Swing State Ohio

I initially wrote about this event here before attending.

I arrived at the new Butler County Democratic Party headquarters just before 7:00 Thursday night. When I got out of my car the first thing I saw was a smiling Paul Hackett walking toward the door. I quickly introduced myself and told Paul that it was good to see him out. He responded by saying that "it is good to be seen."

When I got into the new office (pretty nice BTW), I was disappointed by the turnout. At that point there were only 25-30 people there. Fortunately by about 7:15 another 20+ had shown up. The disappointment that stuck with me was related to the fact that I was one of the only people under the age of 35 in attendance. It would be nice to see more youthful enthusiasm for a Democratic event, especially one in which Paul Hackett was scheduled to speak.

The event finally got underway at about 7:30. BCDP Chair Dan Gattermeyer hosted the event, and began with some quick announcements. He then proceeded to introduce the first speaker, State Rep. Catherine Barrett. Barrett had a good message overall, mostly about supporting Strickland, but I wasn't really impressed with her charisma or presentation style.

Next up was Paul Hackett. Rather than standing behind the podium to address the crowd as Dan and Catherine had done, Paul chose to stand in the middle of the room so he could "move around a bit and make sure everyone heard him." Paul began by explaining that he was asked to speak at the event the day prior by Attorney General candidate Marc Dann. There was some confusion over this at the Buckeye State Blog but it seemed pretty clear to me. There was no implication that Paul was endorsing Dann, he was merely there to replace him as a keynote speaker at the event.

Paul's speech was passionate and well-prepared. He emphasized the importance of Ohio by saying that "the eyes of the nation are on Ohio in 2006." He further drove this point home by explaining that "if Ohio doesn't come through in 2006 and 2008 we will be written off for a long time." His message was mainly about the importance of supporting statewide democratic candidates such as Ted Strickland. Throughout the 15 minutes or so that he spoke, he refrained from mentioning or alluding to Sherrod Brown. The highlight for me came when Paul was talking about framing "limited government" as a democratic value. He explained that by limited government he meant that he wanted the government to stay "out of my bedroom, out of my gun safe, and out of my wife's doctor's office." At this point the crowd exploded into applause and shouts of approval. Paul then joked that he had to remind himself that he was not running for office and said "I actually believe this stuff."

After Hackett was done I quietly slipped out the back door and drove home, glad that I decided to attend.