Charlie Cook gives Hackett another look

I was a tad frustrated by Charlie Cook's fence-sitting on the Hackett election before it actually happened. Now he's written a new column on the election with some encouraging news for Democrats.

There are at least a hundred different interpretations
of last week's fascinating special election in Ohio's 2nd
Congressional District, where former Republican state Rep.
Jean Schmidt just barely held onto this overwhelmingly
Republican district -- the second safest GOP district in the
state and the 57th most Republican district in the country--
with 51.7 percent of the vote. Yet anyway you slice it,
the reality is that this special election holds some serious
warning signals for Republicans, especially those living in Ohio.
. . .

But while all of these factors contributed greatly to the
surprisingly close outcome, it is clear that there is deeper
significance to this race than some Republicans admit. There
are those close to the White House who remain dismissive of
the election's overall significance, but to ignore the warning
signals this race has given off is to tempt the gods. Just as
odd-year gubernatorial races often (though not always)
foreshadow subsequent national results, special elections can
be a harbinger for what the upcoming national election will hold.

Republicans nationwide might take note that a message of "don't
send someone to Congress who will be a rubber stamp for President
Bush" resonated surprisingly well in a very GOP district. Plus,
whatever sentiment for change that may be out there in the country,
it is magnified at least 100 times in Ohio.

Gotta love that. He definitely notes the GOP's curt dismissal of the election, which amounted to little more than "We won. End of story." The thing is, they were forced to spend millions to hang onto a district that hasn't voted Democrat in decades-- unappealing GOP candidate or not. Thanks to Shallow Larynx for passing on Cook's column.