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Wow, imagine that, a conservative democrat.
Note to democrats: you used to have a lot of them. You also used to be in power. (1+1=2)
Salon article
Dogfight in Ohio
A Marine who fought in Fallujah is trying to become the first Iraq war vet to serve in Congress -- and give Democrats hope that Ohio is not permanently lost.
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By Bill Frogameni
July 26, 2005 | Paul Hackett remembers being in Kuwait, waiting to be shipped home after a seven-month tour of duty in Ramadi and Fallujah, watching CNN America with his fellow Marines. What he saw enraged him. "All I saw on TV was Terri Schiavo," he says. "The federal government and the Florida state government came screeching to a halt to intervene into the private lives of this family during this tragic time ... Like that scene out of 'Network,' I felt like the guy who stood in the spotlight and said, 'I'm mad as and I'm not going to take it anymore.'" Not long after he returned to Ohio, he decided to run for Congress.
Hackett, a 43-year-old personal injury lawyer and Marine Reserve major who volunteered for service in the Iraq war, has little prior political experience, only having served as a city councilman in a small town. But he's a contender in a special congressional election taking place in Ohio on Aug. 2 to fill the 2nd District seat vacated by Republican Rob Portman, who's now serving as the U.S. trade representative.
Hackett, a Democrat, is surely the underdog. The 2nd District, which includes Cincinnati, has been solidly conservative in a state that's thoroughly dominated by the GOP and that decided the 2004 election for President Bush. His better-funded opponent, Jean Schmidt, is well-connected and, as a former state representative, has a more extensive political résumé. But Hackett hopes his credentials -- Iraq war vet and plain-spoken self-described moderate -- will give him a much-needed edge.
Hackett hopes he's part of a seismic political shift happening in Ohio -- a shift driven in part by recent outrage against Ohio Republicans over a high-profile, multimillion-dollar accounting scandal that has cast a cloud over the state party and may find its first political fallout victim in Schmidt, the first major Republican candidate to face the voters since the scandal broke.
A victory for Schmidt would mean continued Republican dominance in this district that voted 65 percent in favor of Bush last November. If Hackett wins, however, it would make him the first Iraq war veteran in Congress -- and would also give Democrats hope that Ohio has not gone completely and irreversibly to the GOP.
On the issues, the candidates both describe themselves as fiscal conservatives, but on the Iraq war and the so-called moral values questions, they stand in stark relief. Hackett is a critic of Bush's Iraq war policy and believes America was led to war unnecessarily. Schmidt is a strong backer of Bush's handling of the war. Hackett is pro-choice. Schmidt is president of Cincinnati Right to Life. Schmidt voted against gay marriage in the Ohio House of Representatives, while Hackett's take is: "Gay marriage -- who the cares?"
Hackett, who is married, says he doesn't feel the need to defend his marriage through the national Defense of Marriage Act, or any other anti-gay marriage legislation. "If you're gay you're gay -- more power to you," he said. "What you want is to be treated fairly by the law and any American who doesn't think that should be the case is, frankly, un-American."
Hackett's left-of-center views on social issues may not go over well with conservative Ohioans, and Schmidt is so far beating him financially, but last week Hackett got a profile boost when former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland campaigned with him. By bringing in Cleland and highlighting his military service, Hackett hopes to neutralize any criticism Schmidt could levy concerning his stance on the war.
Schmidt commends Hackett for his service, but believes Hackett should "stand with the president" by "supporting the Iraqi war effort and our troops that are over there," her campaign manager Joe Braun said. (Through Braun, Schmidt declined to speak with Salon.) When asked to answer that charge, Hackett is blunt: "The only way I know how to support the troops is by going over there." He doesn't hesitate to criticize Schmidt's support of the war: "All the chicken hawks back here who said, 'Oh, Iraq is talking bad about us. They're going to threaten us' -- look, if you really believe that, you leave your wife and three kids and go sign up for the Army or Marines and go over there and fight. Otherwise, shut your mouth."
In spite of her endorsement from the NRA, Hackett steals some of Schmidt's thunder when it comes to guns. Hackett says he's an NRA member and, when asked about gun control, he answers with an old saw: "Gun control is when you point your gun and hit what you aim for." Local pundits have noted Hackett's macho appeal to the crossover voter (his time in the Marines, his 6-foot-4-inch frame, his blunt talk), and Hackett acknowledges this appeal is further enhanced by his hands-on appreciation for hunting and gun culture.
