Paul Hackett

As of January 2019 Hackett continues to serve in the United State Marine Corps Reserves. He is believed to be the oldest serving Marine to score a perfect score on the rigorous Marine Corps Physical Fitness Test and Combat Fitness Test.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the NRCC's counterpart, responded with commercials noting that Schmidt had voted to raise the sales tax by 20 percent and the excise tax on gasoline by 30 percent when she was in the legislature. A mailing to voters by the DCCC reiterated these statements under the headline "Who Voted for the Taft Sales Tax Increase—the Largest in Ohio History?" and asked "can we trust Jean Schmidt to protect middle-class families in Washington?"

On February 17, 2010, Hackett endorsed Surya Yalamanchili in the Democratic primary for the Second District of Ohio.

On April 9, 2009, Hackett, acting as defense counsel to Sgt. Ryan Weemer, USMC, obtained an acquittal on charges of murdering an insurgent in Fallujah on November 9, 2004, the Second Battle of Fallujah's first day. Weemer had contacted Hackett two years earlier after he had successfully represented other Marines charged with violations of the law of war in Haditha in November 2005. Hackett represented Weemer pro bono. When asked why, Hackett stated that "these Marines protected me when I was in Fallujah, it's the least I could do." The trial lasted two weeks after which the 8 member court martial deliberated for 8 hours and announced its decision acquitting Weemer of all charges and specifications, to unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty. Weemer's acquittal was awarded by the 8 member jury despite the government's introduction into evidence of Weemer's audio confession to the alleged violations of war. Despite the audio confession, the 8 member jury was persuaded by Hackett's argument and through his cross examination of NCIS Special Agent Fox that Weemer had been coerced into confessing to the charged offenses by his interrogators; namely NCIS Special Agent Fox.

"After you've been in combat and you survived it, you've got this real energized sense that, 'I can accomplish anything,' and you view your country differently" he said for The Athens Messenger in February 2008, during a time he was endorsing anti-war veteran candidates such as J. Ashwin Madia of Minnesota via VoteVets.org, which created anti-war candidacy ads on the Internet, opposite Iraq Vets for Congress.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee claimed in a press release Hackett's strong showing meant trouble for Senator DeWine's re-election campaign in 2006, especially since his son R. Patrick DeWine had lost the Republican primary for the seat. "If Ohio is a bellwether state for next year's midterm elections, things don't look too good for the Republicans", claimed the DSCC. Republicans said the election meant nothing of the sort. "There is no correlation between what happens in a special election, where turnout is very low and you have circumstances that just aren't comparable to an election that happens on an Election Day in an election year," Brian Nick of the National Republican Senatorial Committee told The Cincinnati Post.

Former President Bill Clinton recognized Hackett in an October 23, 2006, speech saying "I hope Paul Hackett sees that his courage to make people see the truth about our policy in Iraq, is now sweeping the nation."

On February 13, 2006, Hackett announced that he was withdrawing from the race and ending his political career. Hackett told The New York Times that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and New York Senator Chuck Schumer recently had asked him to withdraw. He further contends that Schumer sabotaged his fundraising efforts and actively worked against his campaign. Hackett said, "For me, this is a second betrayal...first, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me." On March 14, 2006, he appeared on an episode of The Daily Show on a segment which satirized the mainstream Democratic Party's criticism of Hackett.

One issue Hackett faced in his campaign is the status of his Marine Corps Reserve unit, which may deploy back to Iraq during the campaign. Hackett had said he expected to return to Iraq in 2006.

On May 30, 2006, Hackett filed a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Veterans Affairs over the compromise of personal information of 26.5 million veterans which may have fallen into the hands of a thief.

Hackett faced Republican nominee Jean Schmidt in the August 2, 2005, special election. Schmidt, a former schoolteacher described by The New York Times as "small, wiry, and intense, she exudes seriousness", had been a township trustee in northwestern Clermont County's populous Miami Township for eleven years before four years in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean sent out an e-mail appeal for Hackett which, combined with work by bloggers, helped raise over $475,000 in online contributions for Hackett, making him the first Democratic nominee in the Second District in years who could afford television advertisements. Hackett's ad began with a clip of President George W. Bush speaking to troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 28, 2005, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces." Hackett's commercial then noted his service in the Marine Corps. The Washington Post noted the commercial "avoids any hint that the lawyer is a Democrat." Republicans were displeased. The Republican National Committee's lawyers wrote him saying the commercial deceived the public with "the false impression the President has endorsed your candidacy." Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, told The Cincinnati Post the commercials were "a blatant effort to dupe voters."

Hackett on October 24, 2005, announced he would seek the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent United States Senator Mike DeWine after rejecting a second run against Schmidt. Sherrod Brown, a congressman from northern Ohio and two-term Ohio Secretary of State, had rejected efforts by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit him to the race in the summer of 2005 and had on August 17, publicly declared he would not run. But after Hackett's announcement, Brown changed his mind and declared he would run, angering Hackett who claimed Brown had promised him he would stay out of the race, a claim Brown denies.

Following the exit from the Senate race, Hackett declined to enter the race for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District against Jean Schmidt, because he promised the Democratic candidates in that race that he would not run. As a result a number of candidates threw their names into the race, and Hackett kept his promise. Therefore, on May 2, Victoria Wulsin (who came second to Hackett in the 2005 Democratic primary to fill the vacancy caused by Portman's resignation) won the Democratic primary to challenge Schmidt. On May 8, The Cincinnati Enquirer speculated on the possibility that Wulsin would drop out, and allow Hackett to run in her place. This scenario did not occur, so there was no rematch.

