Dems Come Up Short in Ohio
Hackett (the Democratic candidate) lost in Ohio’s special runoff race for the House seat that was recently vacated. It was a traditional Republican district where Bush carried 64% in ‘04. Hackett was 48%. You can read the DNC’s take here about how this “bellwether” is predicting a Democrat insurgence in the ‘06 and ‘08 elections. I think it’s important to take a look at how Hackett ran his campaign first. You can see Hackett’s TV ad here.
Note that he doesn’t identify his party, he doesn’t identify issues, and he uses President Bush in his ad. The wonks pointed out a lot of the garbage his said in public and where he stands on the issues but most voters are not wonks. They make up their decision, in part, on ads and in Hackett’s ad; he relied on cheap tricks to try to mislead voters. He may support gun rights, but it takes more than one issue to make a conservative or a liberal. Remember, there are pro-choice conservatives and pro-life liberals.
This “bellwether” race has shown one way the Democrats can win or get close in races. They have to pretend to be Republicans and conservatives. When they run on their own platforms, they will lose.
Crossposted at BNN
Good catch! Rush spent a considerable amount of air time on this today, complete with Pelosi “We won even though we lost” quotes and a lot of on-air belly laughs.
Comment by The MaryHunter | August 3, 2005
Great post. It shows how America is wising up and accepting the conservatives over the wacko liberals.
Comment by Malebranche | August 3, 2005
What’s it take to win an election? Be a Republican. It seems to work pretty good. If the Democrats wanted to get elected, then they could run as Republicans, but only if they actually are Republicans. Hmm… I guess they still don’t win either way.
Comment by Fitch | August 3, 2005
A 2% bump over what their party got in that district in the last presidential election? And it’s in a run-off election that the vast majority of likely ‘06 and ‘08 voters probably stayed home for? And even with that 2% bump, they still LOST?
And the DNC is calling it news?
Gee, they really _are_ desperate.
Comment by Matt | August 4, 2005