A Different Kind of Democrat

A lot has been said about the Democrats inability to win. Some however see the Republican Party as self-destructing and so they are not worried. Given the Dems track record, including the 2000 and perhaps the 2004 Presidential race, they can't win even if they win! Clearly, the Dems have lost one of their base constituences, the big labor rank and file.
Paul Hackett has tapped that group and a few others, in a big way in Ohio. He nearly beat a solid Republican candidate in the Red State's core congressional district a month ago.
Basie!

Even with well-funded Congressman Sherrod Brown already in the race, Iraq Veteran/former Congressional candidate Paul Hackett has decided to jump in the race for the Ohio's Democratic Senate nomination.

Who is this upstart, and why has he been so effective in Ohio? (Thanks to MyDD for this link.)
The Ohio Insurgency

From the beginning of his quixotic campaign in a special election for U.S. Congress this summer, Paul Hackett relished taking swings. His rhetoric was scorched-earth: “I don’t like the sonofabitch that lives in the White House,” he told USA Today, “but I’d put my life on the line for him.” He declared in a debate that the biggest threat to America is “the man living in the White House,” and he slammed President Bush and Vice President Cheney as “chicken hawks.” He described Bush’s infamous taunt to Iraqi resistance fighters—“Bring ’em on”—as “the most incredibly stupid comment I’ve ever heard a president of the United States make. He cheered on the enemy.” The flame-throwing rhetoric belies an analytical attorney with an (often) understated persona; apologetic, however, Hackett is not.


“I said it, I meant it, I stand by it,” he said when I asked if he regretted any of his comments. “Bush is a chicken hawk, okay? Tough shit.” As for the SOB barb, Bush “talks the tough talk. He should appreciate that.”


A major in the Marine Corps Reserve fresh from a tour in Iraq, Hackett proved to be that rarest of modern political animals, a fighting Democrat. Storming through a deep-red district with freshly minted veterans from his Marine unit, smacking down the religious right, ripping into President Bush, he transformed what was supposed to be a sleepy exercise to fill a safe GOP seat into a rowdy brawl that blindsided the national Republican and Democratic establishments. While he lost the election in a 52-to-48 percent squeaker, he scored decisive wins in the white, lower-income, high-unemployment rural areas that Democrats long ago abandoned—and took one-third more votes in the district than John Kerry had pulled in just eight months earlier. His near upset would turn the state that handed George W. Bush his 2004 victory into a much-discussed bellwether for 2006 and 2008. Could Ohio be signaling a shift in the political winds, at last? MORE

Atrios wants to see a a healthy debate as long as they don't nuke each other good for the Democratic Party. Perhaps so, but I think Brown and the Ohio Democratic Party is in for an ass-kickin' surprise.