Cross posted at
Now That's Progress. (Paul Hackett was in Cleveland this morning talking to a handful of Cleveland bloggers. Level of detail here may be more interesting to Ohioans than others, but Paul Hackett always seems to be newsworthy, so read on.)
Paul Hackett met the bloggers this morning, including George, Tim & Gerardo, Bill, Brian, Pho and Jill. My impressions and a run-down of the action, or at least as much as I can remember of it:
There was no missing Hackett's arrival. As we looked out the window of Talkies, the massive bus emblazoned with his name took up the majority of tiny Market Street. Not sure where they parked that thing.
And then he was upon us -- "Any bloggers in here?" -- smiling and shaking hands. As advertised, Hackett is a tall, good-looking guy, someone who the less-political voter (and maybe even the very political voter) wouldn't mind looking at for the next six years as a senator. As was the case with Ted Strickland, Hackett comes off very likable, and for the most part he answered questions in the straightforward way that he's quickly gotten a reputation for doing. He'll get a few votes right off the top for looks and charisma.
Meet the Bloggers will have the transcript, but here's my take on what Hackett had to say.
Starting off with a question left in the comments at Meet the Bloggers, George asked Hackett about the last novel he had read, and a (sort of) related question about economic development and the arts. Hackett hadn't been getting much reading done with schedule and could only say he'd been trying to read Blink, which is not a novel but, why quibble, it's still a book.
The original economic developments/arts angle ended up getting lost, and it became a straight economic development question. Hackett's answer was that he sees economic development rooted in the ongoing issue of health care. If I understood correctly, he was saying that until health care gets fixed to a reasonable extent, economic development will be slowed. Hackett thinks health care is done well in Europe and we can incorporate the best of their systems to improve health care here. He also mentioned actual health care jobs in terms of economic development -- stem cell research, pharmaceuticals. If health care is "solved" is our state, he said, Ohio would be seen as a good place to do business. This was a bit vague, without enough specifics for my taste.
Next question from Brian boiled down to Hackett's stance on gay rights. His past answer concerning gay marriage was "who cares?" i.e., why is this an issue, so Brian asked what he was willing to support. Hackett said that gay rights, choice and guns are all issues dealing with privacy, and he would support and defend gay rights when the issues come before him. He was unequivocal on supporting gay rights and that no one should be discriminated against because of sexuality, but stressed that the issue needs to be talked about the right way around the state. He mentioned Danny Bupp trying to get the Ten Commandments placed outside of schools in southern Ohio as indicative of the differing mindsets that you'd find in the rural counties. While Hackett said he didn't care about gay marriage versus civil unions -- "I don't know anyone that's gotten divorced because the neighbors are gay" -- Hackett thinks that civil unions are the way to go in that battle, sort of an easing into it to let people get used to the idea. "Let's win the battle and get the label right down the road." Hackett also took this opportunity to say "the Republican Party has been hijacked by religious fanatics."
Next up, Tim had a lot of questions about Iraq. First he had Hackett say something nice about Iraq, and Hackett gave what I'd consider the expected answer -- the people were great and not much different than us.
On how Hackett would have voted had he been a senator over the last few years: Hackett said he would have voted against the war to begin with, but would have voted for the $87 billion in 2004 and for the $100 billion more that may be on the table soon. Hackett said that General Shinseki and others had predicted how the war would proceed and they were right -- he would have listened to their advice. On the follow-up money, Hackett said the troops who are there needed to be given the tools to do the job and the money is needed to both protect them and do what now needs to done. Until a withdrawal is happening, the troops who are there need to be supported.
In terms of withdrawing from Iraq, Hackett didn't have any real timetable -- his answer was basically that there had to be a situation where the country could be a good neighbor and have some stability. He stressed, however, that the troops shouldn't be there to guarantee election credibility, to fight over women's rights and other issues that aren't directly related to some stability. He didn't downplay the importance of these issues, but said they were outside of the basic goals our military should have in Iraq.
Hackett predicts that whenever we leave, things will get "ugly" in Iraq over the short term, but eventualy the Shiites and Sunnis will "come together" to create a balance in the country and they will do the work of making sure the jihadists are run out of the country. But the Iraq military as it stands can't do that, as it is full of either new soldiers or very low-level soldiers from the previous army. Personally I think Hackett shows too much faith in the Iraqis being able to live peaceably and drive out the terrorist foreigners, but we can't stay there forever, so at some point we'll find out if he's right.
Bill asked about Iraqi casualties, which Bush pegged at 30,000 earlier this week. Hackett said if they were all insurgents, he would be fine with that, but he knows that's not the case and every time our military makes a mistake, the situation gets worse.
Hackett said Iraq would be looked at as a foreign policy failure, which makes it hard to justify any of the lives that have been lost. (I think that's what he said; I'll let the transcript correct me if I heard that wrong.)
