Jean Schmidt was very unattractive candidate and there were a lot of Republicans who simply stayed home rather than vote for her. Plus the Ohio coin scandal is what made this "perfect political storm" possible.

That's why there shouldn't be too much read into the results here. While this may be a crystal ball into the future in Ohio, it may not translate nationally.

I don't know. I think that 2006 looks to be a HUGE election year with the Democrats sitting in great shape. With that being said, Dem candidates can not sit back. They have to fight and run like mad.

Hey guys, I don't want to rain on your parade, poeple worked hard for hackett.

But he got 39,000 less votes than the previous democrat who ran for the district, and the gop had 250,000 more voters to bring to the polls in the district.

The real message here: despite all the hype, Hackett's positions did not resonate at all with the voters at large, and thus nearly 290,000 stayed home, 39,000 from his own party.

The dems need a major overhaul of their party leadership, philosophy and strategy, everything to them these days seems to boil down to a re-run of the 2004 race, and it seems everybody but the dems saw how that worked last November and got the message.

The democrats are increasingly isolated by their hate-mongering leftwing, but the anti-war/anti-Bush stuff just don't play in most of America and with most Americans.

But he got 39,000 less votes than the previous democrat who ran for the district, and the gop had 250,000 more voters to bring to the polls in the district.

The real message here: despite all the hype, Hackett's positions did not resonate at all with the voters at large, and thus nearly 290,000 stayed home, 39,000 from his own party.

This logic makes no sense. For one thing, we're talking a special election, in which 110,000 people turned out instead of nearly 330,000. And by the same token, about 170,000 Republicans didn't vote. Far more of them sat it out. Whose message didn't resonate with whom?

I really hope the energy he created will carry to other states, like, say, this one.

On a side note, it will be very interesting to see how other Democratic candidates who are also Iraq war veterans will fare next year. I'll be curious to see how many more will jump into races as well, and if they are on the receiving end of the same kind of sliming that was aimed at Hackett.

There's a rumor that an Iraq veteran is considering jumping in a Texas Congressional race.

( Note: The above was meant as an objective observation, this is all about campaign strategy, not our politics. :^D )

What I am observing is that Hackett's play for a democrat/dissatisfied swing vote coalition failed. Hackett's pros on the ground know this, but the grassroots who worked hard on this don't, and I don't want to undervalue the hard work and heart they put into it.

This was not a squeaker --- the gop simply escalated to the level it needed to reach in order to win. There was never any effort on their part to maximize districtwide gop voter turnout. They were focused on generating enough turnout in dependable strongholds to overcome Hackett's poll numbers and turnout projections.

But Hackett had no choice, he had to go for: maximized dem turnout + substantial enough dissatisfied swing vote = majority. It didn't happen, he fell short on the dem turnout and the swing vote he was looking for never materialized. (In fact, it looks like what he did was get the hardcore dems and not much else.)

And, given his campaign's failure to create a significant swing factor, if he had climbed higher in the polls by motivating less committed or distracted dems, the gop simply would have turned up its effort in other areas of the district and motivated more gop base voters to the polls. They sure as heck had plenty in reserves. ( This is why many pros reject a run everywhere strategy, the "don't stir 'em up" thing can be a problem if you start doing **too well** in a losing race and cause your opponents to escalate for higher and higher turnout in their heavy advantage districts. Be careful with that one, Charles, you gotta go for effective margins in a run everywhere strategy, and sometimes that does NOT mean maximizing your guy's turnout!!)

Incumbents in heavy advantage districts are always in a position to economize on voter turnout. For example, in the OH2 race the targeted gop voters turned out. They weren't going after the rest of the gop voters unless necessary, and then only in chunks large enough to overcome any build-up by Hackett, as greater effort of course adds very significantly to the cost of the campaign. They knew where to generate the turnout necessary to overcome Hackett's poll numbers and turnout projections. They knew when and where to escalate the campaign. They economized. And they won. And they knew they were winning because the dissatisfied swing vote never showed up as even a blip on the radar. Hackett may have motivated his troops with the idea, but he never had the gop worried about a voter swing in the district.

Main point: the anti-war anti-bush campaign strategy is, once again, proved a loser. It won't generate the swing to the dems they are looking for, it doesn't even appear to motivate enough of the dem base, and I don't understand why they keep trying to use it. The dems need a new deal :^D