With only a week to go before the election, it's hard to gauge the state of the horse race. Given his limited financial resources, Hackett says he decided not to commission any polls. Braun says the Schmidt camp has done "tracking" but declined to release any specific numbers. Braun does, however, see Hackett as a legitimate contender.
And recent ethical questions surrounding Schmidt's campaign may work in Hackett's favor. Among other things, Schmidt had to pay back $644 for a gift she took last fall from a lobbyist but failed to report as required by law. The lobbyist worked on behalf of the Chiron Corp., which was at the center of last winter's flu vaccine controversy. Schmidt enjoyed a free dinner and then a free Cincinnati Bengals game courtesy of the lobbyist, but claimed she didn't know the gift came from the lobbyist. Rather, she has said, she thought the tickets came from former Bengals quarterback "Boomer" Esiason.
Then there's the $10,000 that Schmidt's campaign accepted from one of Tom DeLay's political action committees. Hackett criticized Schmidt for taking DeLay's money. "Tom DeLay," says Hackett, "is the poster child for corruption in Washington." Braun dismisses Hackett's criticism as political opportunism and says, if the situation were reversed, Hackett would take $10,000 from the Democratic leadership.
Finally, a Cincinnati paper ran a report last week suggesting that Fritz Wenzel, Schmidt's media manager, was working for her campaign while simultaneously working as the top political reporter and columnist at the Blade, Toledo's news daily and a major Ohio paper. Wenzel's last day at the Blade was Friday, May 13. Two weeks before he left to become a political consultant, according to the report, Wenzel made scathing comments about Schmidt's Republican primary opponents on a personal blog he maintained. The blog entries have since been pulled off the Web, and reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Wenzel's company, Wenzel Strategies, was paid $30,000 on Monday, May 16, by the Schmidt campaign.
May 16 was also the day his last column ran in the Blade, but Wenzel made public his plans to start a consulting business weeks prior to that. Braun praises Wenzel's work and denies Wenzel was working for Schmidt inappropriately. Wenzel and Braun both claim Wenzel drummed up the work for Schmidt over the weekend after he left the Blade. "I had a busy weekend," Wenzel reportedly told the Cincinnati paper. Hackett doesn't buy this explanation. "It's more of the same," he says, lumping this alleged ethical lapse in with the others. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
It's unclear how damaging any of these ethical questions will be for Schmidt as the campaign hits its home stretch.
At present, both campaigns say they're going full bore. Braun feels Schmidt's chances are good, but confines himself to saying, "We're working hard." As for Hackett, he knows he's got an uphill challenge, but says he's ready. "There's nothing about this election that can faze me," he says. "After Iraq, everything seems like a walk in the park."
Gee, I guess that all military are not all kool aid drinking Republicans. Anyway, the Repubs are out in force denigrating his military service as not really involved in combat. Screw the Repulican polital operatives and Swift Boat Liars that talk a good game about supporting our troops and thanking them for their service but if they have a different political opinion, all that goes out the window and they smear their service. Remember the piece of crap republicans at their convention and their purple heart band aids? Go Paul Go!!
Wow, imagine that, a conservative democrat.
Note to democrats: you used to have a lot of them. You also used to be in power. (1+1=2)
He would not be called a conservative by the right wing noise machine (Rush, Fox, Hannity, Coulter)...... He is what I have thought of as a moderate or centrist. They have a liberal position on one issue (pro-choice) and a conservative position on another (pro-gun). That is where most of America is, they are not staunchly conservative or liberal, they are a mix of views.
Yet when such a candidate emerges, the right wing noise machine swings into action and "defines" the candidate for the electorate. The RWNM not only attacks Democrats of varying political stripes but also Republicans who don't toe their line of thinking (see Chafee, Snowe, Collins and the Ohio senator whose name I won't attempt to spell).
Well, have you paid attention to Schwartzenegger? He's a pretty liberal repub.
FYI, none of the media people you mentioned are party officials & don't tell me that there isn't a "left wing noise machine", either.
And if the democrats were smart, they would parade these moderates and imitate them. That way, the Republicans would be associated only with radicals on the right much like the democrats are now with radicals on the left.