Gerardo then asked about trade. Hackett called NAFTA and CAFTA "trash" saying that CAFTA was reminiscent of the adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Within this discussion, Hackett talked a lot about corporations being more responsible to this country and to their individual communities, that the focus on short-term results will cripple them and the country in the long term, that CEOs shouldn't be making 450 times what the line worker makes. Wal-Mart can send a million dollars for Katrina relief and act the good corporate citizen, but what they should really be doing is offering better wages and health care. All good points, but the follow-up I didn't get the chance to ask was "What can you do about it as senator?" Can Hackett or anyone else really make corporations more responsible, and what exactly does that mean in terms of international trade? (This area is not my specialty, but I thought it all seemed a bit vague on real substance.)
George asked about leaders Hackett admired. Pretty standard stuff - Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, mentioned that George Washington hated the two-party system and he's sort of been proven right. Mentioned that Lincoln would not be a Republican as defined by George W. Bush.
Hackett talked a little bit about his personal life and his decision to go to Iraq. His wife home-schools 2 of their 3 "wild" kids, and she has the educational background to do so. His other child is in private school -- Hackett said he wanted her in public school, didn't want to pay the private school costs. To be honest, I didn't buy that; I think Hackett just knows that not having your kids in public school opens you up to criticism as a political candidate.
On going to Iraq, Hackett and his wife had been together 20 years and he said she knows that the Marines are like his "other family" and she supported his decision.
Gerardo got back into health care, arguing that the European systems Hackett mentioned as a good standard really have great disparities in the quality of care people receive. I can't adequately summarize Hackett's response, you'll have to check the transcript. One thing he did say of note was that he doesn't buy off on the notion that the government gets everything wrong -- government can play an important role in health care without screwing it up. A nod to government-sponsored universal health care? Not totally sure.
I asked him why a Democratic primary voter should pick him over Sherrod Brown. Not surprisingly his answer was that he has a better opportunity to win downstate, to win over crossover voters, that he won Adams County in his House race, a very rural, very religious county. Said he had no issue with Sherrod Brown, supports many of the same things as Brown, and didn't really want to take jabs at him.
Hackett made the case that career politicians are responsible for the mess we're in, so why keep electing them? This was in reference to Mike DeWine, whether that was also a slight reference to Brown I'm not sure.
I followed up by asking what Hackett would do if he lost in the primary. A lot of people are excited by him and see him as a future leader. Would he run for elected office again in the future if he lost, or be involved in some way?
He couldn't or maybe wouldn't say. He said that he's not hung up on a title and is concerned about the future for his kids and the next generation. Paraphrasing here, but Hackett said something along the lines of, if he was told that the way to create a brighter future was to sweep the sidewalk every day and that filling that unglamorous role would create the world he wants, he'd gladly do that. He said if he didn't win the primary, he would support Sherrod Brown, but not surprisingly Hackett didn't seem interested in talking too much about losing.
(I wanted to ask Hackett to give his version of what Sherrod Brown told him concerning Brown getting into the race, as there have been many conflicting reports, but I didn't want to waste the time we had with him on what would have basically been gossip. They're both in it now, so it doesn't matter much.)
Jill asked about education and the No Child Left Behind Act. Hackett thinks vouchers are bad, charter schoolds are bad, and the No Child Left Behind Act is bad because it makes schools chase test scores instead of focusing on things that could be educational but not necessarily test-worthy (he mentioned kids in a rural county who used to go to a "teaching farm" as a field trip; this was cut off when test scores became the sole standard to measure quality of education.)
Bill asked about equity issues in education and other areas between the cities and other parts of the state, and this sort of segued into the issue of taxes. Hackett said Democrats are the party that supports all people, including those who need the most help, and that with our current tax cutting system we're "becoming a third-world country." You can't fight wars, have crumbling infrastructure and cut taxes at the same time. "Taxes are the price of admission" and if you want this country to be great and continue to enjoy what it offers, taxes are the investment in making that happen, to both create a better America and help the less fortunate in our society. He said he sees the "Freedom isn't free" bumper stickers on people's cars and then listens to them complain that they pay too many taxes.
Bill asked about the most important things he would tell people in the inner city when it comes to their issues. Hackett said the issues are the same everywhere, but they impact those people more. A lousy economy, tied to health care problems and the Iraq war, education not being funded -- these affect everyone, but people in the inner cities feel it even more. Relating this back to Iraq, Hackett talked about painting schools in Iraq but not in East Cleveland -- "Nation building begins at home."
We wrapped up soon after, but Hackett stuck around to read his e-mails and continued chatting even after the mics were off. When I left he gave me a hearty handshake and went back to his conversation.
A good discussion from my perspective -- it will be interesting to hear others' takes on it, especially those who have some expertise in individual areas like health care, trade, education.
One other area I would have liked to explore is energy, especially in terms of what Hackett supports in trying to move away from oil-based energy systems. This issue got a lot of play in the 2004 elections, at least from John Kerry, and I think it's really something Dems should be pushing hard against. Since I know Paul will be reading every word to see what us bloggers thought of him, I'm sure he'll leave a comment about this or maybe he'll e-mail me with some thoughts on legislation he would support.