Ohio Republican Senate Candidate's In-Laws Take Out Ad Against Him!

Ping! Ping! Ping! Image from source.

My brother is going to be tickled by this one. Of all the races beyond the presidential one, the Sherrod Brown/Josh Mendel fight is what gets to my brother. Brown is very popular with liberals, and has honestly seemed to care for his constituency. Mandel--by all accounts I've heard--(and I'm from Ohio) is a twerpy weasel. Apparently some in his family think so too. And I find it particularly ironic that a guy who blows up my gaydar is openly, brazenly homophobic. Ah, irony.

[Excerpt]

Josh Mandel's In-Laws Call Him Out on Anti-Gay Stance in Newspaper Ad

What does it say about the character of a candidate when he can't even garner the support of his own relatives? This is a question that many Ohioans should be left to ponder, as it has been revealed that Mandel's own family does not support his anti-gay views. In an advertisement taken out in the Cleveland Jewish News, Mandel's wife's cousins published an open letter in which they publicly lambasted him for his stance on same-sex marriages, gays and lesbians serving in the military, and general anti-inclusive beliefs. . .

Read more at: The Cleveland Leader

Sen. Sherrod Brown Debates Twerp in Ohio

Is that a snarky headline? Sorry, just watch the clip below, and I think you'll see what I mean. If you thought that Paul Ryan looked a bit immature and outmatched next to Joe Biden, you haven't seen anything yet. Sherrod Brown has become something of a celebrity among freshman Senators, often making himself available for interviews, and coming across quite knowledgeable. He does so in the clip from Thursday's debate with twerpy challenger Josh Mandel.

You might wonder why I care, blogging as I do from Las Vegas. Part of it is that I've been impressed with Brown when I've seen him on television. Part of it is that I was born and raised in Ohio, and have seen far too many embarrassing politicians elected there (Jean Schmidt, John Boner Boehner, John Kasich, and apparently Mandel), or aspiring to be (Joe the Plumber, Mandel again). Plus, the clip is from The Columbus Dispatch, which was my first regular, paying job (newspaper boy), and is a decidedly conservative source, so you know this isn't some lefty, liberal, moonbat hatchet job.*

* I am not one of the conspiracy theorists who believe that the entire media is biased (except for FOX "News", naturally), it's just that I know many conservatives are.

Sherrod Brown Clashes with Challenger in Ohio

Image from source, Cleveland.com

In an earlier post, I commented on the super PAC activities blanketing our airwaves with attack ads, and specifically one of the contests in Ohio. I grew up in Columbus, and still have family there. What I'm hearing is that well-liked Senator Sherrod Brown is just getting buried in ads from groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, even though his challenger is kind of twerpy and allegedly quite the liar.

Fortunately, Brown is not new to politics, and he's not going down without a fight. But will a fight be enough? Can Brown beat a 5-to-1 ad blitz? If the other side has a lousy product to sell, will all the advertising in the world be able to sell it anyway? Given Ohio's recent political behavior--some good, some really frightening--I guess it could go either way.

[Excerpt]

Josh Mandel, Sherrod Brown spar at meeting for Plain Dealer endorsement

In their first Northeast Ohio face-off, U.S. Senate candidates Sherrod Brown and Josh Mandel ripped into each other, questioning each other's truthfulness during an endorsement interview Friday at The Plain Dealer offices. . .

Read more at: Cleveland.com

Karl Rove's Big, Sleazy Comeback

Image from Crooks & Liars

Back in the waning days of the Bush administration (not coincidentally, in the early days of this blog), I was eagerly anticipating the "frog march" of Karl Rove, in shackles, into a jail cell. It was a delicious, delirious fantasy of mine back then. I will cop to having had a fairly strong case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, but will also insist that I had a good, honest case of it. This wasn't a day-after-the-election affliction, I gave W's crew time, especially after September 11, 2001.

But that ended some time after the Iraq War started, and then over the ensuing, torturous months and years, from torture to the outing of Valerie Plame. The Bush administration was an odd amalgamation of evil, incompetence, ego, swagger, bullshit and lies. All smothered in a film of greasy sleaze. His name was Karl Rove. While you could point your finger at Lee Atwater or maybe even Newt Gingrich for the poisoning of our political process, Rove is the one who cranked the dial on the alternate reality machine to 11, with lots of help from Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, and others.

