Paul Hackett interview on Plunderbund podcast

Episode 4 of the Plunderbund Podcast went up earlier this week, and I thought some people here might be interested in reading Eric's interview with Paul Hackett. Feel free to crosspost the link on other blogs where people might be interested, because I'm not likely to have the time.

Eric Vessels: I'd like to welcome to the show Paul Hackett, who has been referred to as "a candidate for nothing". (Laughter) I think my friend Chris Baker at Ohio 2nd blog came up with that one.

Paul Hackett: When did Chris come up with that??

Eric: I'm going to attribute it to him because I thought I saw it in a blog post, but I could be wrong. But anyway I think it's pretty funny, and it's a pretty good way to refer to you at this point in your juncture. But, Paul's with us, welcome to the podcast.

Paul: Hey, thanks Eric, AKA Plunderbund.

Eric: That's right, the Plunderbunder.

Paul: What the hell does that mean?

Eric: Well, actually, it is a colloquial term that means political corruption, and I came upon it by accident one day, and I thought, "You know, that's a pretty cool little word" and did the whole search to see if the domain was available, and I saw, "Holy crap, it's available!" And it took me all of about 40 seconds to register that puppy and--

Paul: I like that.

Eric: Yeah, and that's how I started the blogging. And actually, you're to blame for all this. Because I got kind of hyped up--I'm up in central Ohio in the Delaware, Ohio area. I got kind of hyped up in your special election campaign, and read some stuff on blogs on Kos and some other national things, and headed down and helped you.

Paul: Thank you!

Eric: --yeah, and did some canvassing and got really into it. I'm an old canvass guy from from days back, and I credit you and that campaign to kind of firing me up and doing what I do today, so thanks!

Paul: Good deal. Well, I'm glad we could be of service to you.

Eric: Absolutely--and me likewise. Okay, I want to ask the obvious question. We're out of the primary--

Paul: What's the obvious question?

Eric: Have you and Sherrod Brown smoked the peace pipe yet?

Paul: (laughing) I don't smoke.

Eric: Figuratively, of course. Have you guys kissed and made up, have you guys done anything--and the serious part of the question is that there are a lot of people who were supporters of you, including myself, that were still, up to now as far as I know, pretty disenfranchised and disassociated with a lot of what the party bosses did to a candidate that we backed. And I think it pretty important for us to get over that, and Sherrod and yourself would be the two to kind of do that, and to lay that groundwork for us to go into the general. Because, like you've said before, it's important.

Paul: Let me address what at least I hear as a couple of different issues and go from there. First of all, to answer your question, "have Sherrod and I smoked the peace pipe?". And the answer is, no. But with that said, let me give it to you from my perspective and then you can go track down Sherrod. BUT, before I do that, let me just say this.

Nobody should look to Paul Hackett for the answer on what they should or should not be doing in politics. You know, people have to make their own decisions on that, so for those who are, wrongly in my opinion, waiting for Paul Hackett to flash them the thumbs up or the green light to go help Sherrod, they shouldn't be waiting for that. They don't need to look to me for guidance on what to do politically...now, with that said, I got out of the senate race for reasons that everybody's, I believe, familiar with, and I've gone back to my life, trying to make money, and I've never felt the overriding drive to pick up the phone and ask Sherrod Brown for anything. And that shouldn't surprise people, because I never picked up the phone in my prior 44 years and asked Sherrod Brown for anything.

Eric: Sure.

Paul: So, I'm somewhat a little bit surprised that I sort of hear that question in different forums, and I sort of echo Sherrod Brown and his criticism of Tim Ryan in supporting me, when he said something like, "I don't really get concerned about what a second term junior congressman from the Mahoning Valley thinks or--blah, blah, blah--something along those lines. Look, I don't get concerned what six-term congressmen from northern Ohio do, number one. (Eric laughs). And what's he want from me besides a check for $2100, which, you know, to pick up on your metaphor of smoking, you're smoking something wild if you think I'm going to stroke him a check.

So, I don't know what I could do for him. I've never made any bones about it. Before I got out of the race, when I was in the primary, I don't like him. I think he's a putz--

Eric: Yeah, that answers the question, but I wasn't really framing it from that angle, actually--

Paul: Okay.

