Paul Hackett/Ohio ballot measures

Last night as I was this close to shutting down my computer and calling it a night, I saw on article about Paul Hackett and Sherrod Brown who are both running for Mike DeWine's Senate seat. The impertinent suggestion by some individuals--not just the usual political insiders, but from some of the "big name" bloggers--that Hackett should drop out of the race now that Brown has changed his mind and jumped in, prompted me to write this diary over at My Left Wing. This morning I found this link, via the Crooks and Liars site. Steve Gilliard nails it better than I ever could.

But here's something Brown better realize. Paul Hackett earned his support. Just because you hire a few bloggers doesn't mean you have the thing sown up. Paul Hackett has a nationwide, 15,000 list of contributors who like what he says and how he says it. We are not a piggy bank. You can't just throw up a few ads and say "support me". We need reasons to do so.

I'll tell you what impresses me, Hackett got people to campaign for him who had been lifelong Republicans. Not just vote, campaign. If Brown can do that, then I might send him some cash in the end. But as it stands, Hackett earned the support he got and should continue to get that support.

Personally, I thought Hackett should have run against Schmidt again and win easily. But he didn't. He chose the Senate race. Then all of a sudden, Brown found his balls and jumped in. The calls should have gone to him, not Hackett. If you have to wonder if you want to run for office, you don't want the job bad enough.

Sometimes we need to reward courage, regardless of how difficult that makes our task.

And on a tangentially related note (Ohio election related) here's a diary on Kos that I highly recommend: Reform Ohio Now "Know What Your Voting For" A Great Local Editoral.

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