Puttin’ Out the Bone

Could Paul Hackett do the impossible?

The 2nd Congressional District in Southern Ohio has what we call in politics a 30 percent D.P.I. (Democratic Performance Index). That means, regardless of the number of Democrats and Republicans registered in its counties — including half of Hamilton and running in a line as far east as Portsmouth — Democratic candidates there get on the average only about 30 percent. Which means political nuclear winter, if you campaign under the banner emblazoned with a donkey.

So could Democrat Paul Hackett, an Indian Hill attorney who owns a pile of guns and rides a cherry 1991 Harley Davidson with more chrome that a Manhattan skyscraper, win the congressional seat in the Aug. 2 special election?

Before we go out of our minds with the answer, look at the wild cards dropping on the political table: First, there are fewer Democrats coming out of Indian Hill than there are sane people appearing on the Jerry Springer television show. Second, how many Democratic candidates shoot skeet regularly and have a concealed-carry permit? Hackett does. And how many men with big questions about the war in Iraq would call the Marine Corps and volunteer to reactivate their commission to serve there?

Hackett did last year. And how many ride around with straight pipes on a motorcycle while not wearing a helmet? Again, Hackett.

But that’s what makes Hackett — the tall, articulate, tanned candidate — so effective on the stump, especially when that stump is big enough to include educated suburbanites, working class urbanites and rural people who’d rather go to the dentist than enter a big city.

His life experiences spread through the aforementioned, from working during college at carnivals, to going to preppy Seven Hills School, to leading a convoy of Marine vehicles across dirt roads in Iraq with a bomb explosion knocking his truck’s gunner temporarily out cold, to leaning his hog around a twisty back road in Ohio on a Sunday afternoon.

This is a definitely a Democrat with cultural reach.

In full disclosure, I should say that I’ve volunteered an idea or two to Hackett during this short campaign, which was caused by the departure of U.S. Rep. Rob Portman when he became the president’s trade ambassador. I rode with him recently when a bunch of us Harley riders raised money for Cincinnati Veterans Hospital.

Then again, Schmidt, his Republican opponent, has been a family friend of mine for 20 years. We’ve always enjoyed spirited political discussions but agree on virtually nothing. And I’m the first to say she’s the Vegas best bet to dance all the way to a Washington celebration for holding a seat that Republicans have controlled for years.

But Hackett’s populist appeal isn’t the only thing making some wonder if a stunning upset could happen. There’s also that Republican banner hanging over Schmidt’s head, a former Ohio legislator. While it once guaranteed victory, it’s become tattered in Ohio. Who in Ohio, other than his family, wants to stand next to Ohio Gov. Bob Taft?

Schmidt was with Taft when his messes were unfolding. For example, shouldn’t dominant-party state legislators like Schmidt have some oversight responsibilities when millions of dollars were being lost from the state’s workers compensation fund or jobs leaving for foreign lands or schools going unfunded? Some question why Schmidt is boasting experience in her campaign ads.

But here’s one fact her side is carefully guarding, knowing only about 10 percent of those registered will vote Tuesday: her extreme views. If voters from places like Mariemont, Anderson Township or Hyde Park knew fully what Schmidt believed, they might sit out the election or switch over for once to a Democrat, especially one like Hackett.

Here’s the backup. During the campaign Schmidt is on leave as president of the Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. Now, no one should begrudge her that commitment. It’s personal and religious. But does that commitment affect her political judgment and fitness? Second District voters must decide that.

But go to her group’s Web site, www.affirminglife.org/ index.asp, and click around through the many buttons and pages and you’ll learn she and her cohorts abhor living wills. Huh? Isn’t that the one lesson from the Republican exploitation of Terri Schiavo — that we should immediately get willed up? She says no.

Her local Right to Life site to this day says Schiavo was executed. And that you shouldn’t buy Levi jeans or anything Microsoft or Johnson & Johnson baby cream or read The New York Times. And they say no to the promise of embryonic stem cell research that could help our relatives and friends survive diseases and crippling paralysis.

Flat out, Schmidt is a political extremist. Of course, she thinks those fringe views put her in the 2nd District mainstream. I don’t think so, not with the suburban masses or even the man farming a rural field while his wife packs lunches for the kids waiting for their long school bus ride.

No doubt Schmidt will turn out her Right to Life friends on Tuesday. They believe their numbers will be enough for at least a victory.

But the more mainstream voters come to realize she’s a friend of Taft’s and the leader of such a fringe group, they might conclude she’s not Rob Portman, she’s not like them. And putting in a Democrat, especially one who still wears the Marine uniform and has economic success but with colorful, earthy edges, could be the more comfortable choice.

It all comes down to what people know, when they know it and whether they’ll care. We’ll soon know.

This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2005.