That Time In 2005 Paul Hackett Got Sherrod Brown To Let His Mask Slip-- Here We Go Again

-by Tim Russo

Word on the street here in Ohio is that Sherrod Brown has reverted to factory settings as he prepares to run for president in 2020. What are Sherrod Brown’s factory settings? Sherrod don’t like primaries, that’s what.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The last (and first) time Sherrod Brown ever faced a serious primary challenge (albeit briefly) was in fall, 2005, as Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett tapped the fervent anti-Bush sentiment across the Democratic Party to launch a campaign for the open US Senate seat up in 2006. Remember him? Hackett was the first manifestation of early 21st century online Democratic activism in Ohio. Hackett's online mojo blew him up out of nowhere to challenge and nearly defeat Jean Schmidt in the deep red OH-02 special election in August, 2005. Riding that wave, Hackett’s grassroots support for US Senate in 2006 mobilized as Hackett entered an at the time empty primary which, sadly, Sherrod Brown was planning to rig for himself.

It all came to a head at the December 19, 2005, Ohio Democratic Party Christmas Party, scheduled to occur immediately after ODP “voted” on its new chairman, Chris Redfern. After the comically rigged “election” for chair, attendees shuffled to the adjoining room for holiday "cheer". There, Sherrod Brown and wife Connie Schultz went on an extended person to person tirade, targeting anyone they believed supported Hackett.

It was ugly. Reaction in the room varied from shock to resigned acceptance that it was primary season. It all would have been forgotten until Sherrod & Connie descended their rage upon an 84-year-old WWII veteran of the Women's Army Corps, who then blogged an account of the incident which survives to this day.

At the Christmas Party, when I found Sherrod Brown giving a friend of mine a heated lecture on why he should not support Paul Hackett, I naturally joined the conversation. But, in no way did I attack, assault, or even touch the Congressman, as was erroneously reported on the blogs. And, I definitely did not have any picture taken with him.

The only thing I did was remind him of the warning “to not split the party,” which he had received at the Upper Arlington Progressive Action fall meeting, and now it had happened. Over and over, he angrily declared that he did not split the party, and I replied “Yes, you did because Hackett was in first!” Needless to say, our encounter was very brief.

As already stated, Brown had numerous chances to run for DeWine’s senate seat before Paul Hackett was recruited, and turned them all down until Hackett said he would run. Then Brown suddenly jumped in. Now we are faced with an unnecessary, costly, and damaging primary.

The above linked account of the incident quotes Russell Hughlock, at the time a Hackett supporter blogging as “Pounder” at Buckeye Senate Blog (now long gone), who described the Sherrod & Connie Rage Routine thus, “I’ve never seen a candidate lose it like this in a public setting, let alone a Christmas Party.” All the while, Hackett was in the same room,

"While Brown was berating people, just across the room, Paul Hackett was constantly surrounded by admiring fans wanting to shake his hand, and described in Buckeye Politics, as being “something of a rock star.”

Stupid me, I made an attempt to calm things down, by going over to say hello to Sherrod, who immediately mistook me for Hackett supporter Hughlock. "HEY CONNIE HERE'S THAT POUNDER GUY!" Sherrod dragged Connie over who launched into the same unhinged attack she'd just unloaded on an 84-year-old woman. Multiple blogs (most of which are now gone, including mine at the time, BuckeyePolitics.net) reported on Sherrod & Connie's behavior.

Guess what happened next?

The Brown campaign immediately launched a two month online scorched earth war against Hackett supporters, combined with a primary rig job against Hackett within the ODP. It all ended with Hackett's withdrawal from the primary he was actually first to enter, and carnage across the Ohio blogosphere, featuring the now all too familiar troll attacks which would one day evolve like protozoan ooze into today's David Brock Peter Daou million dollar online destruction ops. Before we were all smeared as Bernie Bros in 2016, we were all smeared as Hackett Bros in 2005.

