August 03, 2005

8/3: OH Well

Note: The Blogometer's SCOTUS Special will return tomorrow

Over the past 24 hours, the biggest topic of discussion in the political blogosphere has been the OH 02 special election to fill the House seat vacated by U.S. Trade Rep. Rob Portman. The race pitted ex-state legislator Jean Schmidt (R) vs. Iraq war vet Paul Hackett (D), in a district Pres. Bush won with 64% of the vote in '04. By many accounts, the politically active liberal blogs -- the netroots, as they call themselves -- helped push what might have been a sleepy summer race into a nailbiting preview of the '06 midterms. To wit, in the final days the DCCC and NRCC made a combined $465K worth of ad buys. A frequent refrain among liberal bloggers was, if they could win here, they could win anywhere. Although they didn't win, the race might have been close enough to put the nat'l Dems and GOP on notice.

Liberal blogs had been talking about Hackett's campaign for weeks, their interest fanned by his strong campaign, his war record, plus a few minor controversies surrounding Schmidt (see previous Blogometers). Until just this week, conservative blogs by and large ignored the race until just this week -- among other factors, Schmidt inspired no such interest. This morning, it's probably bigger than ever -- at press time, Hackett's name was the #3 search on all of Technorati.

Elsewhere in today's edition, Bush's comments on the teaching of Intelligent Design theory casuse a major stir among conservative bloggers, the death of a freelance journalist in Iraq elicits an outporing of comments, and more.

TRACKBACKS: To Live And Die In Iraq

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• U.S. freelance journalist Steven Vincent was shot dead in southern Iraq on 8/2. After the OH 02 race, this is the biggest thing out there.
  
  

  >> Vincent maintained a blog with the same name as his book, In The Red Zone. When we last checked, there had been no update (others had writing privileges) but the comment section of the most recent post was filling up with condolences. Vincent also freelanced occasionally for National Review Online; in a Corner Post, K.J. Lopez posts links to the 19 pieces he published there between 10/03 and 6/05. His final piece was posted to NRO just hours before his death. Vincent had an op-ed in the New York Times which may have angered the militias in the area where he reported.
  

  >> Apparently the first blogger to pick up on the initial AP report was Fayrouz Hancock, author of Iraqi in America: "Steve Vincent, our man from Basra, has been shot to death in Basra. ... I'm shaking while writing this update. When I received my friend's e-mail yesterday, I had a bad feeling that something will happen to Vincent." Aussie Arthur Chrenkoff, who knew Vincent, writes: "Steve had a successful and rewarding career as an art critic in New York. Then came September 11, and his life would never be the same again. ... Too old to enlist (his only military experience, driving a cab in NYC, he says), too freelance to hope to accompany the troops, Steve made the decision to see Iraq away from the front lines: 'I sought to embed myself in the Iraqi society.'" Chrenkoff closes: "Insha'allah. But in the meantime, I hope they'll get the bastards."
  

  >> More reactions from: Power Line; Lorie Byrd; Bloggledygook; Tapscott's Copy Desk; Michael Yon; Daily Inklings; Kesher Talk; Little Green Footballs; Publius Pundit; Michelle Malkin; Captain's Quarters; Unqualified Offerings.

OH 02: A Troubling Victory, An Encouraging Loss

With 753 of 753 precincts reporting, Schmidt defeated Hackett by a total of 59,132 votes to 55,151, or 51.74% to 48.25. Hackett was an initial longshot; the final tally was closer than many expected.

Liberal blogs Swing State Project, MyDD and Daily Kos all followed the race very closely. SSP was so overloaded with traffic that it went down for a few hours; Ohio 2nd blog exceeded its bandwidth and is still down. In the final days, SSP's Bob Brigham and Tim Tagaris blogged from OH 02, and their frequent posts from last p.m. tell the story best. Their final post of the evening -- still the top post this a.m. -- reads: "OH-02: C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-I-0-N"

In light of the close results, liberal Wampum lists 13 House GOPers who narrowly won in '04, including Jim Gerlach (PA), Chris Shays (CT), David Dreier (CA) and House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay, adding: "I think it's time to review these races, as well as the 40 or so next closest races." More: [T]his is no time to play shrinking violet." MyDD's Jerome Armstrong argues that Hackett's next move should not be to recontest OH 02, but to run statewide.

