I was a Hackett supporter, but I felt that his actions were childish and short-sighted. Rather than choosing to fight on anyway, or at least bow out with grace, he chose to leave in a tantrum and divide the party, using accusations like "betrayed".

Bad form.

This is quality stuff. Finger-pointing doesn't win elections. You might catch some flak for this, but I think you're right on.

I think you meant on behalf of Ciro Rodriguez and against Cuellar.  Might want to change that before lumping Ciro in with Lieberman.

Great post. I'd have to go back over it to find something I disagree with.

"But don't pretend, as Hackett did, like you don't have responsibility for your own actions"

You mean, like the Dem leadership which has delivered defeat after defeat for at least the better part of a decade?

When do they take responsibility for their actions? When do they resign and pass on the torch?

Lots of assumptions here, which seems to be bull.

"As far as I can tell, Hackett was going to lose the primary"

Really?  Why?  Even though the match-ups between both were about equal in name ID?

Not to mention that Hackett ANNOUNCED his candidacy first.  Why didn't Brown back down?

"Hackett didn't have the money, and wasn't going to get it".

Look, ever poll had Hackett and Brown OVER the Republican.  If Hackett had won the primary, he would have gone on and won the race.  The money would have been there.

What you are neglecting - again - is that Brown decided to take this from Hackett - and that Hackett should just be "fine" with it.

Bowers point is good, is that you guys are moving into the "political class".  That is clear with your statement " At the same time, the existing political establishment was predicting a loss for Hackett, and suggesting that channels of money and support not engage his candidacy.  And  if your gauge is political victory, they were right."

Who are "THEY".  "THEY" are the people who let Sherrod Brown back in, without noting that Paul Hackett declared first.  

Not that Brown's a bad guy, but - why does he get off scott-free, in this primary, to the point where PARTY LEADERS would undercut EITHER of the two candidates??  Let them have a real primary, and DON'T interfere.

Lastly - Markos always seemed pretty honest, in his writings.  But man, does he seem co-opted with this particular posting...

Great post Matt.  I am glad you didn't get too swallowed up by the passions to not see objective reality.  I supported Hacket and liked him and wanted him to win.

But shouting down people with nasty caplocked posts isn't going to win the day.  In the end, it is organization, cold hard cash, and message discipline.

If we keep working, the netroots candidates won't be joke ones like Chuck P in PA (who is losing 70 to 5 in the PA primary), they will be realistic candidates with real shots of winning.

This whole thing has been unfortunate all along. I have always liked Sherrod  Brown and I was excited by Hackett's efforts against Jean Schmidt and it sucked that these 2 were against each other. The whole Hackett-declared-first thing made Brown look bad when he entered and that sucked too. But in the end, I feel like Hackett handled this poorly. I can understand his anger but his "I'm taking my toys and going home" response indicates to me that he isn't really cut out for politics. I'm totally netroots oriented and I want strong candidates and the more anti-war the better - but regardless of how the candidate rates on a left to right scale, a candidate has to have a desire to hang in there or they will be discouraged by the battles they face. Every Democrate candidate has a financial disadvantage relative to republican candidates. People who are personally wealthy have an advantage over those who aren't, regardless of party. If you're a candidate, from whatever place you start, its necessary to recognize exactly what your disadvantages are and go from there, not blame the world because you have the disadvantage.

We have a lot on our plate right now in terms of things stacked against us. One of those things is the fact that we don't have publicly financed campaigns - something which would level the playing field. If Paul Hackett wants to serve the public he might focus on that issue, or some other issue and work as an activist towards something that will benefit us. Triumphs in that arena could bolster his resume and help him be more viable down the road. There's many other approaches he can take as well. Or he can decide that the idea of public office was more alluring than the reality of it, and move on into private life which is his right.

But his withdrawel has the air of Richard Nixon's "you won't have me to pick on anymore" speech and it does nothing but damage Democrats. It's very human but I'm sorry he's gone this route.

Its rare that I agree with you.  I am glad to have that opportuntiy.

