The Democratic leadership has decided that Paul Hackett, Democratic candidate for the Ohio senate seat now held by Republican Mike DeWine should step aside in favor of their handpicked candidate, Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown. There are Democrats who agree that Congressman Brown is a better candidate than Iraq veteran Paul Hackett because Brown has the experience, has better financing, the full support of party leadership (he's an insider) and has a better shot at winning.
David Sirota, a noted Democratic political consultant, has been championing Brown for some time and also thinks Hackett should step aside. Although I like Sirota a lot - I disagree with him. The Democratic leadership thinks Hackett should be a good boy and do as they say. If he doesn't he will be crushed like they crushed Dean. In effect, they would gang up on him and run against him rather than run against the Republican opponent - and that would be distracting, damaging to Brown and cost campaign dollars that could be more effectively spent fighting DeWine. So, in the interest of party unity they would like Hackett to bow out.
I question their wisdom and their tactics. Who are they to say what choice the voters are given? The idea that we let those in office, or those in power in the Democratic party pick our candidates is antithetical to the democratic process.
Consider what they did to Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004. They ganged up on him because he was an outsider, an upstart governor who was not a dues paying member of the club, he was a Washington outsider, and he was also someone who had spoken out against the Democratic leadership's poor performance, their caving to Republicans, their weak opposition to a premptive, unjustified war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and on and on. How dare he critcize us? We'll show him who's in charge. So they organized a huge anti-Dean campaign, locked arms and torpedoed him in favor of their fair-haired puppet-boy, John Kerry. And we know what a wonderful decision that was.
The Democratic leadership has consistently failed us by kow-towing to the right wing Republicans and to special interests including their own. They have consistently made poor decisions, like running Kerry (a huge embarrassment), waffling on the issues, kissing corporate ass for campaign contributions, embarrassing our party over and over while allowing themselves to be bullied by the Republicans. No balls!
It's not that I think Brown isn't a good choice for this nomination, he probably would have won the nomination even had Hackett stayed in the race, but I don't think Reid, Schumer or anyone else in the party has the right to decide for the voters who the candidates should be. The leadership has consistently attempted "clearing the field" in the past and it didn't work. If you recall Democratic leadership didn't want Bill Clinton either.They said he couldn't win. It's true, the party leadership was against Clinton in 1992. But even so, he won and served two terms. Now in their infinite wisdom instead of staying neutral they are championing Hillary Clinton. As Bill Maher said last night, if the Democrats nominate Hillary they will walk right off a cliff with her.
Yesterday Daily KOS posted this regarding the leadership's intrusion into the Ohio Senate race: "This obsession with clearing fields really is counterproductive, generating a great deal of hostility and ill-will. And really, what better place to work on message and build the campaign machinery than in a primary? The primary election, at worse, becomes a test run to make sure the machine is firing on all cylinders. And the money used on media and whatnot during a primary is not wasted money -- it's a way to build up early name recognition to the electorate. It worked wonders for Republicans in 2004."
Paul Hackett has said things progressives have been dying to hear. He used off-color words to describe Bush. He is a big critic of Bush' and this administration's imperialistic political war-for-profit in Iraq. I have read Hackett interviews and agree with nearly everything he has said. And he's a veteran of the Iraq war - not just a critic who has never even served in the military.
So the Democratic Party leadership is saying Paul Hackett can't win. Why?
They say he hasn't the power to attract "big" (read "corporate") contributors to his campaign like Brown who has already raised $2.7 MM against Hackett's paltry $25,000. Campaign financing by corporate interests is part of the problem. Have they forgotten their promise to reform campaign finance laws?
They say he's too much a novice and is too outspoken. I like that! We need more fresh thinking, straight talking candidates speaking truth to lies, saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
And Hackett frightened them when he said the Republican party had been hijacked by religious extremists who "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden." Ooooooo! We don't want to make the religious right-wing or the Republicans who pander to them mad at us do we? Our fantasizing Democratic leadership still thinks they can get some of these extremists to change their minds and vote for a Democrat.
Instead of strong-arming Hackett to leave the race they should allow democracy to function as it was intended. Let the voters decide.
Party leaders charged Paul Hackett with bad taste for using indecent language to describe George W Bush (Who among us doesn't?) . Using this and the above criteria to judge a candidate's worth or qualification for office I guess they would never have given a chance to the guy who declared the following:
" Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in." ~ Harry S. Truman
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