Ohio Congressional Election Promising

Even though Democrat Paul Hackett lost to Republican Jean Schmidt in the Ohio Congressional election yesterday, it was still very promising. Hackett is an Iraq War veteran and was very critical of Bush. He used very harsh attacks such as calling him a "chickenhawk" and saying that Bush's famous Bring It On speech made him "a cheerleader for the enemy."

Hackett seems to have lost 52-48. This in a district where Bush won 64% of the vote in 2004 and that was considered a safe enough Republican district to have Bush choose its former representative, Rob Portman, to be the US Trade Representative. The NY Times article is written in the tone of another defeat for the Democrats but I think that the Hackett campaign is a good sign. While it's clear from Schmidt's campaign that a slight majority of voters in the district prefer the fantasy war that the Republicans are presenting to the real war that people like Hackett are fighting, it is a sign that many people are open to listening to critics of the war, so long as they are veterans. In addition, it's a sign of the weakening Ohio Republican party, which has recently been rocked by a scandal over the state's workers comp fund.

So I think we have 2 good signs here--1) that Democrats may have a winning strategy by running people extremely critical of the Bush administration so long as they have the credentials to do so and 2) that the Ohio Republicans are in trouble, something we can only hope lasts until 2008.