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20 Reasons Why Jean Schmidt Should Have Lost (But STILL Didn't)
BizzyBlog ^ | August 3, 2005 | Tom Blumer

Posted on 08/03/2005 12:04:39 AM PDT by bizzyblog

Her party and so-called friends:
1. Schmidt's primary opponents, with rare exception, gave her lukewarm backing. Bob McEwen high-tailed it back to Virginia, Pat DeWine disappeared (okay, maybe that's just as well), and Tom Brinkman was invisible. I'm guessing a bit here--That disinterest by the primary losers extended to their folks on the ground, and is one reason why the national GOP had to shore things up in the final days.
2. The evangelicals (Dobson, Perkins, Wildmon, et al) who unethically supported Bob McEwen's parachute candidacy, even though there was little difference on their key "values" issues among the various primary candidates, disappeared on June 15th, even though Paul Hackett is about as opposed to them on these issues as any Democrat can be.
3. A semi-influential anti-tax group spent a fair chunk of change telling voters to stay home. (Question: How would you justify yourselves to people in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq who have risked their very lives for the precious right to vote in the past year or so?)
4. The national GOP was late, and almost too late, in responding to the national Democratic challenge, and the nationally influential center-right blogs were almost entirely AWOL.

The sorry state of Ohio:

(Excerpt) Read more at bizzyblog.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: democrat; hackett; jeanschmidt; ohio; republican; schmidt
Very few of the 20 things noted above will be working against her fifteen short months from now. I especially cannot imagine that Jean Schmidt will allow herself to make the same campaigning mistakes twice. Of course, there is something in the way before November 2006 comes along. I'll cover that and a few other matters in another post.
1 posted on 08/03/2005 12:04:42 AM PDT by bizzyblog
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To: bizzyblog

I like this about her on her website:


100% pro-life. Opposed to abortion and the policies which fail to recognize the importance of protecting all life from conception to natural death.


2 posted on 08/03/2005 1:35:14 PM PDT by eleni121 ('Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!' (Julian the Apostate))
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To: eleni121

You'll notice that one of the reasons she almost lost was that she choked at one of the debates and said she isn't 100% prolife--a very weak moment that I still can't explain, though I wasn't actually there (but she DID say it).


3 posted on 08/03/2005 6:59:55 PM PDT by bizzyblog
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To: bizzyblog

I agree with you for the most part. Bob Novak was on C-SPAN yesterday at a Q&A session in D.C. and an Ohioan asked about that race. Novak did say that Schmidt was not a good candidate and ran a poor campaign.
I thought there were three big things.
One was COAST (and to a lesser extent the other primary opponents) not going to bat for Schmidt in the general. I thought that hurt her. I don't know to what extent Brinkman was or was not involved in it, but by being affiliated with the group in the past, I suspect a good number of Republicans are not happy with him.
Second, the state of the Ohio GOP hurt Schmidt. I wonder what would have happened if Hackett had not talked about the war stuff and just focused on Taft, Householder, etc.
Third, I think this race should teach anyone a lesson. Even in a solid district like that, you can't underestimate your competition. I think some people thought it was in the bag after the primary. It was a mistake. Fortunately, Schmidt won. It's something for Republicans to learn from.


4 posted on 08/04/2005 7:34:49 PM PDT by Columbus Dawg (Go Bucks!)
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To: bizzyblog

I'm afraid the same issues that dogged Schmidt now will still be around in 2006, if not even more magnified. The Taft/Householder scandals have hardly hit their peak. I think voters will be more angry with Taft in 2006 than they are now, as more about his scandals comes to light.

Householder and his team will be indicted before then. This will hurt Schmidt more than the Taft scandals. She's extremely close to Team Householder. I heard she's even the godmother to Brett Buerek's child. (Brett is a prime target of federal corruption probe.) When these two guys get indicted, Schmidt will have an even bigger target painted on her than she does now.

We need to take out Schmidt in the 2006 primary so that Hackett can't ride the Taft/Householder corruption to the final 4% of the vote he needs. Just replace her with *any* clean, anti-tax conservative. I don't care if it's a "name" like Tom Brinkman or a no-name like Jeff Morgan or Steve Austin. Clean conservative = Republican hold.

Nominate Schmidt again, and we just might blow that final 4%. And if she doesn't blow it, we're stuck with a compulsive taxaholic anyways. I don't want either of these tax-hiking crooks as my congressman. Just give us a clean conservative.


5 posted on 08/04/2005 9:03:52 PM PDT by conservative_2001 (Defeat Jean Schmidt and Paul Hackett in 2006!)
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To: Columbus Dawg

Brinkman has stepped back from COAST since being elected in 2000. I can tell you for sure that Brinkman does not call the shots at COAST anymore.

And before anyone thinks that I'm from COAST, I'll say that while I agreed with COAST's conclusions, that neither Schmidt nor Hackett deserved our support, I do not agree with the idea of boycotting elections. Voting is our duty, one that some people risk dying to undertake. In fact, we've lost some 2000 soldiers in just the past 3 years so that Afghanistan and Iraq could vote.

I did not vote for Schmidt. I didn't vote for Hackett either. But I sure wasn't going to fail to vote.


6 posted on 08/04/2005 9:08:50 PM PDT by conservative_2001 (Defeat Jean Schmidt and Paul Hackett in 2006!)
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To: conservative_2001

I've got bad news for you that I don't necessarily think is bad news for OH-02. I anticipate that Bush and Rove will back Jean Schmidt in the 2006. In fact I would be surprised if they didn't.

I also think that now that she is out of the Taft-driven mess in Columbus, she will move much closer to being an economic conservative than she was in Columbus.

Statewide, Ken Blackwell needs to win, win big, and clean House.

Hackett has been busy the past couple of days trashing any future chance he might have in the district. Maybe he thinks it's a way for him to move to the national stage (doubtful) In a couple of interviews, he's crossed into moonbat land, not backing off the SOB and chicken hawk remarks, and claiming that the Iraq situation is creating a lot of soldier-Democrats. Uh-huh.


7 posted on 08/05/2005 1:44:49 AM PDT by bizzyblog
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To: conservative_2001

I blogged on the idea that if COAST was honest it would have conducted a write-in campaign. As it is, I don't think they proved anything in this primary.

Brinkman did not as far as I can tell PUBLICLY distance himself from COAST; he did so privately in a few instances. That IMO doesn't cut it, and I believe he has hurt himself for a primary run, which is just as well because as I noted before, with Bush-Rove behind Schmidt, she's a cinch unless she really messes up in Washington (doubtful).


8 posted on 08/05/2005 1:48:02 AM PDT by bizzyblog
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To: conservative_2001

Thanks for the info on COAST. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Schmidt can recover from all the tax stuff if she doesn't make the mistakes in Washington. I agree with you, the Householder stuff is the most troubling for her. I don't think the Taft stuff will be a problem for her.
I have a bad feeling the Householder stuff could be worse than all this Taft-Noe-Hicks-Rare Coins stuff.


9 posted on 08/05/2005 4:54:42 PM PDT by Columbus Dawg (Go Bucks!)
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