Hackett

Go get ’em:

[T]he lanky, blond, 43-year-old Marine has taken up position outside the polling place in Loveland, a burg on the outskirts of Cincinnati, flashing his toothy smile for the early risers. Hackett is dressed smartly in a blue shirt and striped pastel tie. His khaki pants hang loosely from his wiry, 180-pound frame.

“That’s low politics, punk!” a heavy-set man sneers as he marches toward the poll.

Hackett wheels around. “Pardon me?”

“You know, that radio ad that says, ‘You don’t know Schmidt.’” He’s talking about one of Hackett’s attack ads against Republican Jean Schmidt. The man spews a stream of epithets, and Hackett lets out a crybaby whimper: “Waaaaaaa!”

“What’s that, punk?” the big man growls.

A TV crew is setting up nearby, but Hackett doesn’t seem to care. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?” the candidate snaps. “You got something to say to me? Bring it on!” Hackett, all 6 feet 2 inches of him, is nose to nose with the heckler. “Problem?” he taunts. The man turns around and storms away.

“These guys in the Republican Party adopted this tough-guy language,” Hackett tells me, still steamed, an hour later. “They’re bullies. They’re offended when somebody takes a swing back at them.”

You know, from what I’ve seen of Sherrod Brown’s and Paul’s Hackett’s platforms and politics, I think Ohio will be lucky to have either one of them, so I don’t feel like I need to pick a horse in that race. But this kind of stand-up-and-fight attitude is exactly what progressives need. As Atrios, who gets the hat tip, notes, “The point isn't that every politician needs to be Paul Hackett, the point is that you get points for being tough and standing up for yourself and what you believe in by, you know, being tough and standing up for what you believe in.” Indeed.