Brown Now Raging Across Ohio for 2020

Since Brown benefitted from his bad behavior in 2005-2006, instead of facing a cost, he is repeating it. I can report that today, Sherrod is not content with rigging the Ohio Democratic Party; Brown is now actually attempting to rig processes outside the Democratic Party, in progressive groups naturally leaning toward Bernie Sanders in 2020. Brown is reaching into the internal decision making of every Ohio progressive group he can, to stunt and halt any organizing for anyone who isn't Sherrod Brown. Brown's 2019 efforts seem based entirely on geography-- that everyone in Ohio simply must support fellow Buckeye Sherrod. In short, it's Paul Hackett all over again.

Thus, it is highly likely that every establishment Democrat 2020 prospect is repeating this same approach with their own geographic base. Perhaps not with the same...er...fervor that Sherrod displayed in 2005 (and is no doubt unleashing today), but certainly the same intent. Democrats simply cannot stop attempting to rig primaries. They have learned precisely nothing from 2016.

THE CONGRESSIONAL DO-OVERS AND THE DCCC

This year we will see exact rematches of a half dozen very close races from the 2006 cycle. In all but one of these cases, the Democratic grassroots candidate probably would have won if they had been given timely and sufficient support from the DCCC. In order of closeness:

NC-08: Robin Hayes 60,926 (50%) vs Larry Kissell 60,596 (50%)
FL-13: Vernon Buchanan 119,102 (50%) vs Christine Jennings (50%)
WA-08: Dave Reichert 61,921 (51%) vs Darcy Burner 59,268 (49%)
OH-02: Mean Jean Schmidt 120,112 (51%) vs Victoria Wulsin 117,595 (49%)
NY-29: Randy Kuhl 99,926 (52%) vs Eric Massa 92,974 (48%)
IL-10: Mark Kirk 97,242 (53%) vs Dan Seals 84,625 (47%)

The race that did get all the DCCC support anyone could ever want was FL-13, where Christine Jennings was Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked, Republican-lite shill. All the other candidates are actual Democrats. (Jennings is an "ex"-Republican who I expect will vote something like Tim Mahoney, Emanuel's other Florida ex-Republican shill, who did win-- with the help of a little strategically placed leaks about his opponent molesting young pages.)

Of the 6 on the list above, 4 have already been endorsed by Blue America-- Larry Kissell, Darcy Burner, Victoria Wulsin and Eric Massa. Now that he's won his primary, we're looking into Dan Seals as well. We don't endorse Blue Dogs, Bush Dogs, DLC hacks or Republican lite-shills so Jennings isn't eligible.

All but one of the candidates on the list have been put on the DCCC Red to Blue Page. In their first round the DCCC signaled that their first priorities were:

John Adler (NJ-03)
John Boccieri (OH-16)
Charlie Brown (CA-04)
Debbie Halvorson (IL-11)
Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15)
Linda Stender (NJ-07)
Gary Trauner (WY-AL)

Decent list, mostly. When James Walsh announced his retirement a few weeks later, the DCCC immediately added Dan Maffei, another Blue America-endorsed candidate.

Then a week or so ago they announced round two for the Red to Blue program:

Kay Barnes (MO-06)
Anne Barth (WV-02)
Darcy Burner (WA-08)
Robert Daskas (NV-03)
Steve Driehaus (OH-01)
Jim Himes (CT-04)
Christine Jennings (FL-13)
Larry Kissell (NC-08)
Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24)
Eric Massa (NY-29)
Gary Peters (MI-09)
Mark Schauer (MI-07)
Dan Seals (IL-10)

Some seem like better ideas than other, but it's a perfectly respectable list. Except for one omission. Did you catch it? Mean Jean Schmidt certainly did.

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.

Obviously Pfaff is a ridiculous hack and shill spinning this for his pathetic candidate's own purposes. Vic was hardly "taken off" any list; she just hasn't been added yet-- though she should have been. As for Hackett, his comments may have been stoopid, ego-driven and misconstrued, but they were not anti-Wulsin. In fact, they say more about him than about Vic and have moved at least one Ohio blog to bid him a less than fond adieu.

