OH Sen: Will Hackett Run against DeWine?
Sources close to former members of the campaign team for Paul Hackett say the Democratic Iraqi war vet who narrowly lost an Ohio Congressional seat in a Republican district earlier this month may run for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Mike DeWine.
As a result of the nail-biter special election against Jean Schmidt, an evil sack of Republican bones, Hackett now has a much higher national profile than DeWine. Plus, because of the myriad, on-going GOP scandals, the wind is finally at the back of the Democrats in Ohio, as Kos aptly summarizes:
DeWine is the fourth most unpopular senator in the country, clocking in at an anemic 42 percent approval rating. Bush is at 37 percent. The Ohio Republican Party is mired in a high-profile sleaze scandal. Their Republican governor just got convicted. It’s a meltdown of Biblical proportions.
And Hackett almost won the state’s most Republican district. He runs, he’s the next Senator from the great state of Ohio. And how ironic that would be — the GOP will wish he had won that OH-02 seat.
Hackett also proved he can win in the money primary. He collected $442,248 from 8,716 individual contributors in the month of July.