I don't disagree with that.
To the RWNM, yes there is an element of left wing noise out there but it does not have the sort of coverage the right does. I think I have posted this before but I was in southeastern New Mexico recently and had about 10 minutes to spare before a sales call and I parked my car and left the radio on while I went over my notes. Rush was on so I hit scan to find another station and there were five different stations carrying Rush as that time.
No Air America or Stephanie Miller so it was time for a CD.
Nobody wants a Republican-lite, just ask John Kerry and if she runs in 08 - Hillary.
To win back the WH, Progressive Democrats must offer the people a choice from Republican mismanagement of the economy and the war on terror, and stick with their core liberal values at the same time, fund social security, make medicare solvent again, set reasonable education standards with local control, and get tough on the real war on terror.
Yeah I hear ya Dan. But a Dem should not be made a pariah if he/she supports a pro life position or is a defender of the second amendment. The Dems do need to emphasize their core economic values and live or die by them but regarding social issues, a little diversity doesn't hurt and there is room in the tent for more.
They aren't the core values of most voters.and stick with their core liberal values
I don't think that you could make a real compelling argument that the GOP embodies the core values of most voters, either. If you just look at the sheer popular vote in the last two elections, Gore won in 2000 and Bush in 2004. The major differences between those 2 campaigns (in my estimation) were the War on Terror (whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or both) and the inherent likeability/unlikeability of the candidates.
Gore's so-called liberal values didn't drive away voters -- had he gotten 538 more votes in Florida, he would have been President. So, it's not like Bush's values or those of his party drove that election. I'd argue that the real issue with Kerry wasn't his values, but his campaign strategy and his inability to own any issue. Kerry with a real message might have beaten Bush.
Pro-lifers have a hard time living under the Democratic tent because they are fanatical about one issue - the right to life. Pro-lifers support the nomination of John Roberts to SCOTUS by W, and in every instance where he had had a opportunity Roberts has voted against the rights of individuals, and for providing more governmental control over access to family planning and services. From national security, to the war on terror, to abortion rights - the Republican party has turned into the Federalist Party and consequently, the Progressives are shifting to the States-Rights Party.
The Progressives? You form a new party that you haven't told somebody about?
I love how the word "liberal" is now the kiss of death. No one wants to be identified with it; now you are telling me that liberal values didn't drive away voters? Democrats (not just Nbadan) won't even call themselves that.
Yes, many people respond to different issues, and no, not everyone in each party agrees on all of them. That has not changed since 1796-1800 and the formation of the two-party system.
Incidentally, I would have to think that states-rights and liberal values are more in contrast to one another than they are compatible.
This guy is the exception rather than the rule. That is the democrat's problem.
I would have to disagree, "liberal" is a dirty word to conservatives, but I haven't encountered any people outside of their circles who think that way. Most I talk to don't like political labels anyways and won't be identified as such, either party.I love how the word "liberal" is now the kiss of death. No one wants to be identified with it; now you are telling me that liberal values didn't drive away voters? Democrats (not just Nbadan) won't even call themselves that.
That depends on what issue you are discussing. There are a number of issues that the GOP shuns states rights to fight for. The GOP platforms on same-sex marriage and abortion are prime examples of that -- Republicans want no part of state regulation of marriage and abortion; they want the federal government to outlaw each. It's not as if either party is perfectly a states-rights party or perfectly a federalist party.
I'd agree, but I'd characterize it differently. I think there is some truth to the idea that each side has a noise machine of sorts. I do think that there are marked differences in the way those machines operate, though, and I think that leads to a perception that the right's machine is louder.
Frankly, the thing that struck me most about election 2004 was the fact that Republican noise-makers, be they hosts or guests, were all reading from the same playbook, all saying the same things, thus amplifying the points that were being made. Think about it: much of the "noise" from the right was dedicated to defining Kerry in a handful of ways, and cited the same examples again and again to make those insular points. It was a very effective strategy, because the righties who talked to the left -- the listening audience -- began to regurgitate the same ideas with the same evidence in fairly short order.
I thought one of the great undoings of the Kerry campaign was its inability to focus in on particular messages. That was true of the candidate, but I also thought it was true of those who spoke for the candidate. Part of the problem arose from having been put on the defensive about a number of issues. But part of the problem came from an inability to stay on point.
