Wed 8 Feb 2006
So the big story bouncing all over the local blogosphere is a post in the new Plain Dealer “Opener” blog saying that Paul Hackett didn’t declare himself a Democrat until two years ago. Reflecting on this story a little while reminded me that this story has come up before on our humble little blog back during the 2nd special election. At the time I wrote a little riddle: I’m a chess GrandMaster, I write for the Washington Times, and I’m a famous Mountain Biker. This time I’ll add: I’ve registered to vote in San Francisco and I’m registered to vote in Ohio.
I certainly hope that the “newspaper types” didn’t make the same mistake as some overeager Schmidt supporters last year… wouldn’t that be funny… 
We’ll see what comes up in our painstaking investigation.
Meanwhile Brown supporters are eagerly shopping this story all over the blogosphere. One little fun aspect of it all is that Brown’s reputation is so bad in the Ohio Democratic blogosphere that the only market for Hackett dirt seems to be Republican bloggers and, of course, the belovedly misanthropic Whistleblower, who actually tried to shop a variation of this theme before.
One thing that’s nice about the PD blog is that they are giving Ken Blackwell free access to posting on the site. All candidates should take advantage of the Plain Dealer’s open posting policy. SNARF
Stay tuned, sports fans.
February 8th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Okay, this is just stupid. I know that it’s stupid because my husband is also on record as being a Republican. He’s nothing remotely of the kind.
People outside of Ohio would have an excuse not to know this, but any Ohio paper certainly should be aware of this. There is no way to “officially” declare party membership in this state. I know this very well, because after the 2000 primaries I wanted to officially change my registration to “undeclared”, or maybe Green as a symbolic way of voicing my dispeasure about the frontloaded primaries and such. And that was when I found out that there was no way to do that.
In Ohio, your party affiliation is “declared” when you vote in a primary. In 2000, Gore was clearly the nominee by the time the Ohio primary came around, so what exactly would have been the point of voting for him? So, since we can vote in either primary without registering ahead of time, my husband voted in the Republican primary for McCain. I didn’t bother going to the polls myself that time around, but my husband felt that, if Gore did end up losing, losing to McCain wouldn’t suck as bad as losing to Bush.
Now, as far as 1996, I must confess that I don’t even recall who was running in the Republican primary, but Clinton, then up for reelection was obviously going to be the Dem nominee. So again, if someone with Democratic leanings was going to vote in a primary, it would have made sense to cast a strategic vote in the Republican primary.
February 8th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
You’re absolutely right, Renee. In heavily partisan districts, where it is a given that the primary winner will be the person ultimately elected, people may register with that party just to have a voice. My extremely left-wing sister registered as a Republican when she lived in a heavily Republican suburban district. She even went to fundraisers for Republican judge candidates that she deemed less odious than others. This seems to fit Clermont County to a tee.
February 8th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I read a lot of left wing blogs on this info on Hackett and it got such a yawn. People don’t give a shit because people themselves as well as family they know are registered all over the map.
This issue is what is Hackett all about now. Hackett is an awesome Democrat!!
February 8th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Yeah. Some people even vote in primaries in the other party to try to skew the result!