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Paul Hackett (politician)

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File:PaulHackettinUniform.jpg
Paul Hackett in Iraq.

Paul Lewis Hackett III (born March 30, 1962) is a trial lawyer and veteran of the Iraq War who unsuccessfully sought election to the United States Congress from the Second District of Ohio (map) in the August 2, 2005, special election. Hackett, a Democrat, narrowly lost to Republican Jean Schmidt, a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives, providing the best showing in the usually solidly Republican district by any Democrat since the 1974 election. Hackett's campaign attracted national attention and substantial expenditures by both parties. It was viewed by some observers as the first round of the 2006 elections. In October 2005, Hackett said he would seek the Democratic nomination in 2006 to challenge incubment United States Senator Mike DeWine.

Background

File:PaulHackett and family.jpg
Paul Hackett, his wife, Suzanne, and their three children.

Hackett was born in Cleveland, Ohio, When Paul was an infant, his family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. Before Hackett started school, his family returned to Ohio when his father took a job in Evendale, a Cincinnati suburb.

He has a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a J.D. from Cleveland State University Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. Hackett also attended American University in Washington, DC, studying under the university's Washington Semester program in Journalism. Hackett was admitted to the Ohio bar on November 7, 1988 and practices law in downtown Cincinnati with the Hackett Law Office, which he opened in 1994.

Hackett is a Marine. He saw active duty in the Corps from 1989 to 1992, and then joined the Select Marine Corps Reserve. In 2004, he volunteered for active duty in the Iraq War, spending seven months as a civil affairs officer with the 4th Civil Affairs Group of the 1st Marine Division. He was assigned to Ramadi and supported the Fallujah campaign and reconstruction efforts there. On 12 October 2004, a convoy under his command was hit by two roadside bombs, but Hackett was uninjured. He returned to Ohio in early 2005.

On Milford council

Hackett was elected to the city council of Milford, Ohio in 1995. In the recall election on May 2, he defeated businessman Jacques E. Smith by a vote of 388 to 81. On the Milford council, he opposed efforts to rezone a parcel of land in order to retain the Milford post office within the city limits. He resigned from the council in September 1998 to devote more time to his family and his law practice.

Enters the race for Congress

More information on the election can be found at Ohio Second Congressional District Election, 2005.

The State of Ohio, showing the Second District.
Detailed Map of Ohio's Second Congressional District.

Hackett decided to run for Congress because "with all that this country has given me, I felt it wasn't right for me to be enjoying life in Indian Hill when Marines were fighting and dying in Iraq," he told The Cincinnati Post. In his bid for Congress, Hackett was endorsed by the county Democratic parties in four of the seven counties in the district. Party leaders chose to support him rather than Charles W. Sanders, the only black candidate in either primary and the Democratic nominee in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. Hackett was also endorsed by labor unions: the United Auto Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Greater Cincinnati Building and Construction Trades Council.

The Dayton Daily News, a Democratic paper, endorsed Hackett in the Democratic primary. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a paper with a Republican editorial position, also endorsed Hackett in the primary. Hackett won the Democratic nomination with over half the vote (56.9%) according to unofficial results.

Hackett faced Republican nominee Jean Schmidt in the August 2, 2005, special election. Schmidt, a former schoolteacher, had been a township trustee in northwestern Clermont County's populous Miami Township for eleven years before four years in the Ohio House of Representatives. Schmidt in 2004 had run for the Ohio Senate but lost the Republican primary by only twenty-two votes.

The district was a Republican one. In 2004, 64 percent of the vote in the presidential election went to George W. Bush. No Democrat had got more than 38 percent of the vote in the district since Thomas A. Luken's narrow loss to Willis D. Gradison in 1974, and no Democrat had won the Second district in a regular general election since John J. Gilligan in 1964.

During the campaign, Hackett hammered on Schmidt's ethics. When she denied she knew or ever met Thomas Noe, the coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal at the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation, Hackett produced minutes from a meeting of the Ohio Board of Regents that showed Schmidt had indeed met with Noe, once a member of the Board of Regents. Hackett was also highly critical of his opponent's record. He called attention to Schmidt and other members of the Ohio General Assembly having accepted dinners and Cincinnati Bengals tickets from a lobbyist for pharmaceutical company Chiron, Richard B. Colby, on October 24, 2004 and failing to report the gifts on their financial disclosure statements.

Hackett was a strong advocate for the Second Amendment, but nevertheless lost the endorsement of the National Rifle Association to Jean Schmidt. A spokesman for the NRA said the endorsement was based on Schmidt's voting record in the Ohio House and that Hackett, having only served on a city council, did not have the voting record Schmidt did. Schmidt also won the endorsements of the Fraternal Order of Police. Both candidates talked of the environment. Hackett paddled down the Ohio River to call attention to its condition. Schmidt called for reducing America's dependence on foreign oil by increasing use of ethanol and drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Hackett opposed drilling in ANWR.