At a page on its website, the Cincinnati Enquirer kept track of blog commentary throughout the p.m. Readers of NRO's Buzz column write in to report that humidity forced hand ballot counts; the machines wouldn't work.

As Schmidt's victory finally became clear late in the p.m., Brigham wrote at SSP: "I'm hearing the "F" word from a whole lot of people. Lots of rumors of potential fraud, lots of sketchy stuff..." Meanwhile, Right Wing News delves into the message boards at Democratic Underground, and concludes that the left is "just going claim every race they lose is fixed." Conservative Captain's Quarters only half-jokingly titles a post: "Let The Lawsuits Begin." Liberal Josh Marshall takes a different tack: "The key was that Schmidt's home turf was late reporting. This is a solid Republican district, though. And Hackett made them really work for it."

The Al Franken Show blog, Daily Kos and others respond to a column by National Journal's Charlie Cook, reproduced in a diary Daily Kos. Wrote Cook: "A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong." Markos Moulitsas comments: "So the state GOP avoids a 'devastating blow,' but only by the hair on their chinny chin chin. ... It's a new day for the Democratic Party, one in which no Republican district is safe." Tagaris at SSP, on Cook's column: "Talk about lowering the bar for Ohio's Republican Party. ... Anything within 10" in a CD that Bush won in WH'08 by 50+ points "shows the ship has already sunk" for the OH GOP. Cook and Tagaris debated methodology at MyDD.

Under the header "Kossacks Are Now 0-16," RedState's Erick Erickson lists several factors why the race was less competitive than it seemed: "Schmidt lost a lot of grassroots support early on"; "Even Club For Growth wouldn't back Schmidt"; "Hackett had to run ads that made him look supportive of the President"; "Hackett had a compelling biography being a marine and Iraq veteran. That's what distinguished this election and it still didn't work for the left." RedState's Mike Krempasky is somewhat more generous: "The only really significant things about this race are 1) online donations for Hackett have been extraordinary -- somewhere north of 400K in short order, and 2) the absolute 'bleh' that Schmidt inspires in her voters."

For more reactions, see: PSoTD; Nathan Newman; Irregular Times; Politburo Diktat; Drudge Retort; The Public Square; NDN Blog; Right Wing Nut House; No Silence Here; Daly Thoughts; Approximately Perfect; Whiskey Bar; The Left Coaster; Simply Appalling; Social Concern; Chris Geidner.

PULPIT POLITICS: Present At The Creation

Yesterday reporters asked Pres. Bush about whether Intelligent Design theory (ID) should be taught in schools. His response -- "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." -- causes a firestorm on the right, where his defenders are very few. Instapundit has a worthwhile round-up. Crooks and Liars has a short round-up of comments from the left, which are predictably disapproving.

Right-leaning Balloon Juice: "My days of defending this President are over. To have the leader of the country, the leader of the party, and the person who proclaims that he wants to be known as the 'education president' to state, even casually, that he thinks intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution is lunacy of the first order. ... Intelligent design is creationism. It may not be quite as audaciously stupid as the nonsense peddled by the 'young earth' crowd, but it is creationism."

Using his "best Scalia-type textualism," Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein takes a contrarian stand: "[W]hat the president said is unproblematic and, on its face, at least, eminently reasonable." If present, he would have asked Bush "if he was indeed advocating the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes specifically, and if so, how --and to what degree ... I would further follow-up and ask those on the right who have been so quick to howl over this vague news item if they support the teaching of the 'origins of life' in science classes."

