Schmidt Hackett Aftermath: a close look at Brown County

One of the major suprises of this past election was the strength of Paul Hackett in the eastern rural counties of Scioto, Adams, Pike and Brown. Conveniently, Brown has a website with numbers and past election results.

Some interesting factoids about Brown County Ohio:
Registered Democrats 4,612
Registered Republicans 3,763
Bet you didn’t know that.

June 14th 2nd district primary:
Republicans received 2,287 votes, of which Jean only received 392 specifically
Democrats received 1,217 of which Hackett received 762.

August 2nd general election turnout doubled to about 7000 votes from 3500.
Hackett: 3950
Schmidt: 3100

That paints a picture for me..
In the June 14 primary, Hackett received 62% of the Democratic vote while Schmidt received a scant 17% of the Republican vote. Seems Brown County GOP was not enamored at all with her. Hackett however did well and was fairly unified.

In the general, Hackett had tremendous upside in a county where registered Democrats already outnumber registered republicans. Plus a potential of 7,140 Kerry voters. Hackett goes on to get 85% of the registered Democrats and 55% of the Kerry vote. With numbers like that I really doubt that there was any crossover voters. Hackett really didn’t need them. He just needed the 7,000 Kerry voters to show up. If they had all shown up, he would still have lost but by a very skinny margin.

Schmidt had a tougher task in a county that wasn’t that enthusiastic about her in the first place. Nevertheless she increases her vote tenfold, from 392 to 3100. Not bad, not bad at all. Still, it is telling that she captured only 25% of the Bush voters. That may be attributed to signs of weakness in the Ohio GOP. But only in relation to the excitement and energy on the Hackett side.

If this had turned out to be a “normal” special election, with a Democrat scrounging for money without significant outside help. Turnout would’ve been much lower, Schmidts margins would be higher and no one would be talking about GOP weakness. This is my opinion only, but what I am seeing is entirely consistent with a view that in Brown County anyway, we saw normal Republican turnout but highly elevated Democratic turnout.

Implications:
1. Outside help and money and volunteers do make a significant impact.
2. Jean Schmidt needs to build up some trust and rapport with the Brown County GOP.
3. McEwen could have helped a lot if he had stuck around to sell Jean to his primary voters in the eastern counties. He was the biggest vote getter in Brown. That he did not says a lot about his character and his true desire to be involved in Ohio GOP politics.
4. 2nd District candidates can ignore the eastern counties, but only if they have very significant margins in Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren. Even then, ignoring the east would not be a wise course of action, you might need that margin.

Interesting site. I found another comment on here from another site that is even more interesting.

Dennis The Peasant Analysis

--snip--

What the results do mean:

The Deaniac Democratic ‘netroots’ campaign worked wonders. Democratic challenger Paul Hackett received boatloads of cash and volunteers for his campaign via the efforts of the internet’s Big Three of Leftist (edit) Sites; Jerome Armstrong (MyDD), Markos Moulitsas (Daily KOS) and Duncan Black (Atrios of Eschaton). Clearly the (edit) Sites were far more effective in making Paul Hackett competitive than anything done by the Ohio Democratic Party. What this means is the Republican Party, at both the national and state levels, are going to need to expend some serious energy in designing measures to counter the effects of the ‘netroots’ campaign strategy. Yesterday’s election has demonstrated quite clearly that there is no such thing as a ‘safe’ district in the age of internet politics. It also demonstrated that the Ohio Republican Party and the Republican National Committee are behind the curve when it comes to the internet as a campaign tool.

Many aspects of this have been discussed except this one Dennis is emphasizing. That while the Deaniacs have been the object of much scorn and Dean himself is a joke. These folks had the organizational ability to "steal" the Democrat party right out from under the Clinton people, and when they focus this same capability on a Republican target, they can be effective. So if they are cheering, it might be because they have just test fired a new weapon and though it didn't win the battle this time out of the box, it looks to be a potential winner. And if this is the case, the the Conservatives are living on borrowed time if an effective response is not developed, tested and rolled out into the field.

to "steal" the Democrat party right out from under the Clinton people, and when they focus this same capability on a Republican target, they can be effective

Um what are they going to do when they have to run competitive races in 100 districts instead of 1? What most people miss is the Deaniacs are effective in a micro sense. The assumption that they can raise the kind of money to effective in a MACRO sense is an unwarranted assumption. The Repbos figured they had a lock and the Dims went full scale propaganda about this "Iraqi War Vet" Candidate. They ran the most conservative sounding candidate they could find against a RINO and STILL lost despite their full court press. Considering the Dims desperation to win ANYTHING just to prop up their fading base their "Crowing" is just the same old whistling pass the graveyard antics of Democrats engage in any time they lose.

I understand, and it is easy to cast aspersions. But, the 2004 round went to us partly because of the Blogosphere working to counter the Left Wing Press and mainly because of new Get out the Vote tactics that caused the the Dem's blindsided.

In Brown, the neighborhood network was up and running and made a good showing for a special election, but got blindsided by the Dem Get out the Vote effort.

We can see this as a fluke, or a reason for concern.

And as we know, when it comes down to it, national elections are actually turning on a very few districts in all reality. So a concentration tactic can win the day, especially if they made a combination of fighting the Major fronts and singling out just a few "safe" seats for blind side attacks.

So a concentration tactic can win the day, especially if they made a combination of fighting the Major fronts and singling out just a few "safe" seats for blind side attacks.

In a world of limited resources which we do live in, if Dems shift money to fight "safe seats" we should have incremental pick ups in the toss ups as the Dems divert funds from toss up seats.

The dem's spent incredible amounts of money with no return in the last election cycle. Its not money they lack. I was on a plane full of "poll watchers" on my way back from California on the weekend before the November 2004 election, so its not bodies they lack.

They are lacking two things. New tactics for Get out the Vote and a message that connects with the General population. In the 2nd District, the made steps toward both goals. You can see this as a high water mark, or the nose of a new camel.

So if they are cheering, it might be because they have just test fired a new weapon and though it didn't win the battle this time out of the box, it looks to be a potential winner. And if this is the case, the the Conservatives are living on borrowed time if an effective response is not developed, tested and rolled out into the field.

Oh bullshit!

He was a handsome war vet in his uniform hiding his true beliefs and party affiliation.

He fooled some of the people, some of the time.

You think they can find 538 candidates like that?

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