AP: Mayor’s Wrong Statement About Senate Candidate Fuels Speculation

By David Hammer

An incorrect news release fed speculation Monday about Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett’s political future.

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory sent a statement to news media praising Hackett, a fellow Democrat, for leaving his campaign for U.S. Senate to instead take a second shot at a Cincinnati-area House seat that he nearly won last summer.

Mallory meant to send a release encouraging Hackett to take on GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt, his spokesman Dan Phenicie said.

“We apparently got some misinformation,” he said.

National Democrats on Sunday openly asked Hackett to run in the House race instead of facing Rep. Sherrod Brown for a chance to take on GOP Sen. Mike DeWine.

Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who is backing Hackett in the Senate primary but would prefer that he switch to the House race, said he received a call from Mallory, who was upset his spokesman put out the wrong statement.

Moments after the incorrect statement was distributed to media, Phenicie e-mailed a corrected news release. The original release said: “I applaud Paul Hackett for making the difficult decision to step out of the race for U.S. Senate and step into the race for the 2nd Congressional District. The corrected release read: “I encourage Paul Hackett to make the difficult decision …”

Hackett’s spokesman, Karl Frisch, has declined to comment about Democrats’ requests for him to leave the Senate race.

Hackett captured Democrats’ attention last summer by blasting President Bush’s war policies, raising huge sums on the Internet and capturing 48 percent of the vote in one of the country’s most conservative districts.

February 13, 2006 | Filed Under Hackett, News Mentions 

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.