Nasty Little Man

In which party do you wish to register? No affiliation

I cringed when Bob Casey, Jr. supported the Alito nomination.

I grumbled when the national Democrats failed to adequately educate the public about why the Alito nomination should be opposed.

I blew a gasket when Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Diane Feinstein caved on the Patriot Act.

Now I'm leaving the Democratic Party after national party leaders threw populist candidate Paul Hackett under the bus in his Senate bid in Ohio.

In an eerie twist, literally 10 minutes before I heard the news I was at the post office for the purpose of picking up a voter registration card to change to "no affiliation". This wasn't for emotional reasons. It was simply to get back to my roots since I was an independent for most of the 1990s and only switched to Dem in 2001 when we lived in Harrisburg city, where the Dem primary is, essentially, the general election for mayor.

Now the party has given me a greater reason for saying adios.

In sum, the word is that national and Ohio party leaders pressured Hackett to withdraw in order to avoid a primary fight. Making matters worse, reportedly Rep. Harry Waxman, who is usually a champion on progressive issues, was telling donors not to donate to Hackett's campaign because Rep. Sherrod Brown was the chosen candidate of the party elite. And the topper was the report that members of the Brown campaign were telling county chairs that Hackett committed war crimes while in Iraq. In other words, Hackett got swift-boated.

Former Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche once told misbehaving Bengals fans, "You're not in Cleveland. You're in Cincinnati." I'll paraphrase that message to the Democrats: You're not Republicans. You're Democrats. So stop acting like Republicans.

By all accounts, Brown is a damn good candidate for Senate and has a great shot at knocking out Mike DeWine. Plus, Hackett was nowhere near a perfect candidate. He didn't have a full grasp of the issues, which became clear in a January 22 column by Joe Klein of Time magazine:

Hackett had only a vague familiarity with most of the other issues. He was stumped by illegal immigration and came up with a crude prescription: "Send 'em back if we can afford it."

But if Hackett is really clueless, that would have played itself out over the course of the primary.

Besides, Hackett gave the Dems two things they are lacking- cover on national security and a guy who knows how to talk to people who go to barbeques, not cocktail parties.

The Klein column should have been a clue that something was amiss. Klein is a pal of the Democratic Leadership Council and the author of Primary Colors, the book about Bill Clinton's campaign. Just two weeks before the Hackett column, Klein waxed poetic on the wonderful NSA 3-way calling program. In that column, Klein cited faulty poll information about the "absolutely necessary" Patriot Act and predicted public support for the domestic spying, even though AP released a poll the previous day showing otherwise. He's a columnist only the mainstream media could love.

I was a volunteer for the Democrats in 2004, and after the election, I told them that I would be back in 2006. Like a good politician, I'm going back on my word. I'll still vote Democrat but only because the Republicans suck.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 9:20 PM