Reid, Schuman, etc) played above-board and not felt the need to jockey their support for inane political reasons. Most of me says that getting bad Republicans out of office is always the only goal. Part of me, however, says that this behavior by my party's leaders is abhorrent and that voting in concert with its intentions constitutes approval.

It's been a tough week.

[saltpoint]

22. Your dismissal of the idea of voting for Mike Dewine is indication of

a very sound mind.

DeWine is what happens when an unchallenged life is grafted onto already-unimaginative intelligence. And his speaking style is Nebraska-line dull. I would hope Ohio Democrats and Independents would be motivated -- especially this year -- to weaken Bush's Senate majority. The beneficiary of fewer Republicans in the Senate is anybody who still takes the Constitution as a living, breathing document and the ultimate loser would be Dick Cheney, who presides over (read: shoves his weight around in) the GOP-controlled chamber. If Cheney survives the summer it would be a fine thing to give him fewer party droids in the Senate. He deserves evisceration by large sub-Saharan animals; absent that option, I'd settle for a deeply humiliating impeachment proceeding, one vote in favor of which would come from Ohio's newest Democrat, whether Hackett or Brown or hell -- even Jerry Springer: I HATE Mike DeWine.

The 'power' vein of power politics repels me, too, and the Hackett-Brown dust-up is only one example. From time to time, I shut off the cable news, refuse to read a newspaper, and turn on Joni Mitchell. Poetry cleanses, JFK believed. And I guess he would be able to tell us a thing or two about power politics. Certainly his ghost would.

Mercutio, you hang in there. We need large, agile brains at work in what's left of a functioning democracy. Very nice as always to run into you on DU.

[MercutioATC]

23. I really don't have an issue with Brown on the issues.

I think he's a great candidate...certainly better than DeWine.

I'm just having an issue with supporting a policy decision in "my" house that I find ethically indefensible and strategically inept.


...and thanks again, for "getting it".

[Awsi Dooger]

20. I'm betting against Sherrod Brown and I'll collect

If our handicapping continues to be laughably inept, I might as well profit from it.

Excellent points, MercutioATC. I've been impressed with your posts on the Hackett situation.

It was absolutely correct to force out one candidate and avoid a masochistic primary, but predictably we sabotaged the wrong guy. I consider it the biggest letdown and meltdown in years because it's massive evidence we still don't get it.

Money means nothing. The GOP imploding means nothing. Registration drives mean nothing. Until we realize you have to alter the criteria state to state and situation to situation, we have no chance against ruthless Republicans who will dictate their nominee and handicap the race/state perfectly almost every time. It's like trials that are decided upon jury selection and the rest is mostly a formality.

[MercutioATC]

25. My sincere hope is that you'd lose....

Nothing personal...I think you're right. I'm just really frustrated by "our" insistence on losing strategies.

[angee_is_mad]

32. Conservative(moderate) Democrat?

Is that Hackett or would that have been Hackett once in office? Would he have been another Lieberman or lieberman-like? Would he have been a member of the Gang of 14 with mccain and lindsay graham?

I was disheartened when I heard he was dropping out, but the more I read the more I wonder. If what he say is true and he was forced out shame on the puppet masters and the democrats who are always preaching about the democratic process.

The situation could have been handled better. They should have let the people decide and let the chips fall where they may. Hell, he was polling 20points behind Brown and he probably would have dropped out on his own.

I just know we bitch and moan about how republican-like today's dems are and here we are going to bat for one who was running against a progressive. Remember a progressive with name recognition and a track record.

[Cocoa]

19. Sherrod Brown is not politics as usual

I like Hackett, but he can't compete with this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

2006 In 2006 Citizens for Global Solutions gave Representative Brown a rating of A.

2005 In 2005 Citizens for Global Solutions gave Representative Brown a rating of A.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Council on American-Islamic Relations 100 percent in 2005.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 100 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) 100 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Peace Action 100 percent in 2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the American Civil Liberties Union 84 percent in 2003-2004.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 96 percent in 2005.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Arab American Institute 50 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the National Council of La Raza 100 percent in 2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Human Rights Campaign 77 percent in 2003-2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 90 percent in 2003-2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 100 percent in 2003-2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the National Education Association 89 percent in 2003-2004.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers 100 percent in 2005.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Service Employees International Union 100 percent in 2005.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the United Auto Workers 93 percent in 2005.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the American Postal Workers Union 100 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the AFL-CIO 100 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the United Auto Workers 93 percent in 2004.

2004 On the votes that the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers considered to be the most important in 2004, Representative Brown voted their preferred position 88 percent of the time.

2004 On the votes that the Service Employees International Union considered to be the most important in 2004, Representative Brown voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Communications Workers of America 100 percent in 2004.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers 100 percent in 2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees 100 percent in 2003-2004.

2003-2004 On the votes that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers considered to be the most important in 2003-2004, Representative Brown voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Americans for Democratic Action 95 percent in 2004.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the American Wilderness Coalition 100 percent in 2005.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund 100 percent in 2005.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the American Wilderness Coalition 100 percent in 2004.

2004 On the votes that the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance considered to be the most important in 2004, Representative Brown voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time.

2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund 100 percent in 2004.

2003-2004 Representative Brown supported the interests of the League of Conservation Voters 94 percent in 2003-2004.

2004 In 2004 National Organization for Women endorsed Representative Brown.

2005 Representative Brown supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2005.

[AX10]

26. And you wonder why the Democrats can't win?

:eyes:

Two-Republican parties is what we have.

[Cocoa]

31. that stuff sounds emptier and emptier every day

the "democrats are the same as republicans" is especially bankrupt in this case, given Brown's record.