OH Senate - Dems thinking small

Rolling Stone political writer Tim Dickinson accuses the entire Democratic Party establishment of not being ready for prime time. He laments the pressure on Fightin' Dem Paul Hackett to drop out of the race for senate and instead go for a rematch against Mean Jean Schmidt.

The thinking, he writes, is that only Hackett can take out Schmidt in her traditionally Republican district, leaving Sherrod Brown to go up against GOP scandal-ized Mike DeWine.

But this is exactly the kind of tepid politics that will relegate the Democrats to permanent minority status in Congress. The party has in Hackett the Barack Obama of 2006 -- an infinitely marketable rising star. And Hackett's biggest upside is that his unimpeachable patriotism helps inoculate the entire party against charges of being pussies on national security issues, and his leadership might even help the party craft a coherent stance on the Iraq war.

The Democrats have an opportunity to hold Hackett up on a national stage as the new, red-state-friendly, populist face of the party. But the powers that be are trying to shunt him back to a local race that will be nothing more than a side-show come November.

Imagine if the party establishment were a producer evaluating the talent of George Clooney back in his ER days. Instead of recognizing his breakout potential and giving him a shot at the silver screen, they're encouraging him to re-up for reruns as the best little pediatrician on television.

I have noticed the same small thinking here in Louisiana. One of the first public statements by our new Democratic Party Chairman was to declare the need to prove to Republicans that we share their party's values. This, in a state where the failure of Republican party values is almost tangible. You can see it floating in the air. Heck, you can taste it in the air. It tastes like chemical plant emissions.

At the behest of the business lobby, which promised higher wages and better working conditions, Louisiana state government eviscerated the labor unions. Decades after the passage of "right-to-work" legislation, Louisiana endures one of the nation's lowest standards of living. Public education is, in many respects, a joke. Health care continues to climb out of reach of working families. The GOP-led federal government continues to play games with us in regards to the Katrina recovery.

In the 7th Congressional District in Lafayette, Charles Boustany became the first Republican representative in history. At a public forum just a few months ago one of his constituents asked Boustany if he would support an increase in the minimum wage. This GOP hack declared that, not only would he oppose an increase, but that he would vote to abolish the federal minimum wage at the earliest opportunity.

All this, and the state Democratic Party can't think of anything to say to voters except, "we have values, too." And, unlike Ohio, we don't even have a breakout Democratic star like Paul Hackett. Heck, we might not even scrape anybody up to run against Abramoff-connected Charles Boustany. Lean times.