Dems Can't Hackett

Tim Cavanaugh | February 14, 2006

"This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me... For me, this is a second betrayal. First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."

That's Paul Hackett, the outspoken Iraq war veteran, Democratic star of tomorrow, and surprise near-winner of a heavily Republican House seat in last year's election, announcing that he has bowed to party pressure and abandoned his quest for a Senate seat in the Buckeye State. Democratic honchos had encouraged Hackett to run for Mike DeWine's Senate seat after he came within 3.5 percentage points of defeating Republican Jeanne Schmidt in the race for Ohio's second congressional district last year. However, Senate Democratic leaders realized that you always win with a seasoned candidate, and have for several weeks been urging Hackett's contributors to stop funding his campaign, so that longtime Rep. Sherrod Brown can run against DeWine.

The deathblow came Sunday, when the grotesque Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) publicly urged Hackett to quit, and run for the House again. Hackett now says he'll quit and leave politics altogether, noting that he had promised other Democrats he wouldn't run again for the second district seat: "The party keeps saying for me not to worry about those promises because in politics they are broken all the time. I don't work that way. My word is my bond."

And the award for best there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere response goes to DailyKos:

Hackett is complaining about betrayal. Yet Rahm was trying to get him to become one of his candidates. In other words, Rahm was recruiting him. That's not a bad thing. That's a flattering thing.

Or as Lyndon Johnson once told George H.W. Bush: "The difference between serving in the U.S. Senate and serving in the U.S. House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit."

Comments

|2.14.06 @ 2:40AM|#

Is it that the Ohio Dems are afraid to be very anti-Iraq war?

And the award for best there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere response goes to DailyKos:

Yeah, DailyKos is always doing yet another tiresome rendition of: "Let's pretend that the Democratic Party isn't a political hack driven monstrosity".

|2.14.06 @ 4:40AM|#

Wow, that was so inside baseball I almost forgot spring training hasn't even started yet.

|2.14.06 @ 7:01AM|#

Ok, the kos kiddies are so adorable, when they pretend that there's some practical difference between the right and left wings of the Ruling Party.

Let's see... Who was another Democratic candidate that the party wanted to just get rid of? Wasn't it Harry Truman, the last Democrat with any guts?

Hackett should run as an independent. If he splits the vote, so be it.

-jcr

MP|2.14.06 @ 8:45AM|#

For some additional background on Paul Hackett, see this excellent profile from Mother Jones.

Warren|2.14.06 @ 10:00AM|#

"The party keeps saying for me not to worry about those promises because in politics they are broken all the time. I don't work that way. My word is my bond."

If he actually believes this, then he either has to run as a 3rd party/independent, or not at all. There's no place for integrity in the established party

|2.14.06 @ 10:45AM|#

Hackett's lucky he didn't run. I am betting his tendency to blame everyone else for his problems but himself, of which this is another example of, would have been exposed, even by a tool like Dewine. Hackett is a terminal whiner and self-promoter, almost as bad as Howard Dean. And we all know how that turned out.

Captain Holly|2.14.06 @ 10:57AM|#

Hackett's lucky he didn't run. I am betting his tendency to blame everyone else for his problems but himself, of which this is another example of, would have been exposed, even by a tool like Dewine. Hackett is a terminal whiner and self-promoter, almost as bad as Howard Dean. And we all know how that turned out.

Hackett never had a chance of winning. The Democrats finally figured that out.

Because, as I said in an earlier H&R post, Hackett's short campaign for Congress last year produced more boners than Pamela Anderson at a computer gamer's convention.

|2.14.06 @ 11:27AM|#

From Joe Klein's write up of Hackett in Time:
He (Hackett) was stumped by illegal immigration and came up with a crude prescription: "Send 'em back if we can afford it."

What a boob.

Tim Cavanaugh|2.14.06 @ 11:38AM|#

almost as bad as Howard Dean. And we all know how that turned out.

Actually we don't. The party faithful decided they needed a more presentable, less polarizing candidate, and we know exactly how that turned out.

Not that Hackett wasn't all the things you say. Or might have been-I don't know.

|2.14.06 @ 11:42AM|#

almost as bad as Howard Dean. And we all know how that turned out

He became the head of DNC? I guess I am missing the implication of how poorly Dean turned out

|2.14.06 @ 1:14PM|#

Don't parties have, um, primary elections as a way to settle these little disputes?

Captain Holly|2.14.06 @ 1:43PM|#

Don't parties have, um, primary elections as a way to settle these little disputes?

In an ideal world, that's the way it's supposed to work: Put up two good candidates, and let the party faithful decide.

In the real world, Senate races are incredibly expensive. Instead of wasting time and money having two candidates try to squeeze the same donors, the Party Brass often "kneecap" the candidate who is perceived to be weaker in order to let the stronger candidate save money for the general election.

|2.14.06 @ 5:01PM|#

I'm working off some heavy past life karma by living in Ohio. I'd have voted for him.

Anyway, dems, you guys really really suck ass.

|2.14.06 @ 8:24PM|#

"In the real world,"

Captain Holly,
The "real world" is but shadows of H&R on the wall of some cave in Greece.

|2.14.06 @ 11:32PM|#

Ruthless (Plato),

Excellent!