With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies

Many of you may remember Paul Hackett, the Democrat Marine reservist and Iraq War veteran that nearly won a seat in the House of Representatives last summer. He got 48% of the vote in one of Ohio's most conservative House districts running against a Republican incumbant. Lots of folks, including some around here, were excited by that showing since it appeared to show that the Republicans were vulnerable in an important swing state.

It was no suprise when Hackett started a run for a Senate seat a few months ago, at the urging of some top Democrats. Many were expecting that, in a mid-term election during the second term of a sitting Republican president with the popularity rating of a slime mold, this was one of the Senate seats that were in play and likely to go to the dems. The wily Democrats, however, appear to have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by sabotaging Hackett's campaign and forcing him to withdraw from politics altogether.

And they wonder why they're the minority party...