Translating Ohio
So what does it all mean? Major Paul Hackett does 20 points better than four-time loser Charlie Sanders in the Ohio 2nd in a year that has seen a precipitous drop in Bush's support, believability, and credibility among the voting public. He nearly pulled off the upset, but he definitely sent the first shot across the bow of the 2006 campaign. The meaning in Ohio is, of course, easier to ascertain - the GOP is toast unless they can rely on outspending their opponent as Senator Voinovich did Fingerhut in 2004. Methinks it'll be tough for Senator DeWine (who IS up in 2006 and has already seen his son go down to defeat in the OH-02 GOP primary) to pull off that feat.
Nationally, however ... the meaning is a bit more muted. It's far easier to win an election like this when it's the only game in town. But for those among us who advocate for 435 Congressional candidates and a full slate at home, it's tough to see how this type of attention could possibly reach so many campaigns. Simply stated, there's no way in hell it ever will. Look at our own fair state of Texas ... should we be so lucky to have 16 statewide candidates, 150 State Rep candidates, 16 State Senate Candidates, 32 Congressionals, 508 County Commissioners and 254 County judges (and other countywide candidates as well), that's a lot of action for the coupla dozen or so activist bloggers to have an impact on.
The cold hard reality is this - as far as candidates themselves go, there's only so many Paul Hacketts and there are only so man Jean Schmidts to run against. When it comes to brass tacks, there will be another form of candidate selectivity to replace the party leadership-based selectivity that we're accustomed to railing against. The difference, of course, is that the process of selectivity will be open to the many instead of to the few - and I would argue that that's at the heart of the internet rebellion against nefarious and unseen consultants as well as party leaders that we just magically assume work against our best interest for reasons that we don't bother to investigate.
But in a perfect world, what we hope to see is a full slate that leaves us focusing on our own backyard more intently than most of us have had need to in the past. And THAT, I believe, is the ultimate message of the Hackett campaign - that our ideas are strong enough to campaign on everywhere. We will occassionally have the aid and comfort of a candidate with a solid gold resume. We will occassionally have the benefit of an opponent who makes our job a bit easier. But that's not always a given. In fact, the inverse can just as easily be true. But until we compete everywhere, we'll never work out the kinks in a heretofore untested idea.
I frequently go back to a meeting I've retold on this site before: a gathering of local Dems at a function are met with a party leader. Someone asks what the best thing they can do to win campaigns would be, and they're told to uproot themselves from their home and go to a more Democratic-friendly area to look for potential voters. Absolute worst idea I'd heard at the time and I don't recall seeing anyone taking the advice to heart afterwards. The more universal, all-encompassing lesson from Major Hackett's campaign is, and always will be, that you can compete in your backyard and you damn well should. You have an obligation to fight for what you believe in. And if it's not worth fighting in your own backyard, then it's not worth fighting anywhere.
In the 2004 season, while I was given an outpost to help run, we frequently saw volunteers who were more interested in happenings in Ohio, New Mexico, and Wisconsin than they were in Harris County. This, while I had tables full of candidate information regarding local candidates whom I hoped to help in some small way. I've seen volunteers walk out frustrated over how Kerry was polling in Ohio before they ever thought one second about how Hubert Vo was doing in a State Rep. district about 1 mile away or how Kathy Stone was doing in a countywide judicial race where she had the best shot of reversing the tide in our own home county. There's something inherently wrong with that picture.
Others will tell a tale of how the netroots made this campaign, how the DCCC "f*cked up," how Al From and the DLC are traveling in a hearse. Pure arrogant rubbish. The netroots made a huge impact on this race, no doubt. But to claim superiority for this race should be matched with a comparable claim based on the 2004 results. Tell me how the netroots made Howard Dean in Iowa (BEFORE the scream), and then we can talk about how the netroots made Hackett in Ohio.
