OH-02: Dear Paul Hackett, we've moved on...

Nothing has excited the Ohio Democratic blogsphere like the unconventional campaign of Paul Hacket's special election campaign to replace Rob Portman (R).  This site (well, actually this site's predecessor) was actually born out the excitement of Hackett's Senate candidacy in 2006 and heavily backed him and strongly criticized the party for pushing him out in favor of Sherrod Brown.

But the Second District moved on, and nominated Dr. Victoria Wulsin in 2006 because you decided not to run.  She actually did better than Hackett, loss by only 1% of the vote, and carried four out of the seven counties in the district, including Hamilton County.

Jean Schmidt's campaign earlier this week was crowing over the fact that the DCCC didn't list the Wulsin-Schmidt rematch in it's second tier of races.  Here's what the Schmidt campaign said in the press release (HT: Weapons of Mass Discussion):

Congresswoman Jean Schmidt’s campaign today said that the decision to remove the Second Congressional District from the Democrat target list and abandon Victoria Wulsin’s campaign is proof that she is out of touch with the district. The target, or “red to blue” list, released by the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) yesterday, did not list Schmidt as a target.

“This is a stunning change of course for the DCCC, and shows that they have lost faith in Dr. Wulsin’s ability to win in the Second Congressional District,” said Bruce Pfaff, Schmidt for Congress spokesman.

Schmidt is running for the third time and a second full term in congress. In last week’s Primary election, Schmidt won by a wide margin in all seven counties of the Second Congressional District.

Pfaff pointed out that the DCCC did include three other Ohio challengers on its list of targets, which makes the decision to abandon Wulsin’s campaign even more significant.

“Congresswoman Schmidt has proven to her constituents that she represents their issues, and the decision by the DCCC to remove the Second Congressional District from its targeted race list is a strong testament to that fact,” Pfaff added.

“Even Congresswoman Schmidt’s first Democrat opponent, Paul Hackett, who was quoted in an article about the DCCC decision, acknowledges she will be difficult to beat,” said Pfaff. “Congresswoman Schmidt will work hard to deliver her message to every corner and community in the district and expects to bring home a big victory in November for Republicans,” Pfaff concluded.

Now, first off, Schmidt's campaign is bragging about being "taken off" a list it was never on.  Yes, the Wulsin-Schmidt race was on the DCCC's "Red to Blue" Program in 2006, but it didn't make it until the final fourth tier a month before the election.  The recent DCCC announcement were the races that made this cycle's second tier.  Had the Wulsin-Schmidt race be on that, or the third tier, then that means the DCCC has actually stepped up its expectation of that race.  They're congratulations themselves for being taken off a list Schmidt wasn't on!

And then we get to Paul Hackett's comments to Roll Call on the race:

Hackett said the consensus after last cycle — when Democrats won huge across the Buckeye State — was that if Wulsin “wasn’t able to do it in 2006, she can’t win it.”

Wulsin “has her own set of issues and problems and challenges just simply as a candidate,” he said. “In my humble opinion, she has not made the improvements that someone typically would have made if they are running their third campaign.”

Hackett defeated Wulsin in a July 2005 special election primary only to narrowly lose to Schmidt in the general election. Hackett’s near-miss in a previously reliable Republican district in the Cincinnati suburbs, coupled with Schmidt’s shaky start in Congress, convinced national Democrats that they could run competitively there.

“My concerns, on the one hand, is that Jean Schmidt has gotten much better,” Hackett said. “She’s not a dumb person. She’s a very hard-working person ... She’ll work anybody into the ground. She’s gotten, by my own personal observation, much better at the public aspects, if you will, of running for office.”

Hackett said current Members of Congress, whom he declined to name, asked him to consider running for the seat again in December 2006 after Wulsin lost to Schmidt by 1 point. Nonetheless, he sees the district as winnable for Wulsin, especially with a X factor like the presidential contest in 2008.

Now, Paul, I have to read four paragraphs of Wulsin bashing before you finally "concede" that the race is "winnable" for Wulsin.  Not a good Democratic thing to do.

Has Jean Schimdt learned her lesson after the Murtha fiasco?  You bet.  But she's hardly out of the woods here, Paul.  Let's not forget that Wulsin crushed Schmidt in fundraising last year.  She just won a tough and rather personally nasty primary battle that she handled deftly, and she showed a much smarter campaign in doing so than she ran in 2006.

Let's not forget that Wulsin did better than you Paul, and actually won a majority of the counties in the district.

Let's also not forget that you said that Sherrod Brown was too liberal to defeat Mike DeWine.  Let's also not forget that instead of trying to get everyone to unite behind a single primary candidate to take on Dennis Kucinich, you backed Rosemary Palmer-- who had the worst performance of any of the candidates.

So, Paul, I think it's time that we admit it-- we've grown apart, and it's time to acknowledge that we're moving on.