I may be ripping the scab from a freshly healed wound here, but I want to know why so many people on this board (and lefty internet types more generally) are so enamored of Paul Hackett. It seems like twice daily I run across some fawning Paul Hackett post, positively sticky with doe-eyed adulation. The man makes a lot of ya'lls hearts go a pitter-patter, and I want to know why. Is it that tall, athletic build? That maverick swagger? His sun-kissed faced or those icy blue eyes? It must be his milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard, because it's very clearly not a proven, progressive record.
If that hook was a little much, it was meant to be. I actually don't have anything against Paul Hackett, and unlike some people posting on this page, I don't work for either candidate. I gave modestly to Hackett's recent congressional campaign, and rooted heartily for his insurgent candidacy.That being said, he's no Sherrod Brown. Not even close. So why drink Gordon's when you can have Grey Goose?
Much Democratic blood has been spilled on these pages in recent months. Treasonous votes on the bankruptcy bill, "tort reform," CAFTA, and other things have taken turns offending progressive political nerds of all stripes. On these issues, and many, many others, Sherrod Brown has proven himself to be one of the true progressive champions working at any level of government. A lot has been made of Hackett's stunning congressional challenge a few months back, but at the end of the day, we are talking about someone whose major political accomplishment is losing a congressional race to a brain-dead Republican state Senator. Sherrod Brown won statewide office TWICE, serving two terms as Ohio Secretary of State, and subsequently won seven congressional terms with an unapologetically pro-worker, pro-environment progressive platform. This is someone we know can win, and when he does, there won't be a better, more thoughtful Democrat in the Senate. I worked for Barack Obama. I'd work for Sherrod Brown with twice the enthusiasm.
What irks me about the apparent fascination with -- and widespread allegiance to -- Paul Hackett is not that people have chosen against Brown. What really chaps my ass is that this kind of unthinking idolatry seems endemic in the so-called "net roots". It's okay to have a schoolyard crush, but I think it's bad policy to let those crushes determine the direction and shape of the progressive movement. "Clark/Hackett, Obama/Clark, Hackett/Obama," and on and on ad infinitum. At what point are we going to stop the pie-in-the-sky reverie and consider some of the true blue warriors who -- though they may not be new and shiny -- have fought valiantly for our ideals over the years? The fact that so many of us have blindly leapt onto the Hackett bandwagon evinces something troubling about this community, namely that too often it willfully eschews substance for sex and ideas for idols.
In an article a couple of weeks ago in the Huffington Post, David Sirota captured this unfortunate trend much more succinctly than I could hope to:
Are we going to reward with support our ideological heroes -- the people who have fought the lonely, unglamorous, unsexy fights over the years for our cause? Or are we going to abandon these fighters for flavor-of-the-week candidates whose image/profile look great at the moment, but whose positions on issues we know very little -- if anything -- about?...The simultaneous hyperventilating about Hackett's candidacy and downplaying of his inconsistent postures illustrates how parts of the grassroots left (perhaps confined to the blogosphere) are becoming all-consumed with this or that candidate's 'profile' or 'image' rather than substance.
I don't intend to rip Hackett. As I said, I've given to him and I think he has a bright future ahead of him. Of the two candidates, however, Hackett is obviously the unknown quantity. I know that appeals to a lot of people on this board -- and given the string of Democratic losses we have suffered, I have to say, I'm sympathetic to a general frustration with the status quo -- but I urge all of you to take a long, hard look and Congressman Brown and see if you can find a better Democrat anywhere.