Eric: --and that leads me into what I want to talk about as well, is that my thought is that we can't really afford to have division in the next few years within both the national party and the Ohio Democratic Party. And, who's job is it really to fix that? My view is not that Paul Hackett needs to do something, but I would look at the guy who's running needs to get rid of the division, and we all can be on the same team and head in the right direction. But I just don't feel like there's been any effort to do that, and that's why I asked you have you guys smoked the peace pipe. Because if there was some effort to do that, then I could say as the Plunderbund guy, "Hey guys, we're cool, and let's go, and we're all on the same team!" Which, some people may decide independantly to do that, but that's the crux of my question, is I believe we can't afford to have such division, and we do, and who's job is it to fix that?

Paul: Well, yeah, interesting point, and maybe I'll spin off and try to answer your question from that perspective. I don't really know whose job it is to fix it--it's not my job--

Eric: Right, right.

Paul: You know, my job is to work for a living now, so my job is to make money for me and my family. And beyond that--that's my job. So, you know, is it Sherrod's job? I don't know--I suppose that presumes that somehow or another I could help him. I don't imagine I could, and I don't imagine I'd be willing to put a cork in my beliefs in order to stand next to him and smile, and so my tact is to try to, believe it or not--and for the listeners, remind them, you called me, I didn't call you--and I highlight that because I don't go out of my way to look for an opporunity to bang on Sherrod.

Eric: Right, right.

Paul: But if a question is asked, I will answer the question, as I always try to do with any issue. And if that makes people uncomfortable and they don't want to hear it, well, turn down the volume.

Eric: Good enough.

Paul: Now, with regard to sort of one of the foundational beliefs of your question, and that is, I think, we need to get together in order to be successful in 2006 and 2008, and we need to heal the party, I don't know if, in very broad terms, I necessarily agree with that. I actually believe that we have not, as the Democratic party, hit rock bottom, and that probably until we do hit rock bottom, there's not going to be a realistic opportunity to help fix the party. And I've used the analogy-- some people like it, some people don't, some people think it's funny, some people think it's pathetic--it's like trying to have an intervention with an addict. If the addict doesn't realize that they've got a problem, in the parlance of addiction, if they don't realize that they've hit rock bottom, they're not going to be susceptible to an intervention.

Eric: Right.

Paul: And, unfortunately, I don't think the Democratic party has hit rock bottom. I think that probably November's elections will move us further in that direction which, in some part will sadden me, but in some parts will make me feel more optimistic that we're approaching the end of our 40 years in the desert.

Eric: So, you actually forsee some continuation of our lack of success--

Paul: Yeah--that's just looking at the strategy, or the lack of strategy, both on a state and a national level, and in individual races, I don't see a winning strategy. And I don't just mean sound bites, I mean some fundamental strategic approaches to issues that will allow you to win. And whenever I hear Democrats define their strategies in terms of, "we're going to let the Republicans continue to beat themselves" or "we'll respond to that when it arises", that is a quick tipoff to me that they're going to stand by and then go into defense mode when they're attacked. And once you're attacked, you're responding to an aggressor, and the aggressor necessarily has the upper hand.

Eric: Right.

Paul: I mean, it works in football, it works in dogfighting--dogfighting in the sense of airplanes. The airplane that comes into the attack at a higher rate of speed--

Eric: --has the advantage. Yep.

Paul: Yeah, has an astronomically higher level of advantage. And it works on the battlefield--it's just that--

Eric: It's Sun Tzu.

Paul: Exactly.

Eric: I wanted to ask you about this "running in the 2nd" thing. There were some posts on that stuff. Are people just so used to politicians who say one thing and do another that they just don't get it, and think you might run there?

Paul: I guess. I have not privately or publicly suggested to anybody that I'm just waiting to be asked the right way, but I'm not. I'm not running. I don't know how else I can say it. I try to remove the profanity so that people can actually hear the words. I'm not running, I don't want to run, I don't intend to run--

Eric: Right, well, this is a podcast, so you can curse.

Paul: Uh...yeah...

Eric: Paul's not f*cking running!

Paul: Right. Vic Wulsin is the candidate, people need to get behind Vic Wulsin and do what they can to help her.

Eric: And will you be getting behind her and doing some stuff to help her down there?

Paul: Yeah, I mean, if she asks me, whatever my schedule permits, I'll be happy to do, provided that I don't have any heartburn with it.