The difference, IMO, is gigantic. A crowd all yelling the same thing sounds resounding; each person in a crowd yelling something different just sounds like noise.
I think the 2004 election analysis was simpler than that - Kerry was just a stiff doofus. Oh, and his campaign was run like crap
Iraq was a challenge for Kerry that he was unable to overcome.
Having voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq he couldn't be the anti-war candidate that Dean was. By the summer of "04, it was not enough to say it was wrong to go to war in the first place. The troops were there already, the government had been overthrown and there was an active insurgency going on (as there is today).
Iraq was (is) one of the main things that voters are upset with Bush about. Kerry did not articulate a position that much different from Bush in the campaign. Neither guy could say they would put more (American) troops there because the military was close to their limit. Kerry advocated he could convince other countries to add troops but this claim was met with skepticism. Most people likely felt the Europeans would work better with Kerry but what were the odds of them actually putting forces on the ground in Iraq?
Finally, Kerry was too timid to call for a withdrawal of American troops for fear he would look soft. So on the Iraq issue, he was neutralized.
Kerry wanted to talk about jobs and healthcare but the issues at that time were Iraq and terrorism. Throw in a dash of the standard right wing God, guns and gays and it was enough to tip the balance to Bush.
That is all true, Ocotillo, but if Kerry was like Dean it would have been 88-12 for Bush. The democratic party (republican, too) needs to make a concerted effort to purge the radicals and get back towards the center. There can be such a thing as a conservative democrat. If the Democrats succede in doing this before the Repubs, they will regain power. But it can't be a facade, like Hillary suddenly moving to the center in the last few years. Old hardliners need to be pushed out <cough Ted Kennedy cough>.
Continuing to move to the left will turn the democratic party into the green or communist party. Continuting to move to the right will turn the republican party into some federalist party.
some of you act as if voters actually are actually presented with a meaningful choice in federal and state elections.
"Reporting for duty Sir" cheeeese not another one...
The antagonistic feline makes a very cogent point.
seriously. we have one side which is the party of big government, deficit spending and having the government all up in your business and then on the other side we have the democratic party. the political situation in this country is absurd. so much about politics today is image and nothing more. there are those for whom being a liberal fits their social profle and then there are those for whom being "conservative" fits theirs. it is worth noting that the political delinations in this country are based on social issues more than anything else. that's why rednecks making $20k a year are republicans and c-class executives with millions in stock options are democrats.
Seems like a pretty decent Democratic candidate instead of a ing whackjob....for a change. His service definitely gives him points in my book. And I don't really care if he was opposed to the Iraq war or not...I care about how he feels we should solve it.
If his solution is to cut and run he's a dumbass.
If his idea is to kiss the ubercorrupt asses in the UN and Europe he's also a dumbass.
The fact that he is a personal injury attorney is a huge negative me. Trust me on this people...attorney's usually are ing s ....especially the PI ones.
Still..because this guy did something that I totally admire I am going to withold judgment on him until I hear his approach to the Iraq situation.
One thing sets my alarms off though...if he was against the Iraq war in the first place, then why did he volunteer to go over there....that sounds exactly like something a lawyer would do for public image reasons, I wonder what he did when he was over there.
Still, he went...and that counts for a lot with me, it counts more than anything with me...as long as he doesn't try to sell out America ala John Kerry then I will consider him a promising democrat and a step in the right direction for that party.
Be sure that you paint with the broadest brush you possibly can there, whottt.
I'm just guessing, but I'd be willing to bet that the number of PI attorneys that you know is relatively small. While I'll certainly admit that there are a number of PI lawyers who have no real interest in justice for anyone, there are substantially more who honestly pursue efforts to remedy what are often tragic injuries to entirely innocent people -- injuries caused by negligence and faulty products. If that's a s my thing to do in our society, then there really is something wrong.
If you really want to discuss your broad-based view of attorneys, I'd be perfectly willing to meet your every argument. If you'd rather just throw bombs and not substantiate anything that you say, so be it. Being a member of the profession that you are so quick to castigate, I can readily assure you that most lawyers who I encounter in my day-to-day dealings are extremely concerned about doing the right things and protecting the rule of law. Speaking for those attorneys that I know and practice alongside, we are all very proud of what we do, even if some in society refuse to see the many benefits of our work.
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