More comment from: Don Surber; Ambient Irony; Garfield Ridge; Politburo Diktat.

ROVE-PLAME-MILLER: Because We're Not About To Call It "Treasongate" Or "Nadagate"

Conservative Tom Maguire tries to figure out, "what game is Ms. Miller playing at? ... [S]ince she is choosing to stay in jail, does this mean that she must be acting in noble defense of a journalistic principle? Maybe. Or maybe there is a book deal to consider, or maybe she and the Times figure that the embarrassment factor of disclosing that their reporter outed Ms. Plame to Libby is too ghastly to endure. But being in jail can't be fun, either. And if she was really protecting a source, I think she could get out, and battle Fitzgerald another day. Which leaves me circling around -- what principle, or person, is she protecting?"

Re: Arianna Huffington's Miller reporting (see 8/1 Blogometer), liberal TAPPED's Matt Yglesias observes that for the left, Miller should be a bigger "get" than Rove: "If you were trying to think of someone more loathed on the left than Rove, especially the media-obsessed bloggy portion of the left, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a better candidate than Miller. What's more, you can at least have a certain admiration and respect for Rove; he's only doing his job. Miller, on the other hand, has just been doing, well, Rove's job, for quite some time now. Last but not least, if Rove landed in jail, he'd just be replaced by someone equally awful, while it seems plausible that The New York Times wouldn't actually feel the need to hire a new Ahmed Chalabi sock puppet."

Mickey Kaus isn't much impressed with Anne Kornblut's 8/2 New York Times report (see 8/2 Blogometer): "It makes an incremental contribution on the teeny-tiny question of whether to read much evidentiary value into Novak's use of Plame's maiden name. In other words, it's a blog item!"

MIDTERMS '06: Does Hilleary Have A Motor In The Back Of His Honda?

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, on the "turncoat" Dems who supported CAFTA: [T]he problem with the defectors is not so much that they allowed CAFTA to pass. It's not that noxious a bill..." However, Dem unity "would have forced Tom DeLay to put the screws to a dozen more of his people than he otherwise had to, and would have forced some GOPers in "weak districts to vote for CAFTA whether they liked it or not," which would have made them "would have been more vulnerable in 2006."

Conservative Blogging for Bryant cites a release from the camp of '02 GOV nominee/'06 SEN candidate Van Hilleary (R-TN) "challenging anti-war activist/actress/workout guru Jane Fonda to a debate. ... I don't know whose idea this debate was, but it's just plain embarrassing. Who's next on the list? Alec Baldwin? Barbara Streisand? Challenging a celebrity who has never held a public office to a debate is beneath Van Hilleary and it's beneath the office he's seeking."

Objectivist Simply I comments on TN SEN Dem candidate Rosalind Kurita's blog ads imploring readers to "Replace this Republican Doctor..." -- Frist -- "...with this Democratic Nurse" -- Kurita: "This is a masterful Internet campaign and as a trial for Tennessee politicians, I hope it pays off for her so more politicians will be encouraged to take the chance on blogs. When you think of the visceral hatred of much of the left right now and their desire to lash out at Frist, I doubt Kurita will have any trouble fundraising this quarter."

Crooks and Liars posts vide of Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) new TV ad combating recent the NRSC ads against him.

BLOGS VS. THE FEC: A Noble Thought

RedState's Krempasky -- who testified before the FEC in June -- hears that "John McCain has circulated" the name of "regulator extraordinaire"/CRP pres. Larry Noble to fill the seat of outgoing FEC commish Brad Smith. Krempasky: "This would be like replacing Paul Tagliabue with Bud Selig -- Obi Wan with Palpatine -- and the list goes on. He simply believes -- quite radically -- that you can regulate all the bad, all the hurt, all the meanness out of politics -- leaving only warm and fuzzy townhall meetings -- probably paid for at taxpayer expense."