As for the DCCC, they're probably still smarting from the thorough thrashing Vic gave to their ex-Executive Director/Emanuel lapdog, John Lapp. Lapp ran the filthy Rovian campaign against Vic by lifelong Republican Stephen Black who tried getting into the race as a Democrat, something that fooled very few actual Democrats in OH-02, but had the DCCC all excited at the prospect of... of what? Helping elect another "Democrat"-- like Heath Shuler, Jason Altmire, Brad Ellsworth, Joe Donnelly, Nick Lampson-- who will reflexively vote with the GOP on crucial substantive matters whenever it takes his fancy?


UPDATE: IDAHO

If I had made a list of the 7 closest do-overs, instead of just the half dozen closest, I would have included ID-01 where Larry Grant was/is challenging freshman wingnut Bill Sali. In 2006 Sali only managed to win 50% of the vote to Larry's 45%. Three independent candidates accounted for the other 5%.

PAUL HACKETT'S CAREER DESTROYED BY RUTHLESS DEMOCRATIC PARTY BOSSES

I had no ACT BLUE page up for either Paul Hackett or Sherrod Brown. I think either man would have made an excellent U.S. Senator, better than most. Brown is tried and true. Hackett is brash and unpredictably refreshing. I sent Hackett a contribution when he ran against Schmidt last summer and I would have done the same for whomever the Democratic primary voters chose to represent them against Mike DeWine. But we'll never know who the voters would have chosen because the Inside the Beltway party bosses, as is their wont, have driven Hackett out of the race AS THEY ARE DOING TO GRASSROOTS CANDIDATES AND PROGRESSIVES ALL OVER AMERICA.

Back in July, one of my first stories on Hackett was called "Straight Talkin' Guy." He had made a great impression on me. Let me quote myself:

What about the Far Right's most divisive hot-button issue, the one they have been using most successfully to frighten working people into voting for them (and thereby for their policies that are so damaging to the vast majority of people who don't make millions of dollars a year)-- the "gay issue." With a viciously homophobic opponent who eagerly voted against gays' rights in the Ohio legislature, Hackett took this issue on in his typically forthright way. "Gay marriage -- who the hell cares?"
Hackett is married and has 3 kids and unlike half the GOP officials in Washington, isn't worried about hiding a secret life. He says he doesn't feel the need to defend his marriage through the national Defense of Marriage Act, or any other anti-gay marriage legislation. "If you're gay you're gay -- more power to you," he said. "What you want is to be treated fairly by the law and any American who doesn't think that should be the case is, frankly, un-American." More Democrats talking good common sense like this and we wouldn't be on the verge of a fascism in this country.

This would have probably been an incredible U.S. Senator, someone very different from the Inside the Beltway swine-- regardless of party-- who speak a language of their own and only to each other. But, as I'm sure you know by now, Hackett told the Democrats to screw themselves after they went behind his back to funders and pressured them to stop the money flow to his campaign. He pulled out of the race Reid and Schumer lured him into after Reid, Schumer and the hideous monstrosity of the Democratic Party (our very own version of Tom DeLay), Rahm Emanuel stabbed him in the back and pressured him out. This is what a straight talkin' guy can expect when he gets into the water with these barracudas and man-eaters. The Democratic Party really is predominantly just one thing now: a vehicle for the careers of its elected officials and their employees. I had hoped when actual grassroots Democrats got Howard Dean the DNC Chair he would be able to make a difference. But no one can make any difference with this nest of filthy poisonous vipers. They literally have one thing, and one thing only, going for them: the Republican Party is far worse.


8 AM UPDATE: A CLASSY GOODBYE

I like Hackett's clear, straight talkin' explanation of why he's bowing out of politics. We lost a good man. Sherrod Brown will be a good Senator from Ohio though. Howard Dean also has a classy and sincere letter about this on the DNC blog, which can be commented on by readers.


WEEKEND HACKETT UPDATE

MOTHER JONES has an inside look at how the Beltway Insiders forced Hackett out of the Ohio Democratic primary here.