|
Edited on Tue Feb-14-06 11:27 PM by brentspeak
than what our own leadership just did, with its handling of Paul Hackett.
Let's assess the damage:
1) We just lost Paul Hackett from the party. A guy who almost everybody was able to rally around.
2) A whole chunk of the Iraqi War veteran generation may have been lost too. Hackett was bringing Iraq War vets to rallies, getting them interested in the Democratic Party. A lot of them right now are probably disgusted with the way Hackett was treated.
3) For once, the Republicans can honestly point to an incident where the Democrats had no ethics. They can also say that you too, as a Democrat, might get stabbed in the back.
4) Jean Schmidt, one of the most ghastly of the new Republicans who so far have emerged, has now been guaranteed reelection. If the Democratic leadership was at all serious about taking Schmidt's seat, they would never have encouraged Hackett to pursue the Senate seat in the first place.
5) Mike DeWine is probably feeling pretty good himself, too. His opponent just changed from a charismatic maverick who nearly won in an extremely conservative Ohio district, to a Chardonnay/latte liberal who has only won in the most liberal part of the state.(Someone pointed out that I'm wrong on this. See below.) All his "progressiveness" doesn't mean beans if he can't win a statewide Ohio election.
6) Besides Ohio, a lot of Democrats from the rest of the nation are pi$$ed off and frustrated. I'm from New Jersey, and I'm ticked about all this. Party operatives and Brown apologists spamming boards both here and on Kos (including Markos himself) with B.S. stories of "Brown declared his candidacy first, before Hackett ever did." have just made things worse. You think we're stupid, or something?
This party definitely needs to put up an "Under New Management" sign. Remove the Schumers and the Emanuels from the leadership positions, and replace them with people who actually know what they're doing. And fast, before people leave the party permanently.
|