Run Everywhere!!

OH-2 Past Election Results:
1998. 76% to 24% GOP
2000. 74% to 23% GOP
2002. 74% to 26% GOP
2004. 72% to 28% GOP
2005. 52% to 48% GOP

This race is making the case. Commentary from Daily Kos

With all precincts in, results appear to be Schimdt 52%, Hackett 48%. Turnout was apparently huge, over 110K, which was predicted to be disastrous for Hackett -- it wasn't.

Biggest winners here are the grassroots, and Dean's 50 state strategy. A 70% Republican district was turned into an edge-of-your-seat race -- I'd have liked to win the thing outright too, but realistically, these results are fantastic. Make them battle for every seat, in every state. Use our grassroots to bleed the Republican money machine.

This commentary from Off The Kuff:

So we got the "very serious warning" instead of the "devastating blow". No complaints here. Congratulations to Jean Schmidt on her hard-fought victory, and especially to Paul Hackett for his outstanding effort. I'm far from the first person to say this, but I so want to see Hackett run again next year. Cook again:

Special elections in 1993 and early 1994, for example, gave us a sneak preview of the storm clouds Democrats were headed for down the road.

In Kentucky's 2nd District, Republican Ron Lewis easily won a special election in May of 1994 to replace longtime popular Democrat Bill Natcher -- an early sign of the beating Democrats were going to take that November in southern districts across the country.

In Wisconsin, a special election in May of 1993 to replace popular Democratic Rep. Les Aspin -- who had been tapped by President Clinton to serve as secretary of Defense -- proved to be a political canary-in-a-coal-mine as well. Democrat Peter Barca beat Republican Mark Neumann by just 675 votes in a district that Aspin had easily carried for 23 years. Just a few months earlier, Aspin had crushed Neumann with 58 percent of the vote. In 1994, Neumann beat Barca by 1,120 votes.

These are good signs and hopefully if will only get better.