Terrific post, and one everyone who feels highly emotional about this should be forced to read.

Chris' post below about the class stratifications in the progressive activist movement and the way they play into this makes some good points. But I think he misses the elephant in the room, which is cult of personality surrounding netroots superstars like Dean and Hackett. This type of enthusiastic devotion to a candidate seen as taking on "the system" is key to understanding the intense feelings of betrayal on the part of supporters and activists. It's disgust with the system and loyalty to what amounts a savior figure and furious frustration at seeing that all gone in an instant.

But look at how Dean handled his downfall compared to how Hackett handled his, and there is a world of difference. Dean knew the goals he was fighting for were more important than personal hurt feelings, and that translated into a professional, successful response which lead to real changes in the system. Hackett, in throwing up his arms and said "I'm out," both threw gasoline on the fire and betrayed his supporters and those in his party who share his convictions and passions.

It's about what matters most. To Hackett, it's personal betrayal and hurt feelings. To all of us, it should be the goals we are fighting for and how best to accomplish them given the system as it exists today.

It's funny seeing all these apologists invent reasons why this was all Paul Hackett's fault.
I've heard Kos say that Hackett's entrance into the race was bungled.  Bullshit-- Brown's was.  Hackett didn't announce his intention to run until Brown told him that he wasn't running.
Now Stoller says that Hackett didn't have a chance of winning the primary because of lack of money and low name ID.  Does that mean we knife him in the back and try to force him out of the race?  Is that what good Democrats do to their underfunded candidates?
NO!  That's what fucking Republicans do to their underfunded candidates.

This is GROTESQUE; Hackett's reaction is understandable; Schumer is a scumbag; and if you don't see it that way, you have no idea what a progressive is.

Amen, brother. There's so much bitterness right now in the Ohio blogs, and I wish that bitterness would be rededicated to a greater desire to fight.

Somewhat off-topic, but germane: I was having an argument with a "progressive" last week. We were going in circles, and he kept insisting that our commemoration of the Iraq War's third anniversary need to have a component of "speaking truth to power." I was there as the resident anti-war vet representative.

At this, I blew up. I'm sorry, but I blew up. My response was:

"Look, all due respect, I'm sick and tired of speaking truth to power. I want to be power."

And that's what I'm getting from a lot of Hack's partisans; they'd rather speak truth to power than be power now.

Time Out:

Don't let hero-worship get in the way of that fundamental point.

Hero worship?  Is that what all this boils down to for you?  

Look, I'm not an Ohio voter so I didn't have a dog in this race but the will of the people was actively subverted because their opportunity to choose who would represent them was taken away.  

I'm all for increasing our political apparatus and seriously pressuring Establishment Democrats but to dismiss it as just "hero worship" is asinine.  There's a bigger issue and the hero worship angle is a distraction.

The process is dominated by money. This simply underlines that simple fact. The Democratic party, while less beholden to money than the GOP, is still crushed by the weight of its domination.

Why do you think the press can get away with characterizing Abramoff as more or less evidence of a bipartisan scandal? Because the topos for that characterization exists. Why does it exist? Because there is more than a little grain of truth to that characterization. Playing hard-ball with Hackett simply serves to underline that kernel of truth, that money buys both parties, and there you have it in a nutshell why average American's see this lobbying scandal is more or less bipartisan.

So sure, we can go ahead and "try to work from within," or, since 3 decades of that have not worked, just let your lot be crushed under the rot your complicity in the system has engendered.

Reform will come, and it is unfortunate the Dems will need to be pushed out of the way to see it through.

I think you pretty much nailed it.

Thanks for a healthy dose of reality.

The Democratic party leadership surrounded by loser consultants have lost election after election and have zero track record of success.

Instead of supporting open democratic primaries and encouraging many candidates and allowing Democratic party voters to decide who best to represent them, these DC politicians use backroom machinations as they are afraid of losing their patronage system. They don't really care if they are a permanent minority as long as they get to share in the looting of the taxpayer.

