Paul Hackett, the first "Fighting Dem"
Sunday marked the tenth anniversary of one of the most remarkable elections we've ever witnessed firsthand: the Ohio 2nd special between Democrat Paul Hackett and Republican Jean Schmidt, which put the nascent netroots permanently on the map. It certainly didn't seem like a promising opportunity at the start, though. The district, which stretched eastward from the Cincinnati suburbs along the Ohio River, had become vacant in April of 2005 when Republican Rob Portman (now a U.S. senator) resigned to become George W. Bush's trade representative, but Bush had carried it
by a punishing 64-36 margin the year before.
However, Hackett was a straight-talking Marine vet who had just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, at a time when voters were growing increasingly distressed with Bush's handling of the war and the claims he'd made to lead us into it. His fearlessly blunt approach and his picture-perfect profile offered a sharp contrast to the weak-kneed Democrats who'd been too timid to challenge Republicans (and the D.C. establishment) over America's foreign policy. Hackett emerged as the first of many "Fighting Dems": Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who came home to run for office and share their firsthand experiences of our overseas misadventures.
Schmidt, meanwhile, was a hot mess. She won a bloody GOP primary with just 31 percent of the vote and later got in big trouble when she falsely claimed never to have met Tom Noe, the scumbag at the center of an investment scandal that went on to level the Ohio Republican Party. Schmidt was good for laughs, too: She once declared, "We need to keep our eye on the ball, because if we don't keep it on the ball, that ball will come back and attack us."
Liberal bloggers sensed something was afoot here and started raising money in bushels for Hackett, who set the blogosphere on fire with his passion. Republicans grew visibly nervous and started swiftboating Hackett, questioning whether he'd ever been in combat (he had), but unlike John Kerry, he fought back. We parachuted one of our own, Tim Tagaris, a Marine who was on his way to becoming a master political operative, into the campaign to give us the latest scoops close up. The Swing State Project became an intense hub of OH-02 activity, and we loved every minute of it.
Unfortunately, Hackett fell short, agonizingly so, and Schmidt won by a 51.6 to 48.4 margin. It was an amazing result, though, considering both the seat's overwhelmingly conservative nature and the fact that Hackett was outspent widely, despite the hundreds of thousands we raised for him. There was also the matter of 2006. While lazy pundits often over-read the significance of special elections, there was no doubt in our minds that what happened in Ohio's 2nd was a harbinger of things to come—and boy was it ever. Republicans got crushed in the 2006 midterms, losing both the House and the Senate, and the themes Hackett hit about the Iraq war were front and center.
Not long after the special election, Charlie Cook, one of the top election observers in the country, told me that he'd been very skeptical of any notion that Democrats might have a shot. But after bloggers correctly like those of us at SSP identified this as a winnable race, he felt he had to take notice of what we were talking about. And the sums of money we brought in for Hackett were significant, too: Not only could we make a difference for a targeted candidate, but our efforts convinced the DCCC to pour resources in, too. While we didn't win the race, we made our mark as both analysts and activists—and the netroots showed it had become a force to be reckoned with.
Tue Aug 04, 2015 at 9:48 AM PT: Awesome: Paul Hackett himself just showed up in comments to offer his thoughts. He still sounds like same Fighting Dem we knew back then, and regarding his subsequent bid for Senate, he says: "Sherrod Brown is great[,] as is Chuck Schumer."