Eric: Great--sounds good. Hey, one last thing, Paul, and you hinted to this in some of our discussions thus far, but I wanted to ask you, why aren't we seeing more Democrats speak up and speak out like Russ Feingold recently has, I think just yesterday? He seems like one of the only people that are willing, on a national level--and on a state level I really don't think that I've seen it yet.

Paul: Well, I should first say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Russ Feingold. I've had the pleasure of meeting him and sitting down and talking with him at great length about the war in Iraq and about some of the more popular social issues that Democrats get flummoxed about. So I have a lot of respect for him. And interestingly enough, with that said, he's probably not the kind of guy I'd want to go out and spend the day turkey hunting or deer hunting with, but I got a lot of respect for him both politically and as a person. He strikes me as a person that is really interested in being successful as a politician for all the right reasons. He stirkes me as a person that knows areas that he doesn't know, and is willing to learn.

But to really get to the answer, it's just a lack of courage from our elected officials, and it's misplaced hope that by avoiding tough issues that they will go away, and, it's just not going to happen. I mean, all of these tough issues, be they social or economic, or other political tough issues such as the war in Iraq are simply not going to go away, and they're not going to be solved by crafty sound bites published by Rahm Emanuel or Chuck Schumer. It ain't going to happen.

Eric: Right.

Paul: The war in Iraq is not going to be solved by sound bites. It's not going to go away by sound bites. It's going to go away and be solved or resolved or however you want to put it, by tough conversations that involve tough decisions that may not be politically pretty, and may involve economic cost and additional cost in lives, and additional political cost. But until politicians, and particularly those who have the D following their name, are willing to stand up and have that conversation, we the people are going to continue to get hosed.

And, let me kind of segue into an issue that I kind of highlight as a demonstrable example of this. When I was running last year in the 2nd congressional district in southern Ohio, I can't tell you the number of elected officials from the state level and the national level that, as my campaign, after the primary, began to catch a little bit of traction, would call up and plead with me--*plead* with me not to make the race a referendum. Plead with me not to be critical of George Bush, and plead with me not to be critical of the war in Iraq. Because in their vast failed experience, it was a losing way to fight the race. They *begged* me to just stay silent about my criticism on Bush, and they *begged* me to just stay quiet on my criticism on the war in Iraq.

And if you go back a year ago now, you'll see Bush's approval rating was above 50%, and there were *no* national--*zero* national Democratic leaders that were taking on the president on the war in Iraq. Not Harry Reid, not Chuck Schumer, not Nancy Pelosi, not Jack Murtha. Not a one of them! Not a one of them except for, forgive me if I sound like I'm blowing my own horn, one loud-mouthed Marine who'd just come back from fighting in Iraq, who was quoted on the front page of the New York Times, calling President Bush a chickenhawk, and telling the American people that it's a resounding failure what's going on. And then some months after that, Congressman Murtha had the temerity to stand up, without, may I add, the approval or Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer--

Eric: Right.

Paul: --and be critical of the Bush administration and its lack of strategy for success in Iraq. Well, here we are a year later--

Eric: 31% now! 31%.

Paul: Yeah, right. Let's be fair and honest here--I lost the vote in that congressional race, but I believe that we, that race, opened up the door on a national level for the Democratic leaders to start having that conversation and that debate. I actually believe that. And unfortunately, though, here we are a year later, and those leaders have not really moved on that debate. They're now kind of flummoxed--they don't know what to say, they don't know what to do. Some say get out, some say stay, Joe Lieberman says that it's a great thing that we're fighting terrorism in Iraq, Nancy Pelosi changes her opinion daily, I haven't heard much from Jack Murtha, I don't have a *clue* what Sherrod Brown believes in it. So, you know, it's a mess.

Well, you know, the only way that war is going to end, is by those who are sucking off the tit of the American government, the American government tit, to stand up, take a stand, and fight for it.

Eric: Yeah, and it's like the door was sort of cracked and the rest of the party wasn't able to bust it down and run right through it, and it's kind of disappointing.

Paul: I broke the door down! It's just, I was the first through the door, which I'm fine with--

Eric: (laughing) No followers!

Paul: Nobody's come in behind. Murtha did, but now he's ducked out.

Eric: Well, Paul, we gotta run, but I appreciate you taking the time to be on the Plunderbund podcast, and I really hope that we don't have to hit rock bottom, but if we do, I hope we're able to come back and I hope that you might be able to be a part of it at some point. And thank you for your inspiration.

Paul: I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk to your listeners.

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