Strickland-Portman poll: Early, yes. But...

Plunderbund is reporting that a new Quinnipiac Ohio poll gives former Democratic
Gov. Ted Strickland a comfortable 48-39 percent lead over  Republican Sen. Rob Portman in the 2016 race.  Remembering that early polls can be as fickle as April weather, it is still  interesting that Portman, once the rising GOP star and budget advisor to George W. Bush, is bringing up the rear. Among independents, Strickland leads 50-32!

Although the Cincinnatian spent a lot of time in 2012 tagging along with Mitt Romney in casual togs in the so-called Swing State, he didn't get the nod for veep -  but as these things go, he did draw the attention of  the Columbus Dispatch as  potential (along with Gov. Kasich) presidential  material.

Trouble is, the several newspapers enamored of Portman's blurry self-described "common sense conservatism"  weren't able to project him beyond his current job.   My hunch is that with the exception of the party apparatchiks looking to fill a seat on the dais,  few folks in northern Ohio can pick him out of a crowd.

Youngstown Vindicator offers words to Mandel

Today's recommended viewing of another Josh Mandel gem:

It's the film clip of Mandel's interview by the Youngstown Vindicator that is posted on-line by Daily Kos.    During a testy discussion of the auto bailout, which Mandel opposes, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate snapped at the paper's editorialists, "Please, sir, don't put words in my mouth." To which the editor replied:  "Somebody's gotta put words in your mouth because all you do is talk in circles."

It's also newsworthy that when a conservative newspaper like the Cincinnati Enquirer endorses  a liberal Democrat like U.S.Sen. Sherrod Brown over Mandel, the enthusaism for Mandel's candidacy continues to take a beating -  if ever there were any enthusiasm in the first place other than the right-wing high rollers who have put nearly $20 million into the Whiz Kid's campaign.

With pants on fire, Mandel cries "Liar"

How do you  define insolence, chutzpah, impudence, effrontery, audacity et al?  The defining moment for Josh Mandel, the Republican senate candidate,  arrived in Columbus Thursday night when he called Sen. Sherrod Brown, his Democratic debate opponent, a "liar".

He said WHAT?  

Given Josh's well-deserved fact-checked reputation of being the GOP's Liar-in-Chief in this Ohio race, wouldn't you think that the Whiz Kid would sort of avoid the liar thing in his assault on Brown?  (He's  burned more pants than any candidate I can recall in a half-century.)  No sense reminding people, me included, of the shamefully superficial way he has evolved in this campaign.

The facts are simply this:  he is a commodity on the open market for big-time contributors who have spent $19 million  to oust the incumbent, whether they are laying up the cash for Mandel or, if it so served their  main objective,  Honey Boo Boo.

His ad hoc financiers include the usual suspects on the Dollared Right:  The American Petroleum Institute, U.S.Chamber  of Commerce, Ohio Right to Life, Karl Rove, Koch Brothers,  Sheldon Adelson, Republican Jewish Coalition.  The consequences are scary. But without these groups adding a pre-paid vote to the Senate, Josh Mandel and his lean-and-hungry look would be a mere blip on the radar screen.

Or as Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post's former executive editor, liked to say about inconsequential people,  "When the history of this day is written, you won't be in it."  And that's no lie.

Romney's gift at making pie shells

There was a picture in today's USA TODAY  of  one of those made-to-order photo-ops of Mitt Romney  on his campaign tour in Michigan. The sleeves of his white  shirt were rolled up to the elbows  to show that By God he was a regular guy among regular guys and gals  invoved in the common labors of the middle class and below.

The caption said the candidate was kneading dough to make a pie shell.  It was a fitting image of the empty shell his campaign has offered so far.  He has dodged the difficult questions, shifting from one position to another , as the moment dictates, spinning them as he would a pizza crust.  Aside from repeating that he would cut  taxes and create jobs,  he has yet to tell us how he would do this while eliminating the deficit.

 As one who occasionally watches TV 's Cake Boss solve impossible problems with imaginative solutions  (and a lot of icing) I would think Romney might  want to add him to the campaign  to offer  ways to fill the shell.  Or is it no more than a shell game?

(P.S. The headline on the story told us:  Romney mum on unions as he woos Mich. What did I just tell you?)

* * * * *

Speaking of newspapers:  The Plain Dealer  today editorially crtiticized Josh Mandel for being
"stuck on the low road."  That's a reference to Mandel & Friends dragging out the ancient published story of how Sen. Sherrod Brown was the source of domestic violence during his rancorous 1986 divorce.  (No matter now that he and his ex-wife have  remained friends and, indeed, she just  hosted a fund raiser for him. )

But Mandel is an incorrigible brat who raised false Muslim issues against his opponent when he ran for Treasurer. As someone once wrote of the Roman historian Livy's questionable accounts of wars, "He had a taste for truth,  but no passion for  it."

So allow me to quibble  with the PD's optimistic assessment of the Whiz Kid, which asserted :

"Mandel is capable of better".

There's no evidence of  "better" in his mad-dash  political career.  Or was the PD, as the corporate media are quite capable of doing these days,  merely trying to soften the blow?

Arshinkoff's salute to Josh Mandel

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican whiz kid running for the U.S. Senate, has an ebullient supporter in Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff these days.   In a phone conversation, Arshinkoff left no doubt that he subscribes to one of Mandel's recurring  campaign themes that he served two tours as an Iraqi war veteran.

Describing the 34-year-old Mandel as a "decent kid",  Arshinkoff took  it to the next level by citing Mandel's courage thusly:

"It takes a set of balls to be Jewish and fight in the Iraq war."

