Firing Back
News: Iraq vet Paul Hackett says he’ll stay in the Ohio Senate race, challenging the Democratic establishment.
October 19, 2005
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Paul Hackett, the Iraq War veteran who narrowly lost a Congressional bid as a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican district in southern Ohio this summer, is staying in the race for U.S. Senate in Ohio in 2006. “I'm in this,” Hackett says. “The water's good. Come on in, Sherrod. It's going to be fun.”
The race in this battleground state is already the focus of national attention. “Many see the governor and Senate race in 06 in Ohio as a bellwether of what is to come in 2008,” says Jason Mauk, political director of the Ohio Republican Party. “As do we.” Hackett initially announced his intention to run against two-term incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) on Oct. 3. But Hackett was forced to reconsider his plans when, three days later, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also jumped into the Senate race. Brown had earlier insisted that he would not run for Senate; Hackett and Brown will now face off in a primary on May 2, 2006.
Brown is a seven-term congressman from the district that includes Akron. He has been a champion of progressive causes, most recently having led opposition to the Central America Free Trade Agreement. Hackett is a personal injury attorney in Cincinnati and a major in the Marine Corps Reserve who returned earlier this year from a seven-month combat tour in Iraq. Hackett’s liberal positions and antiwar stance, coupled with his straight-shooting style and occasional swipes at his own party, won over voters from both parties in his race in southern Ohio.
Democratic Party leaders, who recently hailed Hackett as one of their brightest new stars and wooed him into running for Senate, are now lining up behind their party’s insider. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has already endorsed Brown for Senate, and the rest of Ohio’s six-member Democratic congressional delegation are expected to follow suit, according to The Hill, the Washington, D.C. weekly.
Hackett campaign manager David Woodruff says that Hackett decided to stay in the race after attending a meeting last week in Portsmouth, Ohio. “We expected 20 people there, and we planned to spend an hour,” he recounted. Instead, “200 people showed up, and talked to Paul for three hours. We realized there are people like that all across the state looking for someone to support. Paul Hackett inspires people.”
Brown and Hackett are improbable adversaries. Brown helped Hackett in his Congressional run this summer by loaning him staff and contributing money. Had Brown not initially bowed out of the Senate race this summer, Hackett almost certainly would not have run for the seat.
Brown enters the primary battle with a $2 million war chest, and his campaign ads are already ubiquitous on liberal blogs such as DailyKos and MyDD (whose founder, Jerome Armstrong, is a paid consultant to the Brown campaign). Hackett, by contrast, starts his quixotic quest with $19,000 in the bank. The liberal blogosphere, which generated more than $500,000 for Hackett in his Congressional race, will be sharply divided between the two candidates. Hackett hopes to match Brown’s funding advantage by waging a grassroots campaign, barnstorming the state with his wife and three children in an RV that he just bought. He argues that being an outsider may actually be an asset. “I suspect that ‘06 is year of ‘throw the bums out,’” he told me. “It’s not gonna be musical chairs for professional politicians.” Brown counters, “I’m not giving up a safe congressional seat that I would be able to hold for at least a decade planning to lose. I want to see a change in the direction of this country and I think I can win this [primary] race and beat Mike DeWine.”
Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg insists that primaries can energize the candidates. A primary “forces candidates to work the state. It builds energy and excitement among candidates.” He disputes the contention that an expensive primary fight may draw away resources from other statewide races, noting that two Democrats are presently vying for the nomination in Ohio’s gubernatorial race, and both men have already raised over $1 million.
The ultimate target for both Hackett and Brown, of course, is Sen. Mike DeWine, who is considered one of the GOP’s most vulnerable senators. In a Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll conducted in September, before Brown entered the race, Hackett was shown beating DeWine 44 to 36 percent. DeWine is also likely to face a primary challenge from conservative former congressman Bob McEwan. DeWine heads into his re-election campaign with $3 million to spend, a war chest fattened by contributions from Halliburton, the pharmaceutical industry, and most of the major oil companies.
