There you go again, Josh Mandel.
Readers will remember that Mandel, Ohio’s current elected
treasurer and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, was the first recipient of
my “Arrogant Twit” award a couple of months ago for claiming that Democratic
Sen. Sherrod Brown was responsible for Ohio losing jobs to China.
PolitiFact Ohio
found no evidence to support that claim and gave Mandel a “pants on fire”
rating.
I think long and hard before I give out an “Arrogant Twit”
award.
Mandel is the only recipient.
When asked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer for examples of Brown
selling out jobs to the Chinese, Mandel couldn’t come up with any.
“If that’s the level of specificity you’re looking for,
you’re the reporters – you go do the grunt work,” he said. “Any reporter who
doesn’t believe Sherrod Brown is responsible for jobs going to China is simply
out of touch.”
So, you think Mandel would learn. But, no…
Earlier this month, Mandel dipped into the gutter in an
attempt to drag his opponent Brown through 26-year-old mud.
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mandel brought up
Brown’s alleged spousal abuse of two and a half decades ago during a radio
interview.
"He’s a real hypocrite when it comes to issues in
respect to domestic violence and women’s issues,” Mandel was quoted as saying
by the PD.
“You can probably read about that all over the Internet.”
The PD story confirmed Mandel’s assertion.
“A simple Google search with those terms takes readers to
the heart of the 1986 charges,” the PD said.
Apparently, it doesn’t matter to Mandel that all the parties
involved in that 1986 divorce have made peace with one another, including the
children who are now adults. Brown and his wife, Connie Schultz (a former Plain
Dealer columnist), are in fact friends with Brown’s ex-wife, Larke, and her
husband, Joe Recchie.
The PD reported that Larke, who signed the affidavit against
Brown in 1986, hosted a fund-raising event recently for her ex-husband.
In addition, she issued this statement: “I understand that
in campaigns you often have to go after your opponent, but Josh Mandel should
know better than to go after our family. I ask that he immediately put a stop
to this kind of politics. I was proud to support Sherrod in 2006 and I’m proud
to support him again this time around against Josh Mandel. Josh Mandel should
immediately stop this kind of dirty campaigning.”
Let me speak to you personally, Josh.
You have an impressive background. And I thank you for your
service to our country during your years in the Marines. But you have to rid the
gutter nonsense from your political life. It makes you very unlikable.
OK, let me put it another way.
If this kind of politicking continues, no one with any kind
of an intellect who has something to give back to their communities will run
for public office because probably during the course of their lives some things
didn’t work out like they had hoped and, you know, they had errors in judgment
and made bad decisions.
When they decide not to run for public office to save their
families emotional pain from the fear of renewed interest in those errors in
judgment, perhaps some pundit will point his finger at Josh Mandel.
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