My quotes from last night’s event were taken from an audio recording made by a friend. I’d post it online, but it is virtually unlistenable. If you were there, PLEASE post your opinions.

Tonight was the first Debate between Republican Jean Schmidt and Democrat Paul Hackett for the Ohio 2nd Congressional District special election to replace Rob Portman. The debate was held at Chatfield College in St. Martin, Ohio. The small theater was filled to just about to capacity, with 100 tickets going to the Schmidt campaign, 100 going to Hackett and 100 for the students.

Now onto the fun:



In her introductory remarks, Schmidt started out with the central themes of her campaign:

I believe there are three main issues facing us tonight. National security, taxes and tax reform, and creating a comprehensive energy policy, and I am confident that we will address these issues in great detail this evening.


What was most interesting to me was that right off the bat Schmidt went into Hackett. It was only a little over a week ago that Schmidt’s campaign manager said that she wasn’t going to attack Hackett on anything, but would instead stick to a positive campaign that focused on Schmidt’s positions. A lot seems to have changed since then.

…I turned on my TV and I saw that the enemies of freedom were still there, and we cannot let our guard down for one moment. There are some who have said the biggest threat to the United States is the man living in the White House, but if the events of today don’t show how outrageous a comment like this is, nothing will.


This is in reference to a crack that Hackett made during the primary.

One of Schmidt’s central themes through the race is her support for President Bush.

I have been traveling around the district for the last four months, telling the folks that I’ve met that I stand shoulder to shoulder with President Bush on the war on terror, and as your representative in Congress I’ll work with Congress and the President to finish the job in Iraq and make sure we continue to take the battle to the terrorists, so they don’t create another 9-11 and bring that battle here.


Hackett’s opening remarks started off with the same basic biography that he’s been giving throughout the campaign. It was after that that he unleashed the themes that he would come to again and again throughout the debate:

I’m for limited government, I’m for fiscal responsibility, I’m for a strong national defense, and I’m for fair trade. What do these concepts stand for? That means I don’t need Washington to tell me how to live my personal live, or how to pray to my God. And I don’t need Washington to dictate to my wife the decisions that she makes with her doctor, any more than I need Washington to tell me which guns I can keep in my gun safe.


Since Schmidt isn’t the incumbant Hackett was as much running against Republican controlled Washington as against his opponent. Afterwards, when I asked Hackett about this, he said that made a consious decision to talk about what he stood for as opposed to focusing on Schmidt.

Here are some notes of things that stuck out in my head:

Pro Life Crusader Turned States Rights Champion

Throughout the debate you would never know that Jean Schmidt heads an anti-abortion organization or that she has been a chamption of “pro-life” causes throughout her career, even bragging about helping to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. When asked about Rove vs. Wade she talked about how she supported overturning it because such matters should be determined at the state level and not by “activist” judges.

You would never know by listening to her that she is against In Vitro fertilization, or stem cell research, or abortions for women who have been raped or for families being able to end the life of their loved ones who have been declared brain dead. It’s clear that now that she is out of the primary, Jean Schmidt is trying to gloss over who she is in order to be more palitable in the general election.

This all makes me wonder: if the anti-abortion movement is so strong in Southern Ohio, why doesn’t Jean Schmidt let her light shine. Why not tell people what she really stands for?

GASP

There were several moments during the debate when Schmidt’s comments drew graps from the audience.

One was during her list of ways to reduce the deficit, citing such tired lines as the $50,000 gold plated playing cards on Air Force One.

Part of Schmidt’s response to the question of health care induced another gasp from the crowd when she said that her solution was ending frivilous lawsuits. From the sounds of things in the audience, that’s a dead horse.

Paul Hackett’s response was to talk about something that I’ve been waiting a long time to hear from a Democrat: how completely insane it is to spend money on things like missle defense when we have troops on the groud now that aren’t equiped. This was a part of his theme of spending our tax dollars smartly and wisely.

