Dim's really, really suck... no wonder they can't win anything...
More: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21350
Democrats boot candidate who didn't fit the mold
IndyStar.com | February 17, 2006 |KEN BODE
Joshua Green describes a legendary Eskimo practice of dealing with elders who have outlived their usefulness by placing them on an ice floe and sending them off to sea. Democratic minority leader Sen. Harry Reid and campaign chairman Charles Schumer employed a similar tactic on one of their party's most promising Senate candidates for the 2006 elections.
Paul Hackett, the Iraq War veteran who was running for the Senate in Ohio, announced this week that he is leaving the race because national and state party leaders have pressured him to withdraw and called his donors to dry up their contributions.
Last August Hackett ran for Congress in a special election in a heavily Republican Cincinnati district. Hackett used his special expertise on the Iraq War -- his 1st Marine Division participated in the Fallujah campaign -- to craft a blunt anti-war message. The war is a misuse of the military, he said, calling President Bush a chicken hawk. He ran a strong grass-roots campaign, gained national attention and over a half-million dollars in Internet contributions from around the country and won 48 percent in a district where two years before John Kerry mustered a paltry 36 percent. Newt Gingrich called Hackett's race "a wake-up call for the GOP."
Among the congratulatory calls Hackett received were entreaties from both Reid and Schumer to turn his remarkable congressional campaign into a 2006 run for the Senate. Ohio's Republican Sen. Mike DeWine is a prime Democratic target in a state riddled by GOP corruption scandals. Also, a strong anti-war message credibly carried by a returning Marine veteran would make this Senate race one of the most prominent in the country.
Hackett checked with another potential candidate, Cleveland Congressman Sherrod Brown, and was told Brown had no interest in running. So Hackett announced, organized a campaign, set up a Web site, began raising money, won the endorsement of Ohio's 175,000 strong UAW, and continued to press his anti-war message. "The war is over," he says. "We've accomplished everything militarily we can. It's time for the Senate and House to set a policy that brings our troops home as soon and as safely as our military leadership can plan for."
However, Sherrod Brown changed his mind. A lifelong politician, he used his inside track to line up support from the Ohio Democratic establishment. He then showed a poll to Democratic leaders in Washington indicating he would beat Hackett in a primary, and the machinery began to turn. The Democrats wanted to avoid a costly and divisive primary, so Hackett was denounced as too much of a straight talker.
There is truly a Trumanesque quality about Paul Hackett. He recently said that the GOP had been hijacked by religious fanatics, citing Pat Robertson who called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and said Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for giving away Gaza. Asked to retract it, Hackett replied, "I said it. I meant it. I stand by it." Straight talk. No backing off.
If there was any candidate in the country who earned the right to run for public office this year, it is Hackett. He served his country in Iraq, a war he opposed, leaving his political views at America's shoreline. He served his party in last year's special election, proving that his biography, his character, his straight talk and anti-war message could pull votes the Democrats had never won in Ohio's 2nd district. Most important, he told a credible truth about the war in which he served.
The message from Washington is that with Hackett there is too much straight talk. Jennifer Duffy of The Cook Political Report said, "The Senate is still an exclusive club, and the party expects a certain level of decorum that Hackett has not always shown."
The disgraceful actions of Reid, Schumer and the Ohio Democratic establishment indicate their commitment to politics as usual and their belief that 2006 will be an insider's year. What they owed Hackett in return for his courage and his service was, at least, their neutrality. They owed it to him to keep their grubby hands off and let him run a fair race.
Admitting he'd been forced out, Hackett said it best: "For me this is the second betrayal. First my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."
More: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21350
Democrats boot candidate who didn't fit the mold
IndyStar.com | February 17, 2006 |KEN BODE
Joshua Green describes a legendary Eskimo practice of dealing with elders who have outlived their usefulness by placing them on an ice floe and sending them off to sea. Democratic minority leader Sen. Harry Reid and campaign chairman Charles Schumer employed a similar tactic on one of their party's most promising Senate candidates for the 2006 elections.
Paul Hackett, the Iraq War veteran who was running for the Senate in Ohio, announced this week that he is leaving the race because national and state party leaders have pressured him to withdraw and called his donors to dry up their contributions.
Last August Hackett ran for Congress in a special election in a heavily Republican Cincinnati district. Hackett used his special expertise on the Iraq War -- his 1st Marine Division participated in the Fallujah campaign -- to craft a blunt anti-war message. The war is a misuse of the military, he said, calling President Bush a chicken hawk. He ran a strong grass-roots campaign, gained national attention and over a half-million dollars in Internet contributions from around the country and won 48 percent in a district where two years before John Kerry mustered a paltry 36 percent. Newt Gingrich called Hackett's race "a wake-up call for the GOP."
Among the congratulatory calls Hackett received were entreaties from both Reid and Schumer to turn his remarkable congressional campaign into a 2006 run for the Senate. Ohio's Republican Sen. Mike DeWine is a prime Democratic target in a state riddled by GOP corruption scandals. Also, a strong anti-war message credibly carried by a returning Marine veteran would make this Senate race one of the most prominent in the country.
Hackett checked with another potential candidate, Cleveland Congressman Sherrod Brown, and was told Brown had no interest in running. So Hackett announced, organized a campaign, set up a Web site, began raising money, won the endorsement of Ohio's 175,000 strong UAW, and continued to press his anti-war message. "The war is over," he says. "We've accomplished everything militarily we can. It's time for the Senate and House to set a policy that brings our troops home as soon and as safely as our military leadership can plan for."
However, Sherrod Brown changed his mind. A lifelong politician, he used his inside track to line up support from the Ohio Democratic establishment. He then showed a poll to Democratic leaders in Washington indicating he would beat Hackett in a primary, and the machinery began to turn. The Democrats wanted to avoid a costly and divisive primary, so Hackett was denounced as too much of a straight talker.
There is truly a Trumanesque quality about Paul Hackett. He recently said that the GOP had been hijacked by religious fanatics, citing Pat Robertson who called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and said Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for giving away Gaza. Asked to retract it, Hackett replied, "I said it. I meant it. I stand by it." Straight talk. No backing off.
If there was any candidate in the country who earned the right to run for public office this year, it is Hackett. He served his country in Iraq, a war he opposed, leaving his political views at America's shoreline. He served his party in last year's special election, proving that his biography, his character, his straight talk and anti-war message could pull votes the Democrats had never won in Ohio's 2nd district. Most important, he told a credible truth about the war in which he served.
The message from Washington is that with Hackett there is too much straight talk. Jennifer Duffy of The Cook Political Report said, "The Senate is still an exclusive club, and the party expects a certain level of decorum that Hackett has not always shown."
The disgraceful actions of Reid, Schumer and the Ohio Democratic establishment indicate their commitment to politics as usual and their belief that 2006 will be an insider's year. What they owed Hackett in return for his courage and his service was, at least, their neutrality. They owed it to him to keep their grubby hands off and let him run a fair race.
Admitting he'd been forced out, Hackett said it best: "For me this is the second betrayal. First my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."
