Fighting Dems? Hell yeah!

Stolen directly from Atrios...

A bit of background. Paul Hackett is a former Marine and Iraq veteran who came within a hair of beating Republican Jean Schmidt in a very heavily Republican district in Ohio. Schmidt then went on to distinguish herself on the floor of the house by reading a letter which suggested that 30 year Marine veteran Rep. Jack Murtha was a coward for merely suggesting that there should be a plan for eventual phased withdrawal from Iraq. Schmidt immediately had to apologize and ask that her remarks be taken down.

Being Tough

One of the obvious contradictions in our contemporary discussion of Democrats is that the scribes who obsess the most about needing to be seen as "tough" are the ones who generally tell Democrats to run away from every fight. I have no position on the Brown/Hackett race in Ohio but this is refreshing:

"That’s low politics, punk!" a heavy-set man sneers as he marches toward the poll.
Hackett wheels around. "Pardon me?"
"You know, that radio ad that says, ‘You don’t know Schmidt.’" He’s talking about one of Hackett’s attack ads against Republican Jean Schmidt. The man spews a stream of epithets, and Hackett lets out a crybaby whimper: "Waaaaaaa!"
"What’s that, punk?" the big man growls.

A TV crew is setting up nearby, but Hackett doesn’t seem to care. "What’s your fuckin’ problem?” the candidate snaps. “You got something to say to me? Bring it on!” Hackett, all 6 feet 2 inches of him, is nose to nose with the heckler. "Problem?" he taunts. The man turns around and storms away.

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An interesting side article about how liberal bloggers fueled Hackett's rise and near victory is found here.