Wanted to bring you up to date on Sherrod Brown in Ohio. It’s heartening that they’re pouring Citizens Bucks into this election, and it keeps getting worse for Brown’s opponent, Josh Mandel:
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leads his Republican challenger state treasurer Josh Mandel by 16 points, 50 percent to 34 percent, in the latest Quinnipiac University poll out Wednesday morning. This the biggest Quinnipiac has given to Brown in months. In May, they showed Brown with just a six point lead; in March, the poll gave Brown a ten point lead. Mandel has the upper hand when it comes to money, with outside groups having already spend over $8 million attacking Brown
Eight million dollars, wholly devoted to attacking Sherrod Brown. Mandel has gotten a lot of negative press in Ohio, some of which has been pretty funny, like this:
The Mandel campaign declined multiple requests for interviews and failed to respond to written questions for this story. After a speech in Toledo on Thursday night, Mr. Mandel avoided a Blade reporter and rushed out of the building through a service entrance.
His running away there was related to whether or not one of his campaign donors used “conduits” to make donations to his campaign, which is illegal, but that’s just his most recent problem. There are others.
For example, he often doesn’t show up for work:
Senate candidate and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel showed up on Monday for his job running the Buckeye State’s Board of Deposit meeting for the first time in 15 months.
He made it in to work that one time. Just give him his bonus already, would you?
And the ads his wealthy backers are running are just chock-full of lies:
Meet Josh Mandel, the GOP challenger to Ohio Dem Senator Sherrod Brown. National right wing groups have spent huge money targeting him, and the race could be pivotal to Dem hopes of holding the Senate.
Mandel has been pilloried by Politifact for excessive lying about Brown, particularly with regard to his “pants on fire” claim that Brown is one of the politicians most responsible for Ohio jobs moving to China.
But in a confrontational interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mandel attacked Politifact as politically motived, insisted his claims are true, and went on to offer a remarkable response. Mandel said he was under no obligation to back up his own assertions, and confidently predicted he’d continue repeating them “again and again” with no repurcussions:
Consider his response in an interview last week when asked again to identify a single Ohio job that went to China because of a decisive vote by Brown.
“If that’s the level of specificity you’re looking for, you’re the reporters — you go do the grunt work,” said Mandel, who lives in Beachwood. “Any reporter who doesn’t believe Sherrod Brown is responsible for jobs going to China is simply out of touch.”
We are told constantly that the billionaires investing in buying these politicians are absolute geniuses, and we all should cower at the mere mention of their names. This investment seems to be underperforming.
We are having a local event for Senator Brown (and others) here on June 30th. The tickets are 20 dollars. It’s a picnic. If I manage to show up (which looks iffy right this second) I’ll take pictures.
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