Posted on 08/02/2005 6:40:37 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
With 62 percent of precincts reporting, Republican Jean Schmidt had 51 percent, or 35,161 votes, to 49 percent for Democrat Paul Hackett, who had 34,175 votes. Schmidt's lead amounted to about 1,000 votes.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Well, it could have been worse... however, your point is taken. That a candidate could get anywhere near 50% of the vote calling the president a SOB, in a district where that president carried the vote by 35% means people are getting complacent. What was the projected voter turnout?
How can you say this? Didn't Portman win the district last time with 70 percent or more? And what were Bush's numbers there last year?
When you say the Rats had "EVERY tactical advantage" in this race, I'm not sure what you mean. Can you explain?
Wondering if you can answer a question for me. With the large scale immigration to Texas, primarily from Mexico, why does it not seem as if Texas is trending Democrat? I have heard that the majority of Mexicans living in texas, especially those along the Rio Grande Valley that have been there for years, are solidly Republican. is this true for the newcomers as well?
Lots of Republican corruption going on at the state level. We need to get that cleaned up SOON or it will leave a mark.
LIBBY
And now, with Hackett's near victory -- after his Howard Dean-like Bush bashing -- the Rats will be able to find more disgruntled vets to run against Republicans.
All this happy talk from the Limbaughs and Hannitys about how the Rats are destroying themselves with their vicious rhetoric is just that -- happy talk. This election result suggests that it has no substance to it at all. Either the swing voters don't know about it, or they don't care. One way or another, Fox News and talk radio and all the right-wing blogs just don't matter as much as we'd like to think.
If we had a strong conservative movement in this country, instead of the pathetic talk-radio gripefest that passes for such a movement, Republican voters wouldn't take the failings of their state party as an excuse not to vote against the national Rats in a U.S. House race. Right-wing activists would have educated them about Hackett's vicious anti-Bush comments and about the stakes of this election.
Ohio is a Republican leaning state, with Southwestern Ohio being a heavily Replublican area and Northeastern Ohio being heavily Democrat. This election was supposed to be a cakewalk for Schmidt. Portman won in -04 with ~75% of the vote. 51-49 is a disaster for the Republican party. We need another candidate in '06 regardless if she wins. Hacket is a hyprocritical snot, I realize, but people in this heavily military district are tired of getting body bags from Iraq with nothing to show for it except an Islamic constitution (oxymoron, I know), and pink slips from companies that have outsourced to China. It's a message for sure. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
Has CBS declared the 2004 yet?
This has very little to do with the Democrats, and everything to do with Republicans. Let's face it, Bush's second term has not gone well. His agenda is stalled, the war in Iraq is unpopular, and a recent insiders poll showed that the number 1 issue among Republicans is illegal immigration, an issue Pres Bush continues to defy the will of the majority on. If we are going to maintain our majority, he better find a way out of Iraq, drop SS Reform, and close the border to illegals.
Not only has this second term been bad, but we have elected too many RINO's. I mean, c'mon, I heard McCain the other day suggest on national tv that Hillary would make a good secretary of Defense? What is that about? The Ohio GOP is run by McCain-like people, and unless we get back to our true conservative roots, we will lose.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If Schmidt was a bad candidate, they the party just had to work with that. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who is serious about defending this country has to vote Republican. I know many don't, but for Hackett to get 49 percent of the vote in a solidly GOP district like this speaks very poorly for the public's understanding of the differences between the two parties, and how our system works. They weren't choosing a mayor today, for Christ's sake. They were choosing a cog in a machine -- either the Republican machine or the Rat machine.
Your complacency is exactly how we lose elections.
"Terrible candidate"? So were Kerry and Gore, and both did about as well as Mr. Hackett. "Not too bright"? Well, I think that's true of a hell of a lot of Republican candidates -- some of whom win. It's a reality we have to work with.
Sorry, but if you want me to "knock it off," you'll need to do far better than this.
Why would it rattle the Bush family?
The people it will rattle are the Ohio GOP. Taft, Voinovich and DeWine are doing them no favors. The Party needs to be cleansed in that state.
It will also rattle the Dems despite noice to contrary since in an off election with a stealth candidate that had support of the leadership & MSM and practically none from the GOP/alternative news media they still couldn't capture the district.
To me it's a win/win. They don't lose a seat, Dems lose again, and the Ohio GOP gets a needed wakeup call.
Speaking as a native of the area, there is no excuse for Schmidt doing this poorly. Even with her association with Governor Whitebread (Taft), she should have beat this guy by at least 25%. And there will likely be a recount, so I am just waiting the rabid left to scream about how this was stolen also. He could even win.
I have to agree with another poster here: this is at best a phyric victory, and some would call even a loss. The dems, even it is ultimately a loss, will be feeling their oats because Hackett was able to do as well as he did in such a red region
Well, what Limbaugh was saying today was even if this turkey won, he didn't buy it as a bellweather election because it didn't run as a democrat and his TV ad started out with a favorable clip of President Bush, whom this Hackett idiot called a SOB in a recent USA Today interview, and never mentioned he was the Democrat Party candidate.
I don't listen to Hannity and today was the first I heard Limbaugh speak on the subject, so unless you can be more specific, I have no idea what this "happy talk" might be.
From what I heard today, this Hackett is the perfect splicing of Kerry and Edwards, if anyone ever wandered what that might look like. I know I never did.
Remember this as well - the dems ran the guy as a Republican. This was a trial balloon for Hillary's run.
Amen brother! Couldn't have said it better myself. A big national anti-tax group took out a ton of commercials urging voters to stay home and especially not vote for Schmidt (She is one of Boob Taft's lackeys).
I'm with you. Figure out how to let Iraq go, fix the border, get energy self-sufficient. It's crunch time. Fire rice and get a real foreign policy. Tariffs on Chinese crap. Charity begins at home.
That's Clermont. :)
Again, I live out this way please, so please, get it right ;)
His agenda is stalled, the war in Iraq is unpopular
--
Um - Bush's agenda is anything but stalled. That is what the media wants you to believe.
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