Via Reuters: Republican wins tight Ohio House race

Republicans narrowly held on to a vacant U.S. House of Representatives seat in Ohio on Tuesday, defeating a Democratic Iraq war veteran who had hammered away at President Bush and his Iraq policy.

In the closely watched race, heavily favored Republican Jean Schmidt, 53, won by a 3 percent margin over personal injury lawyer Paul Hackett, who recently spent seven months as a Marine civil affairs officer in hot spots like Ramadi and Fallujah.

The special election to replace Rob Portman, who resigned to become U.S. trade representative after easily winning six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the heavily Republican 2nd District, tightened on what became in part a referendum on U.S. policy in Iraq, political observers said.

Interesting, although I think the idea that a special election in one congressional district tells us anything about the general politics of the entire country is both trite and overblown.

As much as reporters and pundits would like to extrapolate great messages from such a contest, it really only tells us about the district in question.

If the big revelation is supposedly that we have discovered that the Iraq war is controversial, I have a very Professorial Response: “Well, duh!”

And it certainly sounds like a campaign rife with soaring rhetoric:

In his concession speech, Hackett made a veiled reference to his criticisms of Bush: “Chickens are a very interesting bird, not to be confused with birds of prey.” He earlier had called Bush, who had a noncombat role in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, a “chicken hawk S.O.B.”

“I meant it, I said it and I stand by it,” Hackett said.

And yes, I understand that part of the argument about this being a “bellwether” for 2024 is that it was a heavily Republican district, and so a strong showing by a Democrat might be significant. There are several problems with that theory. First, this was a special election, that likely had low turnout.; second, the Democrat in question is a Marine just back from Iraq, and was in general an attractive candidate; and third open seat elections are always more competitive than races with an incumbent running.

As such, one would expect a result that might not be typical for the district, given the circumstances.