Ohio's Largest Paper Tells the Real Story About Hackett

With the Paul Hackett story all over the blogs this week, I wanted to point out this story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is a full post-mortem on Hackett's failed candidacy for U.S. Senate, and the piece confirms what I've written about this over the last few days. The story makes clear what should be obvious: Hackett was not "forced out" - he was outworked and outorganized by a better, harder working, more progressive candidate, Sherrod Brown. Hackett thought he should be able to walk to the nomination and not have to do the grueling, unglamorous work that it takes to be a candidate in a major statewide race - and when he found out that it wasn't going to be a cakewalk for him, he bailed.

Here are some key excerpts:

"Former Hackett aides say the biggest problem facing his campaign at the end was insufficient money. Hackett cited the problem himself in an interview with The Plain Dealer earlier this week. Despite his initial rant on party leaders, he said, the overriding reason for his exit was a realization that he couldn't raise the $3 million he thought he needed to win the primary...One of [the Hackett campaign's] biggest obstacles to banking that money, they said, was that Hackett hated fund raising. While most candidates share that feeling, people familiar with Hackett's campaign say he was especially resistant to efforts by aides to get him to use one of the most efficient but unpleasant fund raising techniques: sitting at the phone for hours, calling friends, relatives, and strangers to ask for money. Tension over the problem led in January to the departure of his finance director...Hackett, who prized his independent streak and proudly called it a family trait - he voted twice for Ross Perot for president and championed gun rights as well as gay rights - also chafed at having his schedule set by aides. On the weekend before he bowed out, aides say, he stunned his staff by refusing at the last minute to attend certain events - including appearances at several black churches - that had apparently been put on his schedule over his objections."

In other words, this had nothing to do with Hackett being "forced out" and everything to do with him not wanting to work. The piece also quotes former consultants to the Hackett campaign who tell it like it is:

"It's a very hard thing to make the jump to running for U.S. Senate," said Mark Blumenthal, a pollster who worked for Hackett's campaign. "There's a reason why people who have done it a lot of times are better at it - because you learn the hard way how hard is it to raise that money and how important it is to have experienced people around and to trust them."

Chris Cooper, a direct mail consultant who worked for Hackett's campaign, said he too has little doubt that internal pressures played a role.

"I thought and I still think that Paul Hackett had the right message at the right place at the right time. I looked at him as 180 pounds of pure potential," said Cooper. "But the reality of running a statewide campaign in a state like Ohio didn't quite match up to the potential because it's . . . a much bigger, more complicated affair."

Cooper really had it right - Hackett had a lot of potential that could have been maximized in a different, smaller race. I wrote that previously and hope at some point he loses the sour grapes attitude and gets back into politics. Because it really is a disappointment to see a guy with obviously natural talent leave politics altogether. It's a waste. But as Ohio's Mansfield Journal noted in an editorial, successful politics requires a lot more than just talent - it requires a persistence and tenacity that Sherrod Brown has shown throughout his career, and which Hackett just did not display in this campaign:

"Paul Hackett, the rookie Democratic politician from Cincinnati who dropped out of the U.S. Senate race earlier this week, would do well to read the works of Irish-American journalist Finley Peter Dunne. If he did, perhaps Hackett would stop sounding like a whiner. In 1895, Chicago pub owner Martin Dooley, one of Dunne's literary creations, said, 'Polytics ain't bean bag. 'Tis a man's game; and women an' childer, and prohybitionists'd do well to stay out iv it.'...It came as no surprise to anyone paying attention to politics that support for Brown among party leaders would far outweigh support for Hackett. Brown is considered much more electable. Period. That's the goal of politics -- winning. When Hackett dropped from the race he complained with some immature bitterness that the pressure from party leaders had injured his fund-raising efforts and forced him out. But Hackett's own polls showed him trailing Brown by almost a 2-to-1 margin among Ohio Democrats. It should have been clear even to him that the party to which he often voices his loyalty is better served with Brown on the ballot...Now is the time for Hackett to stop complaining, throw his support to Brown and do all he can to help the Democrats defeat DeWine in November. Along the way, Hackett should look for new political opportunities of his own...And when he does, he would be well served to remember Dunne's words. Politics ain't bean bag. It's a contact sport that can only be played successfully one way - to win."

That's exactly what I've been saying - and if Hackett decides to abandon his sour grapes martyr routine and get back into politics at some point, he better learn these lessons, or he'll face a similar fate. As for the upcoming Senate race, after reading the Plain Dealer article, and after knowing what we all know about Sherrod Brown's stellar progressive record, it becomes very clear that Brown is the better nominee.