NEAR-VICTORY HAS A THOUSAND FATHERS

Democrats got the closest thing to a surprise electoral victory we've had in a while on Tuesday when Paul Hackett pulled over 48% in the most Republican district in Ohio. Understandably, spin machines on all sides have been in overdrive in the week since to claim vindication in the results. Case in point: Ed Kilgore's claim that Hackett made it to 48% because the unreconstructed liberals in the "netroots" were willing to face facts, eschew their litmus tests, and let Hackett run with the kind of centrism the DLC has been shopping around the country:

The best sign, IMO, is that all this excitement was generated on behalf of a candidate nicely tailored to a "red" district, whose policy views probably were at odds with those of a lot of the folks generating the excitement and the cash. And I gather the national groups and bloggers involved in Hackett's campaign let the candidate and his staff call all the important shots.

Reading Kilgore's take, you'd think Hackett was a regular Zell Miller - or at least a conservative Democrat, emphasis on the conservative, like Ken Salazar. It makes good copy if your organization is devoted to pulling the party away from the left: in a sudden fit of reasonableness, the liberal fringe recognizes reality and gets behind the centrist candidate who can win. Trouble is, Paul Hackett is no Ken Salazar. Don't take it from me - check out his website. He bucks the party on guns, but otherwise, he's in or to the left of the mainstream of the House Democrats. Not only is he resolutely opposed to Bush's social security privatization scheme, he takes the step most Americans support but too many Democrats are afraid to talk about: calling for an increase in the cap on the payroll tax (hear that suggested by the DLC recently? Didn't think so). He condemns outsourcing, and rather than echoing GOP rhetoric about "big government," he exposes it for the sham argument that it is. And on perhaps the signal issue of the campaign - the war in Iraq - he stands well to the left not only of the DLC of a significant chunk of the Democratic party in the House. If not for his being a veteran, one would expect the DLC to respond to his rhetoric opposing the decision to go to war with the usual hand-wringing about the party's flagging credibility on national security. Of course, if Paul Hackett hadn't been a veteran, it would have been a very different race. But if all Kilgore means is that liberals conceded to pragmatists by getting behind a veteran, then the obvious question is whhere he got the idea that liberals in their hearts of hearts would rather have men and women in Congress who've never served in war. Maybe by reading all those DLC memos about how the Democratic party has no credibility on national security. Bottom line is, if Paul Hackett had tanked, we'd be hearing from the conservative wing of the party about how his unreconstructed liberalism failed to resonate with mainstream voters. Making Hackett out to be an extreme left-winger would certainly be less of a leap for them than it was to make one out of John Kerry or Al Gore.