Anti-War Veteran

In an odd-numbered year, with the New York City mayor's race a snooze and the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races yet to heat up, political junkies focused their attention on the August 2 special election in the second district of Ohio.

A congressional seat opened up when Republican Rep. Rob Portman departed office to become U.S. trade representative under President Bush. Jean Schmidt won a crowded Republican primary, and the Democrats had what appeared to be a surprisingly strong candidate in Paul Hackett. A lawyer and reserve officer in the Marine Corps, Mr. Hackett spent seven months in Iraq in a civilian affairs job, including service around Ramadi and Fallujah.

Mr. Hackett's unique background as an Iraq veteran, coupled with the unique timing of the election, brought national press coverage of the race.The Cincinnati Post endorsed him, the first time in recent memory the paper endorsed a Democrat for the seat. Liberals across the country raised money for his campaign, recruited volunteers, and cheered him every step of the way.

Mr. Hackett's rise fit a beautiful storyline, if you're a Bush critic. A patriotic liberal opposed the war, did his duty and fought in it anyway, and when his service was completed, came back to defeat the president's party in a high-profile House race.

Problem? The facts just didn't fit this storyline. Mr. Hackett had a steep uphill climb in this district from day one. In the primary in June, Ms. Schmidt had 14,232 votes, winning a competitive primary in which more than 42,000 Republicans voted. In the Democratic primary, all six challengers together collected 13,798 votes. The Cook Political Report ranked the district as the 57th most Republican in America, out of 435.

Worse, the Democrat with the John Wayne resume kept blurting out Michael Moore rhetoric. Mr. Hackett shot off his mouth by calling Mr. Bush a "son of a b—" and declaring Mr. Bush to be a greater threat to America's national security than Osama bin Laden. He invoked his service in way that could come across as bullying, calling war supporters "chicken hawks" who should shut their mouths until they've gone over and served themselves. He made a last-minute appearance on Al Franken's radio talk show.

All of this came while Mr. Hackett's advertising was trying to win over Bush voters by featuring the president in its commercials. The ads began with Mr. Bush stating, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces." Then Mr. Hackett appeared, saying, "I agreed with that, and that's what led me to serve and fight with my Marines in Iraq."There was nothing in the ad indicating that Mr. Hackett was the Democratic candidate, or that he had any gripe with the president.

The ads were the right way for a Democrat to campaign in a district that has been in Republican hands for more than three decades; his off-the-cuff Bush-bashing wasn't. And on Election Day, he paid the price, losing 48% to 52%. To his credit, Mr. Hackett made the race a dogfight.

With the race surprisingly close in a Republican district, Democrats can pat themselves on the back and conclude they made it a lot closer than normal. Others wondered about other factors: In a post-election interview, MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Ms. Schmidt whether she would have won if the 20 Marines who were killed in Iraq had been killed a day earlier.

Instead of lamenting that American causalities in Iraq didn't occur on the Hackett campaign's timetable, Democratic strategists ought to study the calculus of whether rhetoric like "Bush is a bigger threat than Osama" benefits the party more by turning out its base, or hurts it by turning off swing voters and motivating the Republican base.

Here was a candidate with tested-under-fire military service that every voter could applaud, and he hits the campaign trail echoing the tone and style of Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and left-wing bloggers. What was he thinking?

Mr. Hackett's comments almost certainly inflamed a portion of the Republican base to go out and support the president. The lessons of this race aren't all that different from the hard lesson of John Kerry. It doesn't matter if the candidate is a decorated veteran who begins his convention speech with a cheesy, over-the-top salute and a pledge that he is "reporting for duty." If you run as an anti-war veteran, voters will respond to the anti-war label, not the veteran label.

If a Democrat is running in a "blue" state or district, calling the president a "son of a b—" or worse probably won't cost them the race. But if they're running in red territories, they've got to learn impulse control and not sound like somebody who posts to DemocraticUnderground.com. But then again, a lot of Democrats didn't seem to learn that lesson from their tough defeats in 2002 or 2004. It remains to be seen whether they learn anything from this first defeat of 2005.

Mr. Geraghty, a contributing editor to National Review, is writing a book about the war on terror's effect on American politics, due out in 2006.