That's EXACTLY what I call progress.

The Ohio 2nd Congressional District has voted heavily Republican in the recent past:

1994 Rob Portman (R) 77%
1996 Rob Portman (R) 76%
1998 Rob Portman (R) 76%
2000 Rob Portman (R) 74%
2002 Rob Portman (R) 74%
2004 Rob Portman (R) 72%

These results could be primarily due to a personally very popular candidate instead of an ideological preference so let's look at previous results:

1992 Willis Gradison (R) 70%
1990 Willis Gradison (R) 64%
1988 Willis Gradison (R) 72%
1986 Willis Gradison (R) 71%
1984 Willis Gradison (R) 69%
1982 Willis Gradison (R) 63% (4 way race)

I'd say that a 52-48 defeat was a remarkable

achievement in this heavily Republican district. (oops!)

Ok, so with the combined force of every Dem in the country and the Republicans coasting, he came within 4 points.... WOW impressive.

I guess Ohio is really getting tired of the culture of corruption around the Republican machine. An interesting point is that Hackett won the rural areas.

Despite his apparent moonbat ramblings from time to time, this Hackett person ran as anything but a Democrat, or a liberal, and in fact, mentioned neither affiliation in his commerials or flyers. His campaign was essentially, "I served in Iraq", which while noble, much like with Sen. Kerry, is not sufficient to send somebody to office.

So, let us see ... local veteran returns home from the war, decides to run for office, runs ads supporting President Bush though Hackett says he opposes the policies ... essentially runs to the right of the Republican, and still loses.

Tough to be a Dem, or a stealth Dem, like Hackett.

Only the liberals like Dirk the Turd could try to turn a loss into some kind of moral victory.

How long will it take for the accusations of voter fraud and demands for a recount to start? They already have!

Updates (Chirs):

The reason the 91 precints have not reported in Clermont County has to do with problems with the voting machines there. They are being counted by hand. Stay tuned. Gather everything you can about voting "irregularities" in the district. Be ready to use the f-word, and I'm not talking about "fuck."

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/8/2/22186/93438

And:
Re: Local Info (none / 0)

coming to concede? Nonsense, Hackett should request a full-recount!

by NeoLiberal on Tue Aug 2nd, 2005 at 10:36:36 PM EDT

The left has become such a joke that it's no longer funny. Just sad.

The best part was when the results were slow coming in towards the latter part of the night and it looked a bit closer than it ended up. The DUmmies were going crazy declaring victory.

After a slight delay and the final results were announced -- the silence was deafening, until they started saying things like Steve J.

Schmidt was a crappy candidate who did not motivate the conservative voter base and it seems like a lot of RINO's stayed home too.

Hackett still lost. During a normal election cycle he will get crushed in OH-02.

MESABLUE - "Hackett still lost. During a normal election cycle he will get crushed in OH-02."

Coin-gate isn't over and Fitzgerald isn't finished into his search for the traitor(s) who leaked Plame's CIA identity.

I think it's downhill in OH for the GOP.

Compared to the accurate election data provided by poster Steve J., I assume Paul finds no significance in the fact that Schmidt's">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_el_ge/election_rdp;_ylt=AjpWJVHzdtJNdm74KTMlIqGyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl">Schmidt's 4% percent margin was a mere 3500 votes out of 112,000 cast? And, if the huge turnout was in support of her candidacy, it only confirmed Hackett as a viable threat.

This is not another Gallup Poll the Right can dismiss, these are Republicans confirming what they've said all along.

Actually, Steve, it's very likely he *is* pretty much finished with the Wilson thing. Two reasons:

(1) I've actually BEEN covert, and I can tell you, no one who has been driving to Langley daily for the last seven years is covert. The "yes, she works for CIA, but we'd prefer you didn't print that" answer is what CIA gives when someone wants to verify employment for a janitor.

(2) the probability that Judy Miller and the NY Times are spending this amount of money, or even one night in jail, to protect Karl Rove and Scotter Libby is infinitestimal.

I just have to ask, but I'm not sure I want to know the answer, isn't Dick Tuck the maneuver a tranny does right before he pulls up his panty hose?

Way to go Dems, Libs, Progressives,etc, etc.
You're claiming victory in Ohio when you have yet to complete your vote count from 2004 ?
Am I missing something?
Who's your next "stealth" candidate.
"I was against Bush, before I was for Bush" needs to stock with hand grenades. At least they will produce some kind of a result "when they come close".
Keep coming close and conservatives will continue allowing you to claim victory.
Deal?

Wait for the next stage of Ohio monbattery... Some liberal will actually claim that losing the election was actually better for democrats than having won.

Some [goofy] coloredfella said:

>Paul finds no significance in the fact that Schmidt's 4% percent margin was a mere 3500 votes out of 112,000 cast?

Yup, that's what my calculator says.

It could also be 400 votes per 10,000 or 4 votes per 100. That's how you define 4%.

You are correct, I find absolutely no significance in the fact you figured out how to say the same thing 2 different ways.

Oh the tortured logic!

110,000 voted this time in a close race vs. 300,000 who voted in landslide in November.
Overhyped summer tripe.
Dems p.o. Iraqi vet thing reminds boomers of Vietnam. Don't go there. We vote

I'm not sold on the after-the-fact justification for ignoring the race, Wiz. The national conservative blogosphere failed to jump on the fraud of a guy kissing George Bush's behind on TV and calling him and SOB and "chicken hawk" in personal appearances, and he almost pulled it off.

It's not like we locals didn't try to get your attention. In fact, we were right on the edge of being PITAs, to no avail.

If a couple of thousand people had changed their minds, we'd be saying "Congressman Hackett" today. That's way too close for my liking, regardless of my only-above-average enthusiasm for Schmidt.

I realize it was pre-blog, but nobody was worried when a dirtbag governor from a small Southern state rose to become the Dem nominee until it was way too late.

Tom Blumer
BizzyBlog.com

Tom,

It got enough notice that Rush talked about it and several blogs did touch on it, but not with the crazy fervor of the left. The lefties smelled blood and gave it their best shot -- and lost.

Kudos to you and the others who covered this. I followed your updates all night.

110,000 voted this time in a close race vs. 300,000 who voted in landslide in November.
Overhyped summer tripe.

The Right has no soundbites of Dems predicting or expecting a Hackett victory, which greatly weakens your dismissive analysis.

In">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Results,_U.S._Representative_from_Ohio,_2nd_District">In the off cycle 2000 election, Portman won with 139,000 votes. So, what explains such a low turnout in this heavily GOP district just 9 months after Bush's victory mandate?

'thatcoloredfella',

The reason for the low turn out is simple; there were no other elections of local interest on the ballot. No school tax levies, no township trustees or city councils, no county commissioners. It was two piss poor candidates fighting over Rob Portman's table scraps. The only people who voted were the hard-core Pols who had nothing better to do on a Tuesday in August.

Now it makes sense that most people outside the Ohio 2nd Congressional may not know much about the ballot, but why do I keep seeing people on the internet attribute a low turnout to "nothing else of interest" on the ballot, explicitly school levies?

All three area school levies successful

Overall there were 59 school tax issues on the ballot in Ohio.