Sometimes, I still dream about it. Though I don't think
he was ever this svelte. Image from Crooks & Liars.

No lie was too big, no falsehood too elaborate. Rove and crew would say something clearly and on the record, and then deny having said it. They'd pretty much tell you to pay no attention to your lying eyes, and listen to them. They knew the truth. And you know what happened. The administration is so despised, they had little role in either the 2008 or the 2012 Republican National Conventions, nor much in the actual campaigns.

Except for Rove. His twin entities, CrossroadsGPS and American Crossroads are superfunders of candidates all over the country, from lowly, back-bench Congressional candidates to powerful, well-known Senators, and of course the presidential race. Rove--seldom depicted by anyone other than arch conservatives as absolute pond scum--has made himself over as a king maker.  The man George W. Bush referred to as "Turd Blossom" is waggling his piggishness right under our noses, playing a huge part in the electoral process (both with straight advocacy ads, and bullshit "issues" ads*), while appearing on FOX "News" as a paid political consultant, as though he's just commenting upon the proceedings.

Rove's big target in Nevada,
Shelley Berkley. Image from Wiki

If you live in a battleground state, or simply one that has a Congress or Senate seat prime for the picking, you've been seeing Crossroads ads. Here in Nevada, Shelley Berkley, a long-term Congresswoman, is running for John Ensign's old seat. After Ensign resigned in disgrace, Congressman Dean Heller--who now has the distinction of voting for the "Ryan Plan" to voucherize Medicare twice--was appointed to the Senate, and is thus the incumbent. Heller hasn't been a very distinguished Congressman in either house, as far as I can tell. Berkley on the other hand, is a Nevada institution, beloved by her constituency, even treated kindly on right-wing talk radio.
 
Until now. Now, she's apparently just awful. Or you'd think so, if you ever watch television or listen to radio. We are deluged with anti-Berkley ads with vague charges of impropriety, nearly all from outside groups, chiefly Rove's Crossroads GPS. They air nearly as frequently as the anti-Obama ads. Which means, they really, really want to retain Heller's seat, and they're gambling (ha!) that we'll forget about Ensign and of course, Heller's voting record. What's in it for Rove? Apparently, big bucks. It's sure not reputation, except with the Republican establishment, I guess.

Back in Ohio, my home state, one of the main targets it Sherrod Brown, a well-liked and outspoken Democratic Senator. Only, in Ohio, Brown is an incumbent, so he needed a challenger. By all accounts I've heard, the guy they got to run against him--Josh Mandel--is kind of a twerp. And a lying one at that. From the sounds of it, he's kind of like the Paul Ryan speech at the RNC, but all the time. Dishonesty, however, is not a disqualifier for public office in the Republican Party. Especially this year. And it is certainly not a disqualifier for support from Rove's big-money groups.

Josh Mendel, left, challenging Sherrod Brown.
Image from Cleveland.com

Which is a long way to go to say that this political season, all is not as it seems. Political ads have always been down and dirty, but now they are not only more numerous, they are much shadier. Rove's aren't the only groups out there doing this. But like his, a lot of them aren't beholden to anybody, or at least no one we know about. In some cases we don't know who is funding the groups, and in some cases may be of foreign extraction. How would we know? All I ask is that if you hear some horrible, terrible no good "facts" about a candidate, and it's a group like Rove's doing the alleging? Either tune it out, or do your homework, find out if it's just a turd blossom.


*Note: "Issue Advocacy" ads are the smelliest of the bullshit ads. They're the ones that allegedly do not advocate for any specific candidate, but only for an issue. This skirts some legal technicality somewhere, and it's part of the reason why Rove has two groups. In this type of ad, you can still play ominous music, can still talk about a candidate, but you have to couch it in terms like "Call President Obama. Tell him to support drilling in the gulf. . ." or some nonsense, but it's technically not an anti- Obama ad. Both sides do it, true, but guess who's got the pocketbook.