Moral Victory or Another Lost Opportunity?
Perhaps you heard that yesterday, there was a special election in Ohio’s 2nd district to fill the seat of Rob Portman, who was named as US Trade Representative earlier this year. Ohio-2 is a solid Republican district including, I understand, the suburbs and rural counties around Cincinnati. Portman won by 40 points over his Democratic challenger in 2004, both Kerry and Gore lost the district by wide margins, and no Democrat has held the seat since the 1960s.
This year, to everyone’s surprise, the Democratic primary produced a spirited challenger: local lawyer and former city council member Paul Hackett. Hackett’s distinguishing feature, however, was his recent service in the US Marines in Iraq – an assignment for which he volunteered despite having a family and flourishing business at home. His Marine unit was, I believe, the same one that just sustained 14 casualties in a roadside bomb attack this morning. Though he was a staff officer, he served in a combat zone and daily faced the risks of every American serviceman.
Unsurprisingly given his experience, he was not terribly optimistic about the war and was an outspoken opponent of the Administration’s strategy in Iraq. He was also unapologetic in his libertarian views on social issues, in contrast to the theocratic bent of his opponent, Jean Schmidt. By all accounts, he was straightforward, plain-spoken and feisty – the kind of candidate Democrats say they want.
As Hackett systematically closed the gap on what was supposed to be one of the safest Republican seats in the country, the Republicans went into attack mode, dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race and unleashing some truly vile, unfounded attacks on Hackett’s service record. Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh, who famously never served in the military, referred to Hackett on air as a “staff puke,” and belittled his combat service. Patriotic Republicans, of course, know to look the other way when one of their own hurls vile garbage at American Marines. After all, only conservatives get to define patriotism. The idea of a serving member of the military most likely on his way back to Iraq fairly soon daring to dissent from the party line of the Great Leader clearly makes their heads explode (“Soldiers are patriots – patriots are conservative – but this soldier isn’t conservative… so, um, he can’t really be soldier! He must actually hate America, even as he risks his life in a US uniform. Yeah, that’s it!”).
Anyway, Hackett raised a lot of hopes. It helped a lot that his opponent was a hatchet-faced party hack with ties to the deeply-corrupt Ohio state Republican machine. I ended up sending a few bucks for his get-out-the-vote efforts, just because I like to encourage someone who actually says what they mean.
Last night, I watched over the Internet as the returns came in. For a while, Hackett clung to a 2-3% lead thanks to a frankly astonishing showing in the rural precincts. With 630 of 753 precincts in, he was trailing by less than 1000. Unfortunately, the remaining precincts were from Schmidt’s home county, and after a “slight irregularity” with the voting machines was resolved, Schmidt piled up a 3000 vote cushion and ended up declared the victor with 52% to Hackett’s 48%. Turnout was about twice what was expected, and several ballot measures and levies managed to score unlikely victories.
Hackett gave a spirited concession speech that many believe is the prelude to another political campaign, assuming he comes back from Iraq alive and in time to run for something in 2006. His strong performance in a district where demographics seem insurmountably hostile to a Democratic message has given many people hope for better results in more moderate areas with this kind of candidate. And Schmidt’s narrow victory, compromised by vicious slanders of Hackett’s service and the inadequately-explained gap in the counting of votes in what proved to be by far her strongest precincts, must alarm the Republican establishment in Ohio, who have to defend both a Senate seat (Mike DeWine) and the soon-to-be-vacated Governor’s mansion next year.
But at the same time, Hackett didn’t win. Like Gore, like Kerry, like a few of the Senate and House hopefuls in 2000, 2002, and 2004, he ran a decent, spirited, well-funded campaign and turned out the vote, but couldn’t quite close the deal. As our friends at RedState.org are good enough to remind us, this is now 0-14 for feisty candidates in swing districts supported by the liberal blogs.
Here’s the thing. Putting a scare into right-wing Republicans doesn’t work. They are not scared unless they are beaten. If they win by one vote, that’s enough to govern as though God had put them into office personally. Moreover, they see victory by any means as vindication of the rightness of their most extreme positions, and they view their opponents, no matter how many of them turn up at the polls, as fundamentally more dangerous to (their vision of) America than terrorists. If that sounds extreme, listen to their radio shows. Read their books. There is no such thing as a moral victory against people who are so certain in the infallibility of their ideology and their leadership that the entire purpose of their “governance” is simply to reward their friends and punish their enemies.
I applaud Hackett for standing up to these people in one of their true strongholds. I suppose it’s encouraging that he was able to change enough minds to even make it close (and, significantly, change most of those minds in really far-flung rural counties). But in the end, some 3000+ more voters looked at both of these candidates and preferred the shrill, brainless and corrupt party hack to a person who, whatever you think of his politics, had undeniable courage and willingness to sacrifice for this country. You couldn’t really ask for a clearer contrast of character, of views, of values. At the very least, there seems ample reason to turn every sitting Republican officeholder in Ohio out into the street at the first opportunity simply on principles of good government. But that would mean going against the Tribe. It would mean supporting The Other Side, those no-good, America-hating, double-talking, high-taxing, draft-dodging, gay-marrying secular elites. And rest assured, no matter what they do, no matter what they say, those folks ain’t like us.
Yeah, Hackett lost because there were too many Republicans. But I guess what troubles me here is that if Hackett was good enough to get 48% in a 70% Republican district, then he was good enough to win. He changed every mind it was possible to change. But he ran up against the rock solid wall of blind partisan loyalty: the denial of basic human understanding and experience that our divided nation demands, particularly from its self-styled “conservatives.” And there were (apparently) enough of these people unwilling to look beyond party labels to the quality and character of the candidate to ensure the predicted outcome. That’s no longer unexpected. But it’s still kinda sad.
11:14:59 AM 
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