There is, in my opinion of course, one of two possible lessons from the Hackett campaign phenomena.
There is, what I call, the Superman vs The Wicked Witch factor. Did Hackett get a 25% turnover of voters due to his charisma alone? Look at the 6'5" marine major riding his hog on local television outlets and greeting voters compared to the late middle aged woman with bags around her bags. If they want a poster child for the justification of the plastic surgery industry they would be well advised to get (hic) Representative Schmidt.
Of course there is a better lesson outlined below.
I actually hope the lesson of the Hackett campaign will be that Democrats need to actually speak truth to power, let the country know that the Republicans are almost entirely a bunch of chickenhawks who expect young men and women who have very little opportunity to fight and die for their policies.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates point out that the Young Republicans think they are doing the country a favor by entering politics and asking others to fight the fight they are unwilling to fight.
I hope that the next round of Democratic candidates have the cajones to let the country know that suppressing dissent and calling those who disagree with the Republican's fascist (yes that term applies) policies of controlling the world through military and economic might and intimidation is doing more damage to this country in the long run then the 19, mostly Saudi, men who high jacked 4 airplanes and bravely controlled those plane to their deaths.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates are brave enough to let the country know that the corporate leaders in this country and the world are not here to promote liberty and freedom. Most of these corporate leaders only care about gaining more and more control of the markets to increase their bottom line today. These corporate leaders do not care about the people they exploit in order to increase their coffers.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates will be willing to show that the American people depend on the well being of the rest of the planet. As the well being and economic strength of those in the rest of the world increase, the worldwide demand for goods and services will increase. and that will lead to a true worldwide increase in the economies not only of this country but of the world. The lesson of Roosevelt's massive construction program, which not only pulled this country out of the great depression, but also prepared us for WWII, was that if you put money into the hnd of the people they will spend it and tht will drive an economy mush better then putting more money into the hands of a few in the hope that they will invest it. By the time WWII started we were able to build a military machine that not only won a naval, marine, and air war in the pacific but helped win the land war in Europe against two military powers that had been building and growing for thirty years. We need to actually increase the purchasing power of everyone in the world if we are to create a truly stable increasing worldwide economy. We need a stable infrastructure and manufacturing base in case we actually have to fight another set of aggressors who actually want to take over the world.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates are willing to let the country know that we have to protect the world itself in order to have a planet which can support the growing worldwide population. The oceans and waters of this world provide food for most of us who live in it. If we lose the oceans as a source of food there will be no way to feed the population of the world. We must protect the atmosphere or it will stop protecting us.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates will be willing to let this country know that the true threat to this country is not those who hate our freedom but those who hate the way our economy exploits those in the rest of the world. We have the technology to feed the world but those who control that technology are not interested in feeding the world or allowing those around the world to use that technology to feed themselves, they only care about using that technology to increase their profit margins. We need to understand that as those in the rest of the world become more secure that there is plentiful food supplies they will turn their endeavors to more productive areas.
I hope the next round of Democratic candidates are willing to let the country know that Osama Bin Laden's plan to make us self destruct by taking away our own freedoms, destroying our own economy through militarization, creating worldwide resentment of the United States by our own actions is actually working better then he had ever imagined. The lesson of the fall of the Soviet Union and its war in Afghanistan was not lost on Bin Laden, but is lost on the American populace. Reducing freedom, overt militarization, and loss of support from allied countries had more to do with the fall of the Soviet Union then any speech given by Ronald Reagan. The Soviet Union was not the first empire destroyed after trying to take over Afghanistan and may not be the last.
In closing, I believe the lesson of the Hackett campaign is that the country will listen and vote for a candidate if he is willing to point out the truth about what is happening in this country and the world and if the next round of Democratic candidates are willing to point out these truths the people of this country will vote for them.