Hackett saw active duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1989 to 1992, and then joined the Select Marine Corps Reserve. In 2004, he volunteered for active duty in the Iraq War, spending seven months as a civil affairs officer with the 4th Civil Affairs Group of the 1st Marine Division. He was assigned to Ramadi and supported the Fallujah campaign and reconstruction efforts there. On October 21, 2004, a convoy under his command was hit by two roadside bombs, but Hackett was uninjured. He returned to Ohio in early 2005.

The district was a Republican one. In 2004, 64 percent of the vote in the presidential election went to George W. Bush. Rob Portman never got less than 70 percent of the vote in his campaigns, no Democrat had received more than 38 percent since Thomas A. Luken's narrow loss to Willis D. Gradison in 1974, and no Democrat had won the district in a regular general election since John J. Gilligan in 1964. (Luken held the seat in 1974 after winning a special election to replace William J. Keating, who resigned, but lost the November election for a full term.) Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report said the Second District was the fifty-seventh most Republican in America.

Hackett was highly critical of his opponent's record. On June 12, he went to Nicola's Ristorante on Sycamore Street in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to call attention to Schmidt and other members of the Ohio General Assembly having accepted dinner there and Cincinnati Bengals tickets from a lobbyist for pharmaceutical company Chiron, Richard B. Colby, on October 24, 2004 and failing to report the gifts on their financial disclosure statements. (The others were Representatives Jim Raussen of Springdale, Michelle G. Schneider of Madeira, and Diana M. Fessler of New Carlisle.) "What will she do in Washington when she's around real big money?" Hackett asked.

Schmidt made the Iraq War an issue in the race. She declared on WCET-TV's Forum that "9/11 was a wakeup call. We lost our innocence" and praised the Bush foreign policy. "The foundation of democracy that has been planted in Afghanistan and Iraq", she said, has inspired reforms in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Schmidt always appeared in public with a button in her lapel containing a photograph of Matt Maupin, the only prisoner of war of the Iraq campaign. Hackett did not mince words about Iraq or President Bush. He told The New York Times Bush was "a chicken hawk" for pursuing the war after having avoided military service in the Vietnam War. The Times also quoted him as saying Bush was "the greatest threat to America." Hackett in the West Union debate contrasted what President Bush had said in the 2000 presidential debates to current events. "Guess what folks? We're nation-building!"

Hackett is married to Suzanne (Suzi) C. Hackett. They have three children, Grace (born 1997), Seamus (born 2000), and Liam (born 2003). The family lives in Indian Hill, an affluent Cincinnati suburb, on a small farm along the Little Miami River built in 1802.

Hackett was elected to the city council of Milford, Ohio, a city in Clermont and Hamilton Counties, in 1995 to replace Chris Imbus, who was recalled from office by a vote of 410 to 86. In the recall election on May 2, he defeated businessman Jacques E. Smith by a vote of 388 to 81. On the Milford council, he opposed efforts to rezone a parcel of land in order to retain the Milford post office within the city limits. He resigned from the council in September 1998 to devote more time to his family and his law practice and was replaced on the council by James Gradolf. When Hackett purchased a home in Indian Hill in 2000, the purchase made The Cincinnati Enquirer's column of most expensive real-estate transactions in the area.

Hackett decided to run for Congress because "with all that this country has given me, I felt it wasn't right for me to be enjoying life in Indian Hill when Marines were fighting and dying in Iraq," he told The Cincinnati Post. Hackett told the Dayton Daily News his friend Mike Brautigam, who met him at the airport upon his return, had told him Rob Portman, congressman since 1993, was resigning to become United States Trade Representative and Hackett should run for his seat. Hackett decided to enter the race before reaching home.

He has a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and a J.D. from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. Hackett also attended American University in Washington, D.C., studying under the university's Washington Semester program in Journalism. Hackett was admitted to the Ohio bar on November 7, 1988, and practices law in downtown Cincinnati with the Hackett Law Office, which he opened in 1994. Additionally, Hackett was admitted to the Colorado bar on April 26, 2016.

Hackett criticized Jean Schmidt as a "rubber stamp" for Ohio Governor Bob Taft's "failed policies" and said she would continue in that role for George W. Bush if elected. At their debate at Chatfield College, he said "If you think America is on the right track and we need more of the same, I'm not your candidate" and asked "Are you better off today than you were five years ago?", echoing Ronald Reagan's question in his debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980. "Rubber stamp" was Hackett's catchphrase throughout the campaign. Hackett even appeared in front of the Hathaway Rubber Stamp store in downtown Cincinnati on July 27, to emphasize the point.

Hackett ultimately lost by a narrow margin, only 3.27 percent, the best showing of any Democrat in the district since 1974. These were the final certified numbers as reported on the Ohio Secretary of State's website.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Lewis Hackett III (born October 21, 1963) is a lawyer and veteran of the Iraq War who unsuccessfully sought election to the United States Congress from the Second District of Ohio in the August 2, 2005, special election. Hackett, a Democrat, narrowly lost to Republican Jean Schmidt, a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives, providing the best showing in the usually solidly Republican district by any Democrat since the 1974 election. Hackett's campaign attracted national attention and substantial expenditures by both parties. It was viewed by some observers as the first round of the 2006 elections. In October 2005, Hackett said he would seek the Democratic nomination in 2006 to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Mike DeWine; however, he dropped out of the race on February 14, 2006, and said that he would return to his law practice.