The candidates participated in only two debates. The first was held on July 7 at Chatfield College, moderated by Jack Atherton of WXIX-TV, the Fox Network affiliate in Cincinnati. The second debate was held July 26 at the Ohio Valley Career and Technical School in West Union. The two also made joint appearances on WCET-TV's Forum on July 28 and WKRC-TV's Newsmakers on July 31.

National attention on the race

Hackett attracted national attention to what had always been considered a safe Republican district. The New York Times ran a front-page story on him and articles appeared in USA Today and The Washington Post. USA Today wrote "if Democrats could design a dream candidate to capitalize on national distress about the war in Iraq, he would look a lot like the tall, telegenic Marine Reserve major who finished a seven-month tour of Iraq in March."

Schmidt made the Iraq War an issue in the race. She declared on WCET-TV's Forum that "9/11 was a wakeup call. We lost our innocence" and praised the Bush foreign policy. "The foundation of democracy that has been planted in Afghanistan and Iraq", she said, has inspired reforms in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Schmidt always appeared in public with a button in her lapel containing a photograph of Matt Maupin, the only prisoner of war of the Iraq campaign. Hackett did not mince words about Iraq or President Bush. He told The New York Times Bush was "a chicken hawk" for pursuing the war after having avoided military service in the Vietnam War. The Times also quoted him as saying Bush was "the greatest threat to America." Hackett in the West Union debate contrasted what President Bush had said in the 2000 presidential debates to current events. "Guess what folks? We're nation-building!"

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean sent out an e-mail appeal for Hackett which, combined with work by bloggers, helped raise over $475,000 in online contributions for Hackett, making him the first Democratic nominee in the Second District in years who could afford television advertisements. Hackett's ad began with a clip of President George W. Bush speaking to troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 28, 2005, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces." Hackett's commercial then noted his service in the Marine Corps. The Washington Post noted the commercial "avoids any hint that the lawyer is a Democrat." Republicans were displeased. The Republican National Committee's lawyers wrote him saying the commercial deceived the public with "the false impression the President has endorsed your candidacy." Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, told The Cincinnati Post the commercials were "a blatant effort to dupe voters."

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the official Republican Party body that helps candidates for the United States House of Representatives, announced on July 28 it was spending $265,000 for television ads in the Cincinnati market, covering the western part of the district, and $250,000 for ads in the Huntington, West Virginia, market, covering the eastern half. The NRCC ran commercials noting Hackett had voted for tax increases while on the Milford council and quoting his statement on his website that he would be "happy" to pay higher taxes.

The NRCC was silent about Schmidt's own votes to raise taxes, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the NRCC's counterpart, was not. The DCCC responded with commercials noting that Schmidt had voted to raise the sales tax by 20 percent and the excise tax on gasoline by 30 percent when she was in the legislature. A mailing to voters by the DCCC reiterated these statements under the headline "Who Voted for the Taft Sales Tax Increase—the Largest in Ohio History?" and asked "can we trust Jean Schmidt to protect middle-class families in Washington?"

General Election Results

Hackett ultimately lost by a narrow margin, only 3.5 percent, the best showing of any Democrat in the district since 1974. Hackett won in the eastern, rural counties of Pike, Scioto, Brown, and Adams, while Schmidt won in the populous western counties of Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren.

Both parties claim victory

Following the election, many Democrats hailed the election as showing the weakness of Ohio's Republican party, which has been in control of Ohio state government for a decade, and public unhappiness with President Bush's policies.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee claimed in a press release Hackett's strong showing meant trouble for Senator DeWine's re-election campaign in 2006. The Columbus Dispatch referred to "the trauma of barely winning a Congressional district long dominated by Republicans" and quoted an anonymous source in the Republican party claiming "there is not a tougher environment in the country than Ohio right now. There is kind of a meltdown happening."

Mark Steyn, a conservative British columnist who writes for National Review magazine, wrote in the Irish Times "Paul Hackett was like a fast-forward version of the John Kerry campaign" who "artfully neglected to mention the candidate was a Democrat." Steyn claimed any Democrat efforts to present Hackett's run as a success for the party were absurd.

2006 U.S. Senate race

Hackett has indicated he plans to seek the 2006 Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio. Democrats believe that the Republican incumbent, Mike DeWine, is vulnerable due to falling approval ratings. [1] Hackett officially announced his candidacy on October 24 from the living room of his Indian Hill home. While considering a Senate run, he made at least one trip to Washington, D.C. to gauge his level of support and gave many radio interviews and appeared on a variety of cable TV shows. Support from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid persuaded Hackett to enter the race. [2] The following week, Reid encouraged Congressman Sherrod Brown to enter the race. When Brown entered the race, Hackett told The Plain Dealer he was disappointed and claimed Brown had assured him he would run for re-election to the U.S. House. No outside source can verify this claim, and Brown and his staff have denied it repeatedly. "What have you been doing in the past twelve years that you'll do differently as a senator?" Hackett said he would ask Brown in the primary campaign.

One issue that Hackett must consider is the status of his Marine Corps Reserve unit -- it may deploy back to Iraq during the campaign. [3] Hackett stated in August of 2005 that he would return to Iraq in 2006.

See also

References

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