Huh? Right.

No one should dishonor military service.  But how far can he take his stars and stripes in major league politics? Ask Jimmy Carter,  a submarine officer, who was defeated by Ronald Reagan, who never left California during the war.  Or Al Gore and John Kerry, both veterans who lost to a guy who dodged the draft.  And was there a more celebrated military hero than John McCain?  You know the rest.

If you want to talk  about courage, how can a fellow like Mandel face the voters after pledging to serve out a full four-year term as Ohio treasurer only to change his mind shortly after his election to seek the senate seat held by Sen. Sherrod Brown.  It really shouldn't surprise anyone since Mandel has been a habitual candidate for one job or another.

Arshinkoff says Mandel has a "great future".  National ticket in 2016?  Don't be surprised.  Fair warning.

For Mandel, transparency doesn't apply

YOU CAN SAY THIS much about Ohio treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican who has chosen to challenge U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in the 2012 election: he has no trouble offering us his own version of "transparency", as in, for goodness sake, the official "Treasurer's Transparency Project".

The topic has come up in the wake of Mandel's decision to post online the salaries of all of Ohio's public workers, a convenience for those potential voters on Issue 2 who should be told that such workers are living in Fat City. Trouble is, embarrassing though it may be for the fellow in charge of safekeeping taxpayer dollars, the list is full of errors. In a way it's understandable. Trying to account for so many people's salaries is a lot more difficult than reporting the exact figures of, say, Bowling for Dollars.

Be patient, says Seth Unger, Mandel's spokesman, we'll get it right in due time.

And while you're doing the transparency thing in hopes of making it a national model, Seth, could you remind your boss that he is a half- year behind in filing his personal financial disclosure report for his senatorial aspirations?

Mary Taylor "clearly" befogs health care reform

L.T. GOV. MARY TAYLOR is bursting out these days as a vigorous opponent of the Obama Administration's health care reform law. That's not really surprising in the anti--health care reform crowd. Taylor, who is also director of the Ohio Insurance department, wrote a letter to the Beacon Journal to express her opposition, declaring: 'Let me be perfectly clear: I oppose the Affordable Care Act", and then went on, as a BJ follow-up editorial pointed out, to befog the various elements in the law.

Assuming that she doesn't intend to be stranded in a state job the rest of life, could this be her opening salvo to enter the U.S. Senate race next year against Democratic Sen Sherrod Brown?Recent polls indicate he is ahead of the leading Republican challenger, Ohio

treasurer John Mandel, a serial candidate who never saw a higher job that he didn't immediately love. Taylor could be the GOP's go-to candidate if Mandel decides to leapfrog the senate seat to run for U.S. president, or British prime minister if the job opens up in the always shaky European political market.

Portman et al: Bush, the invisible ex-prez

AFTER FOUR recent visits to Akron stages by Republicans from hither and yon, may we now conclude that the story line is firmly in place for the November 2010 elections? Merge the speakers' texts, and there are no surprises:

• President Obama is making an outrageous mess of the economy.
• The nation's salvation lies in cutting taxes.
• Health care reforms will be ruinous to the greatest health care system in the world.
• George Bush doesn'texistdoesn'texistdoesn'texist, the ex-president who isn't there.

I refer to the three earlier speakers: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, U.S. Senate candidate Tom Ganley, one of the two Republicans with an eye on succeeding retiring Sen. George Voinovich, and, yesterday, the other GOP senatorial candidate, Rob Portman. From the standpoint of political harmony, it could qualify as a barbershop quartet.

Portman, former Ohio congressman and Bush's budget director who was regarded as a cabinet member with close ties to the Oval Office, reiterated much of the GOP message on how to influence people and win elections. Ohio, he said, needs a path to prosperity now that Gov. Strickland had overseen the loss of 336,000 jobs; too many Ohioans are running out of money; we've got to stop the hemorrhaging; the death tax has got to be eliminated.

Allow me to stop right there. The death tax (DT) used to be called the estate tax until the GOPers in Washington decided to change its name into something funereal to encourage us to hide our piggy banks from the IRS until long after Judgment Day. Today the DT's do not apply to 99.75 pct. of the people and allow a $3.5 million exemption - double that for a couple. Just thought I would throw that in inasmuch as I doubt there was more than one person in the audience who would be affected by a DT. On the other hand, there was a time when Bernie Madoff would have to be concerned about it. Many Wall Streeters still worry about it. Do the math, all of you exempt middle classers.

But Portman's biggest problem at his coming-out visit to he Akron Press Club in the Martin Center was not his ideology but his surprisingly flat delivery that lost the attention of some of the 90 or so guests. The largely Republican audience stocked by Summit County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff was quite subdued as he looked downward to his text and read as though he were giving a 30-minute invocation with an unbroken tone and cadence. Ok, he droned.

That's not what I've come to expect after attending two trillion political speeches over the years. Steele and Barbour, for example, appealed to the crowd to go out and help them win elections for their party. Ganley demanded a chance to sock-it-to the Democrats, Tea Party style. A couple of Republicans told me afterward that they were disappointed by Portman's delivery.

For all of the Republican condemnation of the Obama Adminstration's economic policies, there's a dynamite gamble by their candidates that the economy won't be moving upward by the next election. In short, Democrats need the economy to brighten; Republicans need it to fail. At this point, who can predict?

The Beacon Journal reported Portman's dismissive response to a question about his former Bush connection. "I'm talking about the future - how can we get out of this mess.?"

But when the campaign goes head to head next year, I would be surprised if the subject doesn't come up once or twice again.