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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2010 / Brown v Mandel (and Obama)

Brown v Mandel (and Obama)

by Kay|  October 11, 20121:04 pm| 25 Comments

This post is in: Election 2010, Election 2012, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

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Sherrod Brown is in good shape, despite the 20 million dollars in attack ads conservatives threw at him:

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, holds a double-digit lead in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released early Thursday.
Brown has 52 percent to GOP Treasurer Josh Mandel’s 41 percent in the survey, while 6 percent of voters remain undecided. Their previous poll, conducted in late Sept. and early Oct., had Brown at 50 percent to Mandel’s 41 percent.
A number of recent live-caller polls have showed Brown leading by double digits, though two GOP-leaning automated polls showed a closer race after last week’s presidential debate.
The poll also shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney 51 percent to 45 percent.

Brown’s opponent is Josh Mandel, the Ohio Treasurer. Mandel has had a rough go of it lately. He lied about an encounter he had with a “campaign tracker” in an elevator, which was problematic, because a reporter who was interviewing him was in the elevator and witnessed the whole thing:

The Republican nominee for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat, state Treasurer Josh Mandel, has reiterated claims that a tracker for a Democratic super PAC made “physical contact” with him during an exchange in an elevator last Friday.
Mandel, who is challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), told WTOV Channel 9 in Steubenville Wednesday night, that 24-year-old Tyler Hansen, a tracker for American Bridge 21st Century, made contact with him first in an incident where Mandel is seen grabbing Hansen’s camera. In a video of the incident captured by Hansen’s camerathen released on YouTube, Mandel is heard calling Hansen’s first name when the tracker enters the elevator. Mandel grabs the camera before Hansen asks him to stop, then makes small talk with Hansen and others in the elevator.
The encounter was witnessed by Joe Vardon, a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, and an unidentified woman on the elevator. Vardon has written accounts of it, saying that Mandel grabbed the camera without Hansen touching him.

He’s also had an absolutely disastrous series of newspaper editorial board interviews:

Josh Mandel has become a Saturday Night Live skit. Asked whether he would abandon statements deemed “pants on fire” by the respected Politifact column of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate has said he will not — without a trace of embarrassment, even telling reporters at one point that it is their job to “do the grunt work.”
Mandel trades in hyperbole, hurling such words as “ridiculous,” “outrageous,” “radical,” “over our dead bodies.” During a session with reporters and editors of the Columbus Dispatch last week, the state treasurer (for all of 20 months) labeled his opponent “un-American,” and Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, was sitting in the room. Will Ferrell would be hard pressed to play the part better. The dismaying thing is, Mandel is serious.

Brown has a big campaign. I was told early on that he would have an on-the-ground presence in 66 out of 88 counties, but he has an organizer in this county and this county is 60/40 Republican.

It’s my sense that Obama and Brown are a good fit at the top of the ticket. They have very dedicated (but somewhat different) groups of “base” supporters. Sherrod Brown is a favorite of labor, for example, and I think that will help both Brown and Obama everywhere in Ohio.

Brown and Mandel will debate on October 15th, and I will put a live-blog post up.

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Reader Interactions

25Comments

  1. 1.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    Man do I hate Mandel. I keep hoping I run into him after the election (if he still has his house in Lyndhurst he lives close to me) so I can tell him what a POS he is to his face.

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 11, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    I feel Josh Mandel’s pain.

    It’s almost as good as sex.

  3. 3.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    BTW someone I know’s business has a professional that they hire to do some work for their business who is an uberconservative and she tells me that even he hates Mandel.

  4. 4.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    Going to make it a point to watch that debate. I derive twisted pleasure from watching punk-ass chest-thumpers with subnormal intelligence make public jackasses of themselves.

    And I’m a BIG fan of Senator Brown’s.

  5. 5.

    Kay

    October 11, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    @shortstop:

    I think the whole thing is a victory over Unlimited Corporate Cash. 20 million dollars they invested in this clown.

    They have absolute contempt for us.

  6. 6.

    Another Halocene Human

    October 11, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    Hahahaa, check TP headlines. These stupid conservative goons at “GAI” can’t even read English syntax, never mind Norwegian. They used Google translate but their stupid asses don’t understand that “HAD I” means the opposite of “I HAVE”

    Hadde jeg i praksis
    Had I actually

    kunne gitt penger
    could give money

    til Obama
    to Obama

    I don’t even speak Norwegian and I looked “penger” up. GET A BRAIN, MORANS!

  7. 7.

    a.j.

    October 11, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    Kay as ever I love how much clear, factual information and great context you pack into your posts.

    Awesome.

  8. 8.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    October 11, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    @Kay: I agree that it is a victory over CU. Mandel is one of those smarmy liars who raises my blood pressure. He’s also a creep.

  9. 9.

    Joel

    October 11, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    Bee tee dubya, we’re at the nadir of Obama’s polling, as the aggregators (538 and PEC) have effectively dropped out Obama’s extremely strong pre-debate polls and are now beginning with his extremely weak post-debate polls. However, if you peruse the PEC comments sections (I hate the NYT comment system and don’t bother reading 538 comments) you’ll see that current polling indicates that Obama is going to bounce.

