hope the washington dems are listening.

hackett in 06!  can't wait.  =)

Now the GOP has been put on notice for 2006.  

Hopefully their collapse in Ohio continues.  But knowing the Republicans, they will be ready to go in 06.

Calling it a "victory" means you don't have to take a hard look at why WE DIDN'T WIN.  Pat ourselves on the back for 15 mins., then figure out how to to it better next time.  

Also the turnout looks pretty high for a special election maybe 25 to 30%.

I can live with that, given the heavy majority of wingnuts/GOP diehards that infest OH-02.  Congratulations to Maj. Hackett for his astounding performance, and congratulations to the netroots, Swing State Project and everyone else who worked to make this possible.

Had this been one campaign of a 50-state "challenge all districts" effort, I think it's fairly safe to say that the GOP would have lost seats.  Perhaps a lot of seats.

I know some in the netroots will call this a loss (doubtless with the help of GOP trolls out for a good time or to demoralize lefties).  And I know we're hungry for a win.  But we just proved a winning strategy.  We lost a battle so we could win the war.  I'll take that any day.

This is the test case, the proof case, for running candidates in EVERY district. If we tell our story and tell it with honesty, courage and passion, we can't lose, even if we lose the election. THIS is how you create a foundation to buoy up the Party and get the message out to the people. People respond. People listen when the same old crap isn't being churned out by some DC "strategist." People really DO have the power.

I think a candidate like this is going to waste in the 2nd district. Chris is right, anywhere else in the state and he'd have won. But next November turnout will be higher, and that makes it even tougher. Schmidt will have to compete, and that's awesome. But the GOP will have a new candidate for Governor on the same ballot in '06, who's not Bob Taft.

2.) Even if it didn't affect the outcome, I'd like to see follow-up on the voting irregularities, e.g., Jean Schmidt going within the polling place.  How do we make that happen?

Well, Hackett did really well in the rural counties (Brown, Scioto, etc) but guess where he lost... Clermont, Warren, Hamilton.

To me, this election shows that we can come up with a message that appeals to the evangelistic rural poor. It's the white americans with yellow ribbon bumper stickers in places like Warren County that are as republican as ever.

-Hackett for senate 06'!  

Hackett seems alright by me. Interesting that the government has to run lots of money to keep a soldier from making rank and actually having a vote on the floor. Independents think its funny to see how the GOP squirmed to make sure that nobody that actually fights in the war can vote on the war. Its sort of like "Keep Mr. Smith from Going to Washington" . Of course, another pathetic loss by the democrats with once again the soul-less spam, stupid appeals - blatant advertising. They don't play to win.

And in the end, wasn't it all about how much time, effort and money you spent watching things stay exactly the same -  how your voice didn't count?

Though we may all have gotten irritated at Cook's setting such a low bar for failure for Schmidt, we can all say tonight that he was exactly right. 3.2% seems to be the margin of victory. Cook has it. Something is very, very wrong for the GOP. For the Dems, on the other hand...

Now, for all of the talk about how great this is for next year's midterms, the big question is why OH-2 voted the way they did. Was it Hackett's military service? Was it a referendum on Bush and the Iraq War? Was it a referendum on Karl Rove? Was it a referendum on Coingate and the Ohio GOP? Was it that Jean Schmidt less-than-great candidate? Some post-special election polling of OH-2 wouldn't be unwelcomed.

The one thing that was proven tonight is that there is no such thing as a safe GOP seat in an open election. Seats will always lean one way or another. However, every seat needs to be contested by the strongest possible candidate, end of story.

In Sacramento, CA we had a special election earlier this year. The district is about as Democratic as OH-2 is Republican and our Doris Matsui walked away with 69% of the vote. There was no challenge because it was seen as unwinnable. The netroots saw OH-2 and made it winnable.

There had better be a big ole story about this in the MSM because we all know there would be if a Republican had done this well in such an unfriendly district. There would be stories about how the Democratic base was crumbling yada yada yada. This race was far more significant than Herseth's or Chandler's victories because they were well known names in their respective states. I thinks I may be seeing some crumbling of the Republican base going on.

But still, I want to cry. I had supressed all hope for so long, and then it came out when Hackett took the lead. And that it went away so quickly makes me want to cry--honestly.

But tomorrow, its back to business. There is, after all, this huge event that I am MCing...

Dare I said we gave the OH GOP blue balls tonight?

Reminds me of Bush falling down in the Crawford mud, during a drought.

Well then, if this happens nationally the repubs dream of 250 House GOP'ers and 60 Senate Republicans will be within reach.

Winners win, losers spin.

The blogosphere is full of happytalk tonight about the OH-02 race.  I completely fail to see why there is anything to be happy about.  We run a fantastic candidate, and he gets run over by some sleazy, lying bag of shit not worthy of changing George Bush's diaper, and that's something to be happy about?  Jesus Fucking Christ, wake UP.

The message I get from this race is this: 2006 will be a monumental train wreck with more Republican gains in both the House and Senate.

It is truly a new day dawning in America.

I agree with Anne64.  This is no victory.  This is one of the most appealing democratic candidates I have ever seen, and the fact that he lost, albiet by a small margin, shows how entrenched the Banana Republican Party is in Ohio.  Sadly, it is that way here in Indiana as well.  There are just too many voters who cannot or will not get the facts so they can make an informed choice, and I don't see that changing in a year.

All that being said, it seems odd that Paul would do better in rural precincts than in the cities.  

I smell a rat.