For all your Freepers who are complianing that this race should have been this close because it's a 75-25 Republican disticnt, please keep in mind that every left wing group and the DNC threw everything at this race...and they still lost. Turn out on the Republica side was extremyl low which is par for the course for special elections.
Don't fret. Don't get complacent. Numnuts like Hackett should be dealt with early and quickly. The RNC waited too long to attack him. Our wonderful media treated him like a demi-god. Want to guess how many times Schmidt was invited on a national news program compared to Hackett?
Ofcourse the idiots on the left will gloat about how a guy who called the POTUS a SOB, came within 4% and I too wonder how and why. If this bastard runs again in 15 months, we take him out...politically speaking.
However, there are some warning signs for the GOP in this race. First of all, the Ohio GOP is still dominated by "moderates," including Governor Shaft, er Taft. Without a dynamic, conservative candidate for governor in 2006, thousands of Ohio Republicans will stay home on election day, and the party will pay the price. During my recent stay in the Buckeye State, the only candidate who seemed to energized the conservative base was the incumbent Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell. It was Blackwell who fought the libs over election issues last year, and he led the charge for the ballot measure that banned gay marriage in the state. Meanwhile, Shaft and his minions were running for the tall grass...
Don't worry too much about Hackett--he's done. Despite all that publicity, he still ran almost 5 points behind a very lackluster GOP candidate. With the advantages of incumbency, a heavily GOP district and sufficient ads on the Hackett "record," he'll lose by 7-10 points the next time around--if he bothers to run again.
The typical conditions met by Repub candidates. (As to why they RNC; does not jump in - both feet - faster; is a mystery to me)