Ohio 2nd Blog

Here’s how it works in the real world: fight to protect our tax dollars by speaking up against needless no bid contracts for the friends of the White House… get demoted. Your tax dollars at work. If my friends across the aisle think that it is about anything but corrupt crony capitalism you are living in a dream world.

One way that Congresswoman-elect Schmidt could prove me wrong is by doing what she did in 2002 and taking on the wasteful spending in the Pentagon that helps her friends in the White House.

Remind me to ask “Tax Killer” Tom Brinkman about this.

(via DKos)

This AP article on Hackett’s continuing presence in the media has this choice quote from Jean Schmidt campaign manager Joe Braun:

Joe Braun, Schmidt’s campaign manager, believes Hackett’s appeal would wear away over the course of a regular campaign as opposed to a special election.

“During a normal election cycle, I think voters will really start looking at his positions and that’s when his star is going to fade,” Braun said.

Ahhh… right… sure… that’s why you worked so hard to make sure that the debates were in the middle of nowhere and that there was as little media coverage as possible.

Here’s the Eric Minamyer that we all loved:

We need to exit ASAP, by which I mean as soon as sufficient Iraqi security forces exist to defend the constitutional government. The cost to our economy, in the lives of Americans, and in the loss of unity of the country are too great to extend the mission past that.

Eric Minamyer was the first candidate in the 2nd talking about getting out of Iraq. The problem was that pretty early on he started pulling his punches, and then after the primary he shifted gears into full tilt attack mode against Hackett.

Hackett and Minamyer’s positions don’t have to be seen as contradictory despite the partisan drives to do so. Hackett was always talking from a perspective of getting the mission done right based upon his first hand experiences. A mission doesn’t mean jack if you do it half-assed. That’s what Hackett was talking about.

A fundamental aspect of Hackett’s character is believing in the mission. His mission as a Marine. His mission as an American. That we need people to believe so much in the office of the Presidency that they will follow his orders no matter what they think personally. That you can proudly fight and die for a man that you think is a son of a bitch. The problem has never been with our armed forces carrying out the mission.. or with patriots questioning our leader’s actions… it’s that the Pentagon can’t decide what the mission is.

Last week Hackett said that it wasn’t till after the special election was over that he was able to take some time to really sit down and reflect on what the best course of action was in Iraq (just as right now he’s reflecting on what’s the best way that he can serve his country). That’s when he realized that the Pentagon wasn’t going to get the job done right and so he’s taken the realistic view that withdrawl is the only correct course.

It would be nice if more people focused on results in Iraq instead of doing damage control or trying to score partisan points against the opposition. Eric Minamyer had the chance to be a real voice for change in the last election. We here at the Ohio 2nd Blog are big believers in second chances

(via Clark Street Blog (via The Smoke Eater))

Frank Rich again nails it:

If there’s a moment that could stand for the Democrats’ irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

The Democrats are hoping that if they do nothing, they might inherit the earth as the Bush administration goes down the tubes. Whatever the dubious merits of this Kerryesque course as a political strategy, as a moral strategy it’s unpatriotic. The earth may not be worth inheriting if Iraq continues to sabotage America’s ability to take on Iran and North Korea, let alone Al Qaeda.

As another politician from the Vietnam era, Gary Hart, observed last week, the Democrats are too cowardly to admit they made a mistake three years ago, when fear of midterm elections drove them to surrender to the administration’s rushed and manipulative Iraq-war sales pitch. So now they are compounding the original error as the same hucksters frantically try to repackage the old damaged goods. _{(read more…)}

Project Logic, the main blogger supporting Jean Schmidt in the special election, will be travelling as a part of a charter bus trip to our nation’s capitol to witness her swearing in on September 6^th. We look forward to his report.

We will say that he shouldn’t worry about getting mugged too much. Having lived there for over a year your humble editor walked an average of two hours a day without incident. But, given how many crossed the street when approaching, perhaps they were mistaking us for a mugger. Our ZZ Top look was an excellent deterrent for crime.

Hardball has the video up of Hackett’s apprearance. Here are my comments:

VERY solid.

Perfect for that show. Honest and he talked like a real person, not just going full tilt partisan. Came off as very mature about the situation. The way he played off of what the academic was saying was really nice. He works good with Matthews too. Gave honest answers that weren’t just talking points and Matthews loves that. As soon as you start dodging he goes in for the kill.

I’d even say statesman like, but still totally Hackett. Real. His best TV appearance yet.

I liked him talking about the importance of Bush saving face. Us partisans underestimate the importance of stuff like that. If you don’t give your opponent an out the only way they can go is through you.

As for the talk of overkill, if every appreance was like the one on Real Time goofing on Bush, than he might run a real risk. People need to be very careful going head to head against professional comedians. There’s a reason so few of them become politicians, and they love to help you tie your noose. (BTW, Phyllis Schlafly’s appearance was about as solid as I’ve ever seen anyone on that show, and this is coming from someone who is NOT a fan of hers. )

Talking like he did today about solutions and not just about it helping the Democrats and he’s on very solid ground. He has to avoid being labled as nothing but a pretty boy Bush bashing lightweight. He certainly wasn’t that last night.

His words have real weight behind them because he lived it and he can articulate it well, AND like Wesley Clark he doesn’t have the baggage of Clinton or Kerry of supporting this mess blindly. That puts him shoulders about them. If he added some talk about more general terrorism issues his voice would be very powerful. The cameras already like pointing in his direction. America’s listening.

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.

Grow Ohio has a map up showing the locations for Paul Hackett’s online contributors. Amazing stuff.

Carl P. Leubsdorf, Washington bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, is reporting that House Republicans are considering methods to sneak in Social Security privitization through Congress by passing the legislation in the House even though they don’t have the votes in the Senate, and then having the leadership force it through in the conference committee.

Remember, fixing Social Security is on the top of Jean Schmidt’s agenda in Washington.

(via DKos)

David Corn is right, Democrats need to be listening to Gary Hart.