Hackett's campaign validated a great deal of truisms that have just gotten swept under too many rugs for too long: candidates still matter more than anything else, every part of the country deserves an alternative, and it is our ideas and ideals as a party that are our competitive advantage. Those three attributes were the reasons Hackett succeeded. The money helped prevent them from being washed over in a tidal wave of RNC ads making the case for yet another rubber stamp. The netroots helped turn up the volume on Hackett's symphony. But they did not write the music. That underscores where, I think, the leverage of the netroots really exists. Focus on that role, and I think we all move forward. Revert into self-congratulatory cliques, and I think we all suffer for it.
Related:
While we're on the topic of congressional races, I could use a hand in this online poll:
http://www.freeblogpoll.com/view_poll.php?poll_id=9270
Thanks!
PS
Done!
Peter Sullivan -- Please fill us in on how your campaign is progressing. I can see that you are winning your on-line poll hands down.
I would like to make a few comments about the Liberal Blogsphere activists and their assessment of the ramifications of Hackett's bid in the OH2 special election.
-- I see that DAILY KOS appears to claiming Hackett's near upset of Schmidt as a triumph of their strategy and philosophy. It seems to me that they are correct and incorrect about some of their assertions.
--The NETROOTS folks did raise a lot of money and very quickly.
-- However, the DAILY KOS and MYDD crowd were not the only ones who answered the call to give generously.
-- Many Democrats who would hail themselves centrists and others who might hail themselves liberal in the FDR-HST-JFK sense also supported Mr. Hackett. I gave $40 to Paul Hackett and would have given more if snail mail had permitted. I never give money or transact business over the INTERNET. I sometimes call myself a centrist, but only because the old fashioned definition of Liberalism used from 1932 through the late 1960s is no longer accepted. I otherwise don't regard myself as a moderate or centrist at all, except in comparison with the left wing of today's Democratic Party and the right wingers who have taken over the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.
-- It seems to me that Paul Hackett campaigned the way one of my heroes, Harry Truman, would have wanted him to campaign. Hackett came out swinging, just as Truman did in 1948 and in every other campaign in which he was engaged.
-- Yet, why was Hackett able to win over so many rural voters, Republicans and independents, when Portman won his last bid for reelection with 70% of the vote?
-- Was it not precisely because Hackett both attacked the flawed strategy in Iraq and showed himself to be pro-Defense just like the old Truman-Kennedy Cold War Liberals? He was pro-Second Amendment. Hackett's position on Abortion was not much different from that of the Clintons, now much reviled by the ultra-Liberals. Hackett stood up and fought for Social Security. He championed the cause of the beleaguered Labor Movement. Indeed, George Meaney and Lane Kirkland would have been proud of him. In short, Hackett was somebody apparently that aging Cold War Liberals like me could support, not just the DAIL KOS crowd.
-- As a former Ohioan, I would support a Hackett Senatorial bid. I think that Hackett would have a much better chance than would Tim Ryan or Sherrod Brown.
-- The irony is that Hackett backed many of the positions for which the DAILY KOS types have been lambasting Mrs. Clinton and Evan Bayh. Moreover, it may be that Hackett called Bush a "Son of a Bitch." Harry Truman would have loved that. He was fond of calling Richard Nixon a lying son of a bitch, which Nixon was. However, Mrs. Clinton herself was criticized by the media for ridiculing the Bush Administration as the most corrupt in history. Hillary may have been guilty of hyperbole. George Bush II would have some competition from US Grant, Warren G. Harding and a few other presidents. Yet, I don't think she was far off and, in saying what she did, I think she showed that the Clinton fighting spirit and war room mentality are still alive and well.
-- I think that DAILY KOS, MYDD and the left wing cyber propagandists do some great things. Today, for instance, DAILY KOS is promoting the campaign of Eric Massa, who is running for Congress in NY29. Massa seems almost a carbon copy of Hackett in some ways. I will join the Kossacks in opening up my wallet and giving generously to Massa. I am not sure that my motivations will be the same as those of the Kossacks.