Was the Hackett campaign’s glass almost full, or was Schmidt’s almost empty? From yesterday’s Washington Times:

Democrats believe they can be competitive again in next year’s House and Senate races and have been congratulating themselves on how well they did in a recent congressional election they narrowly lost Aug. 2. That’s where Paul Hackett, a Iraq War veteran and bitter war critic, won 48 percent of the vote in a special House race for an open seat in Ohio’s heavily Republican 2nd District.

But “Hackett’s race may well be an aberration rather than a model for the future,” independent elections analyst Stuart Rothenberg told the Capitol Hill weekly, Roll Call.

There’s no doubt Mr. Hackett was a stronger-than-expected candidate, but Republican Jean Schmidt ran a very weak campaign that had no message, and she refused to attack her opponent. “Few serious GOP candidates next year will run efforts as inept as Schmidt’s,” Mr. Rothenberg said.

The parallel between Mrs. Schmidt’s inept, barely successful campaign, and the Democratic Party’s astounding lack of overall success, should snap its leaders back to reality. At least you would think so.


I don’t think that this is very fair. Schmidt had a very clear message that she repeated every time I heard her speak. Energy policy, tax cuts such as eliminating the death tax, and supporting the President on Iraq. It just seemed to get drowned out in the Hackett media wave. Hackett is much better in front of a camera, both because of his story and because of his charisma. Schmidt didn’t stand a chance in side by side comparisons, which is why her campaign manager Joe Braun deftly avoided them as much as possible.

I also don’t think that attacking Hackett worked well for them either. The net was very good at turning a lot of the standard GOP tactics against them. The only effective attack on Hackett was made by Rush and the main reason it was so effective was because he waited until election day to make it so that any blacklash would happen after the election was over.

Here are my reasons behind what happened in the election:

  • Unified Democrats
  • Split Republicans
  • Both campaigns being blindsided by the net
  • Hackett’s strength as a candidate
  • Schmidt’s weakness as a candidate
  • Electorate discontent
  • The Hackett campaign’s very strong ground game
  • The NRCC’s underestimating the chances of any Democrat
  • Rove’s Valerie Plame distractions
    There’s no way a Karl Rove on top of his game would have let that primary happen.

Luckily for Schmidt the NRCC hauled ass in the final week and managed to push her through. They deserve most of the credit for her victory. One thing I’ll say about the Washington Republicans… they are very good at adjusting their game. The Democrats seem stuck in the 60s in comparison.