http://www.cleveland.com/...
Political newcomer ill at ease with process
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Elizabeth Auster
Plain Dealer Bureau
Washington -- ...Interviews with people familiar with his campaign suggest that Hackett's team was struggling not only with outside pressures from Democrats eager to avoid a primary, but also from internal tensions stemming partly from Hackett's personality and his newness to the grueling pressures of running a hotly contested, high-profile Senate race.
Former aides say that some of the very strengths that made many Democrats see star potential in the tall, handsome, blunt-talking Marine major - his independence, his irreverence, his disdain for politics as usual - also made it particularly hard for Hackett to adjust to the demands of running for Senate.
Hackett's only experience with big-time politics, they point out, was a short special-election campaign for Congress that drew little attention outside southwest Ohio until its final few weeks.
"It's a very hard thing to make the jump to running for U.S. Senate," said Mark Blumenthal, a pollster who worked for Hackett's campaign. "There's a reason why people who have done it a lot of times are better at it - because you learn the hard way how hard is it to raise that money and how important it is to have experienced people around and to trust them."...