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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 14, 2006 Hackett Drops Senate Bid Under PressureBy GreyhawkThis is a surprise: CINCINNATI -- Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, who gained popularity for his staunch criticism of President George W. Bush, has dropped out of the Democratic race for U.S. Senate in Ohio, according to a published report.The move prompted this statement from the political group Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's of America FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Excerpt Thus ends my 11 month political career. Although it is an overused political cliche, I really will be spending more time with my family, something I wasn’t able to do because my service to country in the political realm continued after my return from Iraq. Perhaps my wonderful wife Suzi said it best after we made this decision when she said “Honey, welcome home.” I really did marry up.A related must-read (from a fellow milblogger): Democrats typically use the case study of Paul Hackett (an Iraqi war veteran who narrowly lost a Congressional special election to Jean Schmidt) as evidence that their military candidates can win elections, but only time (specifically, about nine more months) will tell whether that's actually true or not. Helen Seliverstov, a political analyst for the web-based CalRaces blog, examines the seven "Band of Brothers 2006 PAC" California candidates running in the six Congressional races (including two-- Jim Brandt for the 46th and John Graham for the 48th-- in my native Orange County) and notes one strong trend: all are running in heavily Republican districts -- the average voter registration is 46% (R) to 31% (D), a fifteen-point average margin of advantage for their opponents. Seliverstov concludes:Maybe the "anti-Bush" rhetoric didn't poll well in Ohio. For whatever reason, sacking Hackett was not a particularly savvy move by the Dems.Not a single one of those districts is held by Democrats or has any chance of switching Parties due to the registration gap. This makes every one of these veterans look like sacrificial lamb candidates. I can understand this being a strategy of draining funds from Republicans, but that’s a funny way to respect those who have served their country. In California, if Democrats really wanted to have a veteran elected to office, there are plenty of safe Democrat Congressional seats that candidates could be recruited for. This is hypocrisy at its best. Posted by Greyhawk / February 14, 2006 5:25 PM | Permalink 5 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
General Lynch showed 2 maps last week, the first of ISF Owned Battlespace in Sept '05, the second of ISF Owned battlespace in Jan '06 with proections for Feb '06. The DNC can do it's math.
Supporting a Bush Bashing veteran, in a district they were going to lose anyway is one thing. Supporting a Bush Bashing veteran, for a Senate Seat, when the republican candidate is going to be standing in front of a map that will have the vast majority of Iraq highlighted in Green,that is another thing.(My guess is everywhere except AlAnbar and Salahadin)
In '92, Bush Sr had just won a war, Clinton nailed him on domestic issues. Outsourcing,jobs, health care, taxing the rich are "winning" issues for democrats.
Not such a surprise to me. Hackett was purely a backup choice for the Senate seat, once Sherrod Brown change his mind and decided to run for U.S. Senate the money was going to flow to him and not Hackett.
There was also some undercurrent as to whether Hackett had any sustainable name recognition for the voters in Northeast and Northwest Ohio.
With either Candidates the Democrats will have a hard time trying to defeat DeWine and his campaign chest.
It's criminal how the democrats use the emotionally disturbed (people like Hackett and Sheehan) for their purposes and then discard them when they can't get any more mileage out of them. Reminds me of the song lyric 'you used me until you used me up'.
Hmm... that happened faster than I thought.
Although not expected to win, he sure made for some nice window dressing.
Would be interesting to know what happened here. Hope it comes out.
I remember seeing one of these liberal veterans' groups on C-Span and I had a feeling I never have when I see veterans: I felt sorry for them. They probably believe their party will pull out all the stops for them. What I sensed at the time has been proven by the way the Democrats have discarded Hackett. The party is using veterans as an electoral gimmick. If all of these individuals were strong candidates in their own right, the party wouldn't have to clump them together as if to say, "See everyone, we like veterans, too."