Tag: rob portman

Ted Strickland (D) launches his futile bid for Ohio-SEN today.

Such a pity… well, no.  It’s not.  But the proprieties must be observed: “Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will seek to challenge Republican Sen. Rob Portman next year, launching what could become one of the top-tier Senate races of 2016… Strickland, who has been talking to donors and supporters in recent weeks, announced his decision to run in an email to supporters this morning.”  Strickland has three major problems, here:

  1. He’s 75 years old [sorry: 75 in 2016 – ML]. That’s a bit old for a freshman Senator; and, yes, that’s a legitimate concern. The Democrats would get a max of two terms out of him, tops, and I’m being kind in pretending that they’d even have the chance.
  2. His past record. This article here mentions Strickland’s habit of spending the last fewe years working for people and groups who more or less hate everything that gives Ted Strickland his crossover appeal; to that I’ll add a little matter of some local corruption from 2010 (the fallout from that is still merrily bubbling along). There’s an existing file on this guy, in other words. One that the Portman campaign is already perusing, assuming that they didn’t just memorize it.
  3. And then, of course, there’s the minor matter of the 2014 governor’s election. No, not the 49/46 squeaker from 2010; the 64/33 blowout from 2014 that Ted Strickland didn’t have the nerve to even show up for. And he should have shown up for it; the fact that he didn’t pretty much confirms the conventional wisdom that Ohio is better off under John Kasich’s leadership than it was under Strickland’s.

Continue reading Ted Strickland (D) launches his futile bid for Ohio-SEN today.

Ohio and the limits to Demagoguery.

The unusual thing about this article (“Losing the Class War“) is not its message.  Its message is in fact pretty straightforward: to wit, that the Democratic nominees for Senator and Governor in Ohio are both trying, and failing, to rouse public anger against the Republican nominees through some good, old-fashioned pseudo-populist demagoguery.  They’re trying this because both Gov. Strickland (who is losing his re-election bid to John Kasich) and Lt. Gov. Fisher (who is losing the Senate race to Rob Portman) are heavily reliant on Big Labor to generate some sort of buzz for their moribund campaigns; and they’re failing because under their watch Ohio’s economy has, well, tanked.  More to the point, the population of Ohio is aware that the current leadership team of Ohio consists of two gibbering, would-be rabble-rousers who apparently have, as they say, Poor Impulse Control.  So, again, that’s not the unusual thing of that article.

No, the unusual thing is that it was on NPR: there’s some sort of partnership thing going on there with National Review Online.  I guess somebody over at NPR can put two and two together, and get Armageddon…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Fisher without Bait: tales of the 2Q in Ohio.

The Democrat’s not exactly running rampant, there.

The 2nd quarter results are in for Rob Portman (R) and Lee Fisher (d), and it’s not… actually, it’s quite pretty.  Portman brought in almost three times as much cash (2.65 million vs. 1 million) and has an almost nine-to-one advantage in cash-on-hand right now (8.8 million to 1 million).  I originally got the latter’s details via email: for some reason, Fisher isn’t bragging about his inadequate performance on his own site.  As to whether his campaign’s enervated financial state will translate to a loss this November, well, Fisher’s own pleas from earlier say it all:

“Potential supporters will look at our next contribution report to measure our campaign’s readiness and decide whether they want to step onto the field or sit on the sidelines this fall,” he wrote in email June 29, one day before his second quarter fund-raising report closed.

So true, so true.

Moe Lane Continue reading Fisher without Bait: tales of the 2Q in Ohio.

Lee Fisher (D CAND, OH-SEN) and sweet, sweet corporate lobbyist money.

Dirty, dirty lobbyist money, too – at least, if you’re a progressive – but that just adds that little sparkle to Lee’s eyes, I’m betting.  He’s got that look.

Lobbyists for drug, oil and hedge fund industries to mix, mingle with Lee Fisher and Sherrod Brown

Read the entire article, which first lists some of the Big Pharma, Big Oil, and hedge fund clients of these sweet, dirty corporate lobbyists that are raising sweet, dirty corporate money for Lee Fisher’s (D) sweet, dirty corporate-funded Senate campaign.  After that comes the passage that I really want people to see:

But that’s the problem with political rhetoric. When are these good lobbyists, and when are they bad? Does it matter to Democrats if they’re lobbying the Democratic side rather than the GOP? We won’t badmouth lobbyists in this blog post, but we’ll let Fisher do it. As he wrote in the Huffington Post in April: “And for years, Washington insiders like our Republican opponent here in Ohio, Congressman Rob Portman, have lined their pockets with contributions from Wall Street’s army of lobbyists while turning a blind eye to this looming financial disaster.”

Tomorrow might be a good time to tell that to a Managed Funds Association lobbyist.

Continue reading Lee Fisher (D CAND, OH-SEN) and sweet, sweet corporate lobbyist money.

Portman rivals Rubio in 1Q fundraising: 2.35 million.

Not too shabby:

Rob Portman announced today that his U.S. Senate campaign raised $2.35 million during the first three months of 2010 and has $7.6 million cash-on-hand. More than 5,600 individuals contributed to the campaign during the first quarter, bringing the total number of individual supporters to more than 13,000 – over 80 percent of whom are Ohioans.

Couple that with his polling outside the MoE on the latest Rasmussen and Portman’s having himself a decent quarter here. As opposed to his Democratic counterparts, who are currently rather busy cutting each other into ribbons over whether or not there’s a whispering campaign going on:

[OH SOS Jennifer] Brunner told The Vindicator during a Friday telephone interview that her criticism is “obviously getting under his skin. I have evidence, but when people who support me tell me these things they’re afraid to let me give their names. There are numerous instances where either he or his wife will say to people that the governor has endorsed [Lt. Gov.] Lee [Fisher]. People won’t come forward because they’re scared.”

Meanwhile, Fisher is bragging about his role in the 172K job loss in Ohio in 2009.

No, really.

Moe Lane

PS: Support Rob Portman anyway. There’s always the chance that the Democrats will wise up and nominate a functional candidate for Ohio Senate.

Crossposted to RedState.