Update Aug 02: bugger. Schmidt 52, Hackett 48. Either the public freely chose a lying corrupt shitweasel over an educated, charismatic family man and Marine Corps Iraq veteran, or the election was swiz. Either way, I'm severely bummed. You'd do better to listen to Julia:

...we'll have to console ourselves that a district which went 65% for Our Fearless Leader broke from three decades of yellow-dog voting to give 48 percent of the vote to a man who said that Our Fearless Leader is an idiot and a failure.

It cost the Republicans seven figures to achieve that result.

And they have to do it all over again in a year.

I suspect that cooperation with the White House on the right of the House just moved down a few notches on the To Do list.

The previous incumbent wouldn't have been named trade representative unless this was seen as the ultimate safe seat.

Guess not.

And the rest of them are less safe than that.

Update Aug 01: Hackett's campaign is asking for more money:

To Get Out the Vote, we need to raise $30,000 today. Here's why.

Last week, the netroots stepped up and delivered around $40K a day. The campaign gambled and put all of that on TV (the ads are great and a Democrat is leading the Republicans in gross points in every market in every medium!!!).

It worked, and now Independents are breaking rapidly our way. And Democrats in the district are so fired up that the far more than expected are signing up for GOTV.

This has drastically increased the cost of the GOTV mobilization. The enthusiasm over the weekend was more than expected and more was spend during the huge door-to-door effort. Now the campaign needs money for tomorrow to finish the job.

The cost breaks down to around $50 a precinct with 600 precincts. The netroots best friend, Matt from ActBlue, is flying in right now to coordinate moving the money.

But we need enough to finish the job.

Your investments have made Hackett a contender. Please give one more time so we can win this in the field.

I gave again, because I think this is a very important race. The seat in question has been a 70-30 GOP stronghold since approximately forever and the Republican in question is particularly vile. Per the excellent Malcolm Gladwell, I'm hoping this will be a tipping point. Please give. Seriously, even just a dollar -- don't think it's "not enough" or "not worth the time" -- the power of small donations from regular people is what grassroots is all about. (Hat-tips: Majikthise, Atrios, Seeing The Forest.)

Original entry:

With four days to go in the OH special election, this entry is late -- but better late than never. Terrance and Julia have all the details you need. Briefly, Paul Hackett is a returned Iraq veteran running for congress in a state that desperately needs an integrity infusion. Hackett looks like he might just provide one.

If Hackett loses he goes back to Iraq and another unprincipled greedy born-entitled asshole settles into a position of power.

Julia's exactly right when she says:

...a lot of us have been beating up on the powers that be for not fighting every race. Well, here's the thing. Right now, the Republicans are spending the best part of a million bucks to defend one of the safest seats in the country. The left ponied up, and because a very few activists made the statement that we're willing to fight, this has turned into a real race. That gave the DCCC the luxury of waiting until now, when last-minute dollars are going to make a much bigger splash, to chip in.

They can only afford what they can afford, and maybe the conventional wisdom is that dollars are better spent on "competitive" races.

What we need to do is let them know that when we get interested in a race, it becomes a competitive race.

Then we need to get interested in all the races.

Well, I'm interested in this one. If you can, please put your hand in your pocket. I'll leave this entry on top until after the election.

(For the record: I never ask readers to cough up unless I have done so myself. I won't usually say how much, because the amount is not the point. The point is to do what you can.)