Liberal Talk Radio

Paul Hackett has withdrawn his candidacy for the Ohio Senate. Good. I really like Hackett, and I certainly don’t want to get drawn into what sounded like a nasty intra-party squabble (er… “primary”) between Hackett and Rep. Sherrod Brown.

My big beef is with a disease I’ll call “Celebrity Candidate Inflation.” That is, the tendency for celebrity candidates to jump in and start from higher and higher rungs of the political ladder.

I think Hackett was an awesome candidate for Congress last year, and he should have tried again this year to win that seat. Especially after the woman who beat him, Jean Schmitt, embarrassed herself in Congress by calling Rep. Murtha a coward. But Hackett’s national attention swelled his head, and he decided he was too big for Congress, so he was going to run for U.S. Senate as his first elected office.

Call me old-fashioned, but I usually prefer career politicians in my legislature. Men and women who cut their teeth in the Statehouse or city council, learning the art of the deal and the rules of the game. (This doesn’t mean they have to be corrupt hacks. I consider Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders to be career politicians in the mode described.)

These days, the media circus of campaigning has made it fashionable for both parties to recruit outside the box. Time was, you’d have a guy like Sonny Bono or Clint Eastwood running for local office (Mayor, Representative, etc.). But now the celebrity point-of-entry has been inflated. From Schwarzenegger to Al Franken, the new baseline candidacy is state-wide office. I blame Jesse Ventura, honestly.

Couple of caveats: One, yes, I consider Paul Hackett to be a celebrity candidate, even though he’s never starred in a major motion picture. You could quibble with this, but that’s my opinion. Two, my “old-fashioned” line above refers to legislators, not executives. That is, I’m perfectly content to see a big-time business exec (like Mark Warner) or a four-star General (like Wes Clark) run for Governor or President, because in those jobs it’s the decision-making experience that matters most. For that reason, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that a big-time CEO with no political experience would make a more competent president than a seasoned legislator like, say, John Kerry. But that’s a whole other conversation.