OH-2, omen or anomaly?

GratisNet: "The results are in for the special election in the second congressional district in Ohio. This district is in southern Ohio and includes Cincinnati, it is also one of the most republican of districts in the state.

This is a district that voted overwhelmingly republican in 2004, scoring a 72%-38% win for the GOP candidate. Yesterday Paul Hackett, democrat, was defeated by 4,000 votes (out of some 114,000 cast, double the expected turnout) by Jean Schmidt a state legislator. this represented a 51%-48% margin.

What makes this interesting and, in my view, significant is that Hackett, a Major in the Marine Reserves, served in Iraq and made it a point of criticizing Bush and his non-existant Iraq policy and non-support for the troops. To be sure there was an attempted drive by sliming by a swiftboat liars clone group but in the end his message got through to the people.

Schmidt has her own baggage in that she has been linked to the burgeoning Coingate scandal in Columbus. While it is likely that most republicans held their collective noses and voted for her, the possibility of voting irregularities cannot be discounted especially since the vote tallies from her home county were delayed long after all other counties had made their tallies known. One could almost envision the late Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago looking on with envy at how republicans have refined his vote counting techniques.

In any event, the possiblility remains that this could be a harbinger of 2006 and when one considers that Hackett's showing was due more to his strategy of attacking with facts and a grass roots response that gathered in more donations than the vaunted republican money machine, than it was to what little support he recieved from the party, it is a very good possibility.

Omen of things to come (if democrats learn from it) or anomaly? Take your pick. I think omen but still, removing the ES&S machines and other computer voting systems remains an important goal."