What is interesting is that unlike the Repubs that play to their base at all times and as a result engender unswerving loyalty even when there is clear evidence of corruption and abuse, the Dems leadership always stomp over their base by wanting to move to the "center". The electorate are no dummies. They would always prefer the real deal in comparison to Repub-lite. They prefer candidates with courage of conviction than weather vanes.

As the recent MyDD polls and other polls show, there is no "center" in America today. The electorate is deeply divided. There is no way in hell any Democratic candidate will ever get the Repubs to vote for them. So, in my opinion the only way Dems get elected is by playing strongly towards their base and getting them energized and excited to go out and vote. And by the way as these polls show the majority of independents support liberal positions.

Since the Dems DC leadership are afraid of standing up to the Repub slime machine and actually taking the fight to the political opposition, they are quite happy acting tough with their base who have behaved in an incredibly masochistic manner over the past few election cycles. These DC leaders are quite happy winning "safe" Dems seats and playing their patronage games.

The netroots need to keep up the good fight despite the DC crowd. We must support fighters in the primaries not just those "annointed" in DC.

This is an excellent post Matt.

Here's what I wrote earlier about the Hackett scenario and netroots support.

One of the things I found specifically with the Hackett situation is how some with little voice in the party, the region or state but lots of time for commenting in weblogs can be whipped into such an almost messianic fervor about a candidate and then drive forward without the need for reality checks.
I live in OH 02 and have given money to Hackett. A few times when I would post about conditions on the ground here in Southwestern Ohio I would have people blast me for not being a real progressive or a real democrat because I didn't report what they wanted to hear. People from Oregon or New York who knew nothing of this area yet KNEW that Hackett would win overwhelmingly if I would only believe harder or not report on what I was hearing in the neighborhood or district.  Unbelievable vitriol from people who had passion but no knowledge.

There were many people in this district who felt Hackett should have run again for the 02 and that he was not ready for the bigger stage.  There were people here who took down Hackett signs from their yards in '05 because his outspokenness was becoming profane and personal. I don't mean the activists, I mean people in their 50's to 70's who still voted for Hackett but began becoming uncomfortable with his increasingly personal attacks. The possibility that Hackett's "Said it, Meant it,Stand behind it" attitude would have garnered a lot of votes from people in their 20's to early 40's but little support from the traditional money pots was very real. You can't win in Ohio that way. As the potential reality that he was losing to Brown in the pre-primary polls, some feared he would start going for Brown's blood and fatally hurt the eventual candidate for the general election.
The enthusiasm for Hackett from activists around the country does not change the reality on the ground.  Ohio is a moderately conservative state and that conservatism is also reflected in the way people express themselves.  The blogosphere may like loud and proud and confrontational but my lifetime experience in Ohio informs me that the confrontational part isn't such a big draw in our neck of the woods.
Maybe the netroots would like a shooting star that goes down in spectacular flames but at the end of the day, for those who want to defeat the current legislative majority, a loss is a loss.  We need wins.
Perhaps the netroots were projecting their hopes on a candidate they sorely felt should be in Washington but they seemed to be overlooking that you need to get there by winning elections... and that in the major leagues they play hardball.
DeWine wouldn't have forgotten that. I'm certain if he were to face Hackett he would have been sitting in regular meetings strategizing how to provoke Hackett into an off-the-cuff inappropriate comment while on camera. And then sit back and grin as they waited for the inevitable, "Said it. Meant it. Stand behind it." and the sound of the whiff of the bat as the candidate went down swinging.

So who runs against mean Jean?

If Hackett would put his ego aside, apologize for blowing up, and lay out the situation in an objective honest way, would he still be mean Jean's biggest threat?

It's not like the GOP numbers are going up in Ohio.  The Noe scandal is still perculating; Ney is step away from an indictment; Blackwell trails Strickland by a good margin.

The one comment I'm not sure about is:

" Now, with a perfect storm, Hackett couldn't win this seat, and in 2006, turnout among Republicans would be higher than it was in a special election in 2005."