  10. 10.

    Joel

    October 11, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    Bee tee dubya, we’re at the nadir of Obama’s polling, as the aggregators (538 and PEC) have effectively dropped out Obama’s extremely strong pre-debate polls and are now beginning with his extremely weak post-debate polls. However, if you peruse the PEC comments sections (I hate the NYT comment system and don’t bother reading 538 comments) you’ll see that current polling indicates that Obama is going to bounce.

  11. 11.

    TooManyJens

    October 11, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    @Joel:

    you’ll see that current polling indicates that Obama is going to bounce.

    In horse racing parlance, to bounce is to have a poor performance after a series of strong ones. So you gave me a bit of a heart attack there.

  12. 12.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    October 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    @TooManyJens: My first thought as well, then I remembered it was election polling talk.

  13. 13.

    Joel

    October 11, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    @TooManyJens: Yeah, I’m a polling/numbers nerd. Sorry for the confusion.

  14. 14.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    @TooManyJens: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Tell us about your horse racing lives. That sounds interesting.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    October 11, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    I just think it’s so great.

    You know, Bella, Brown didn’t have great name recognition until conservatives decided to run a thousand ads a day screaming his name. I canvassed in the early summer and we ID’ed Brown supporters and it was alarming how many people didn’t know who he was.

  16. 16.

    Rita R.

    October 11, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    @Joel:

    Not surprised that polling shows Obama’s set to bounce back a bit. Someone wrote on one of the threads here yesterday that everything’s setting up for a backlash to the week of ridiculous, over-the-top, “Obama was the worst debater ever and lost the entire election” blather. That strikes me as on point — even those not paying too much attention had to begin to question whether thoughtful, serious Obama really turned into Doofus McGee overnight. I think even the media have begun to realize that they went overboard and that they became a driver of the story and public opinion rather than a reporter of it. (Or maybe that’s just my hope that a shred of journalistic integrity actually remains somewhere in the media Village.)

  17. 17.

    rikyrah

    October 11, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    Thank you for this, Kay. I look for your Ohio posts. I am sickened by the amount of money spent against Senator Brown.

  18. 18.

    artem1s

    October 11, 2012 at 3:10 pm

    I’m quite relieved that Brown seems to be weathering the storm OK. yes, he still needs funds and workers, can’t relax, of course!

    But it’s going to be very interesting to see if there is any buyers remorse with folks like the Koch’s after this election. Even if they get the candidates they are paying for, I don’t think that will necessarily pan out in terms of governance. The ‘makers’ often overestimate how much dictatorial power any single elected official actually gets.

  19. 19.

    hep kitty

    October 11, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    This guy is really the best all that Koch money can buy? He doesn’t even look old enough to shave. Pathetic. Putting him up against Brown is an insult to Brown and an FU to the people of Ohio.

  20. 20.

    Paula

    October 11, 2012 at 3:29 pm

    @Rita R.:

    Re Doofus McGee

    The payoff of being even-keeled and competent for almost your entire career in the political limelight is that people will give you the benefit of the doubt.

    The payoff being Mr. Bipartisan is that the soft-headed middle that you need to break tight contests like this actually believe you are fair-minded as opposed to everyone else being crazy for one side or another.

    I don’t know what will happen on Nov. 6, but the conciliatory Barack Obama many people hated over the years (myself included) is paying off dividends. (Of course, if you believe that the progressive utopia can only come if he gets booted out and we allow conservatives to run things for a few years, you may feel like this is not a good thing.)

  21. 21.

    Palli

    October 11, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    >http://www.plunderbund.com/2012/10/09/uaw-president-josh-mandels-comments-on-auto-rescue-like-out-of-a-cartoon/

    Watch the little squirt Josh Mandel on this video to get a good impression of him at his best worst.

  22. 22.

    Palli

    October 11, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    >http://www.plunderbund.com/2012/10/09/uaw-president-josh-mandels-comments-on-auto-rescue-like-out-of-a-cartoon/

    Watch the little squirt Josh Mandel on this video to get a good impression of him at his best worst.

  23. 23.

    RaflW

    October 11, 2012 at 4:53 pm

    Go, Brown, go!

    Go, Kay, go!

    Just have to cheerlead a bit. Ohio really should be a bright spot for Dems this year, and shows that the GOP bullshit really is starting to stink.

  24. 24.

    Waldo

    October 11, 2012 at 5:36 pm

    @hep kitty: Heh. Yeah, Mandel is the classic conserva-dweeb in the George Will/Ralph Reed mold. As bad as he looked in that ed board interview, he’s going to look even worse standing on the same stage as Brown. The boy wonder routine is not going to fly with blue collar voters.

  25. 25.

    James E. Powell

    October 11, 2012 at 5:49 pm

    I watched his interview with the Youngstown newspaper editors. Is he always like that? He was Nathan Thurm.

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