AIR AMERICA: Terrified Of Flight

According to radio talker Hugh Hewitt, his producer spent the afternoon "dialing for directors" of Air America, and "reached a couple, both of whom declined to appear on the program. One told us that all calls were being directed towards the Rubenstein Public Relations Firm. Hmmm. I wonder who's paying for that? We were also told that bloggers are calling and calling. Heh."

2 new (non-blog) columns from syndie columnist Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey at the Daily Standard keep the pressure up on Air America; both note that the MSM (the New York Times in particular) and liberal activists have ignored the story entirely.

MISCELLANY: Picture Pages

• At his personal blog, Technorati founder/CEO David Sifry writes about the growth of the blogosphere, based on statistics from Technorati. Among several observations, he notes, "posting volume has more than doubled in the 7 months from the beginning of January 2005 to the end of July 2005." He also posts a graph of posts per day since early '04, with markers pointing out what each spike represents -- from the "Dean Scream" to the 7/7 London attacks. In a previous post, he reported that a new blog is created at the rate of 1 per second. A 3rd installment should be along later today.
• Liberal hawk Michael Totten objects to lefty prof Juan Cole's derision of the war on terrorism as consisting of "guys in a gym in Leeds," and posts a series of photos showing what the war means to him. Without acknowledging Totten, Cole posts a series of photos of his own. At Reason's Hit and Run, Michael Young summarizes the exchange.
• Conservative Lyflines calls attention to a DNC release using the results of Bush's physical to criticize him, and comments: "The President gets checked out, he's in good health, everyone moves on, right? Wrong. Everything -- EVERYTHING -- is apparently a partisan issue now."
• At the Huffington Post, Dem strategist Dan Carol writes an open letter to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY): "[Y]ou're getting it from left and right, and this squeeze is only going to get tighter and tighter. I want you to understand at the deepest level that you won't get out of this pickle by continually trying to re-position yourself along the traditional left-right political axis. ... The new strategic axis to think about, if you have to pick a single, two-dimensional theory of this game, is 'Change v Status Quo.'" In WH'92, the James Carville mantra "change v. more of the same" was "right underneath 'it's the economy, stupid.' And now it's number one."
• Right-leaning San Diego Union-Tribune designer Matthew Hoy offers an obit for Vincent, and one also for Los Angeles Times media critic David Shaw, who was "disdainful of bloggers" but also a "also a "talented and honest journalist."
• The Newcastle News Journal reports that a "coalition of national public-interest groups" including Public Citizen, the EFF and ACLU have joined a "legal effort to shield the identity" of a blogger "who posted allegedly defamatory statements" about Smyrna, DE councilor Patrick Cahill.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Lost In Space

Philadelphia Daily News' Attytood quotes from Bush's phone call to the Discovery astronauts: "And, obviously, as you prepare to come back, a lot of Americans will be praying for a safe return." And comments: "Bush's patter carried the same creepy implied 'will they make it home?' vibe that to our ear, has marked virtually all of the coverage of the troubled mission. ... For once, President Bush spoke the truth -- we are praying for their safe return. And we pray that this really is the last shuttle flight for a while."

LEST WE FORGET: Dressed To Blog

IMAO contributor Laurence Simon: "As a public service announcement to all IMAO readers, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that this weekend is the Texas Sales Tax Holiday ... Included in the list of tax-free items are: Pajamas, Robes, Underclothes, and Shorts. According to various angry denizens of the MSM who have found themselves on the wrong side of the Blogosphere's ire, I guess that's pretty much everything a blogger needs. So come on down to Texas this weekend and load up on your blogwear sales tax-free! One word of warning: just don't murder anyone while you're here. We got plenty of needles to go around, and the Governor turns his phone off after ten."

NOTES AND ERRATA

In the 7/26 Blogometer, we erroneously described OH 02 blogger Eric Minmayer as an adviser to Schmidt. In fact, he was her primary opponent and later an independent critic of Hackett.

Posted by at August 3, 2005 12:25 PM