Probably the biggest gasp from the crowd came from Schmidt mentioning “mega-farms” as a part of her Ethanol program, and talking about how these large corporate farms will bring jobs to the region. (see roamingcoyote’s comments on this for more) Later on when asked about farm subsides and how they are seen as primarily helping large corporations, Schmidt passed on making a distiction between family farms and large corporate farms and instead talked about their general importance. This gave Hackett a chance to spike the ball:

Jack, what we need to do is we need to spend our tax dollars wisely. What we need to do is support the family farm, as opposed to just sending our tax dollars to subsidize mega-farm corporations that have frankly a negative impact, not only on the enviroment, but on the economy. They aren’t getting the job done. This year is going to be the first year that American becomes a net food importer instead of a net food exporter. That’s just wrong. That’s actually a national security issue. Stop and think about it. We’ve got to import more than we export. That’s wrong. Our tax dollars have to be used smartly and wisely, and this administration isn’t doing that unfortunately.


Social Security

One clear sign of of how dead President Bush’s plan to “reform” Social Security is to listen to Jean Schmidt talk about the issue. She stands proudly beside President on just about everything but not at all when it comes to that. When asked about the issue she talked about all the things that she was against: not to cutting benefits, no to raising caps (Hackett’s proposal), no to raising the retirement, no to privitization, and especially no to raiding the money in the fund.

Education

My favorite moment in the debate was during a question on education when Hackett turned his guns directly on Schmidt’s record as a state representative.

There are two problems in Education today: unfunded mandates directed by the Federal Government, such as no child left behind, which is a product of this administration, that is a Federal issue, and it’s a failure. On the state level there’s a failed funding system that Mrs. Schmidt when she was in Columbus and Governor Taft, they refused to fix. If fact, Mrs. Schmidt thinks that the solution is to divert our tax dollars to fund religions private school education at the expense of the public school system. This is disgraceful and it’s unamerican. The result of this failed funding system is today we have an educational crisis that does not produce the results in math and science. This threatens America’s technological leadership.

We need to fix the educational system’s funding so that we can create more math and science PHDs and engineers and keep those jobs here in America instead of outsourcing them to India and China. We’ve seen that a rubber stamp work get the job done in Columbus. We need a leader in Washington that will take a crack at it.


Health Care

In response to the question of health care Hackett’s ability to tie together health care to his themes of wasteful spending, and outsourcing was impressive:

We are the greatest nation in the world, and our American’s don’t have access to affordable health care. This is a debate out how our tax dollars are spent by politicians in Washington. We’ve managed to find tax dollars to outsource jobs to China. Heck… we’ve managed to find tax dollars to support the building the M-1 battle tank in Egypt. What’s wrong with that picture. Egypt, one of the most dangerous places in the world.


Schmidt Goes Blue

One interesting moment happened at the end. Hackett was joking about how he was glad that he could finally take his jacket off, turning around to model the sweat stains under his arms to the laughter of the crowd. Schmidt then joked that she’d take off some of her clothes, but she was afraid that she might get arrested.

Conclusions

Hackett had some really good moments. It was obvious that he isn’t a pro at this, especialy when it comes to his mike technique. He did tend to read to much but when he was on he was really on, sailing a couple of choice balls out of the park. He stuck to his core message which was really powerful.

All in all I think that Schmidt did pretty good on style. She didn’t have any out of the park moments, but she didn’t need to. I can see that many people who are strong supporters of her would be happy.

However, having said that, we did notice several Republicans from the event made a point of going over and talking to Hackett after the debate. The phrase, I’ve never voted for a Democrat before, but was overheard more than once last night.

Schmidt’s campaign has done a good job of insulating Schmidt from Hackett as much as possible. They know that the more time Hackett gets in front of a camera the worst it is for them. Interestingly enough, her campaign manager made it a point to stress to me that the next debate will be for radio. (BTW, the Hackett campaign laughs when I talk about a second debate, saying that they haven’t heard about it.)

Schmidt has a huge money advantage. As long as Hackett’s face is kept from the voters, it should be smooth sailing for team Schmidt in this reddest of Ohio Congressional districts.

The only problem with that is that in looking for politicians that can give voice to the opposition to how the President and the administration is doing things in Iraq, the media has started turning more and more to iraqi vet Hackett as the voice of opposition. First it was CNN, than The Washington Times and today, in response to the London bombings, it was in a syndicated article from The Baltimore Sun. Add to that an influx of cash, and all bets are off in this not quite as red a district as it was nine months ago.

And with that I’m going to bed. Good night.