All turnout will be higher.  I would also predict that there's not much there that would motivate the fundies to turn out en mass this time.

I'm trying  to reserve judgement. Ed Schultz is charging that Brown's people "Swift-Boated" Hackett by spreading rumors about Hackett's time in Iraq. He's going to have Hackett on his show.

Also, I'm genuinely confused. Why are the authors of "Crashing the Gate" siding with the Washington, D.C. establishment? I'm not trying to be snotty I really don't understand. I thought this kind of thing was what we were against.

I think this is the best analysis of l'affaire Hackett I've read so far.  There are solid lessons we can take away from this, if we can move beyond the vitriol and finger-pointing.

What I have a problem with is the image that that running for the house, then running for the senate, then dropping out to run for the house presents. I think that would look pretty bad, and reflect badly on Hackett and the party. You could cast it as desperation.

My other problem is that the way Hackett went out damages us in the PR wars. I would have rather him just bowed out and I hope this isn't spun badly.

My advice to Hackett? Run for your local political office, city commissioner, mayor etc. I think you can make a real difference at a local level without the kind of hard-core pressure cooker that a statewide or district wide race would require.

Matt, much of what you say about Hackett's being one down in the primary could be considered a self-fulfilling prophecy. Donors ask where to go, the progressive "aristocracy" tells them not Hackett, he gets no money or support from the party and then looks "disorganized", and the cycle continues.

As per Chris's post, you're simply repeating the "aristocracy's" logic.

I contend it's that kind of logic that got Democrats where they are in the first place.  Look at George Bush.  One paper, he's the worst, stupidest, idiotic candidate anyone could possible put up.  But the Republicans did.  That's because the political genius of Rove can read the political/cultural landscape, matching the candidate meta-message to the voting public.  It drives Democrats crazy because it's illogical.  But guess what?  They win.  Do you really think Brown has a meta-message advantage over Hackett in the relatively conservative swing state of Ohio?  

I've written about this until I'm blue in the face.  I'm a lifelong (35 years as a registered voter) Democrat who is seriously considering going independent.  The Democratic establishment gets not one cent more from me, and I've given literally thousands.

Politics is about passion.  If the reality-based Democrats can't figure that out, they'll only win if the Republicans are even more incompetent.  After all, Karl Rove has to retire someday.

The name I reference above belongs to a veteran Ranger who ran in Colorado in 2004 against the party-backed favorite, Ken Salazar. After Ben Nighthorse Campbell (the incumbent R) withdrew from the race, Salazar wasted no time jumping in. In the process, the party establishment essentially backed Salazar, depriving Miles of the funds needed to compete.

Did this stop Miles? No. He went on to campaign in the primary, gain the top-line on the ballot by out-organizing and beating Salazar at the state convention. He ended up losing badly in the primary (73%-27%), but even that didn't deter him; he went on to found an orgazniation called Be the Change USA, which has been rather successful in presenting his message.

What was stopping Hackett from doing the same thing? Where does it say that he had to have backing? If you say you're going to fight, then fight.

I think we need to channel this anger at the party power structure towards structural change. We need to get to work on public financing of campaigns, state by state. As long as the structure remains as is, there will be people at the top who can control how funding is decided. As long as they control it, they call the shots, period.

After we get our anger off our chests I'd like to see us get to work on structural change. Repubs are abhorrent; much of our Democratic leadership is incompetent. But very, very few human beings voluntarily cede power once they have it, and politicians are by nature egotistical.

Public financing of campaigns could accomplish 2 critical objectives: it could negate the power of lobbyists and special interests, and it could enable candidates to rise based on their merits rather than their war chests.

We have seen how horribly awry our country can go when power is concentrated. The same forces are at work within our party as well. A lot of things that are wrong politically right now can be addressed by means other than electing specific candidates. We need to explore those avenues with as much ferocity as we support individual progressive candidates. Because, no matter what the candidate believes, they are human. We can't put our eggs in one basket.