May 9, 2022
Columbus, OH — Cleveland.com’s Brent Larkin takes J.D. Vance to task for being a “willing stooge” for a Silicon Valley billionaire and for revealing he doesn’t care about the “senseless slaughter” in Ukraine. And his candidacy poses a problem for the GOP as the “most unlikable and untrustworthy candidate imaginable.”
Cleveland.com: With J.D. Vance at the lead, the political cheapening of Ohio continues: Brent Larkin
May 8, 2022
- The putrefaction of Ohio politics is one election away from completion.
- By nominating J.D. Vance as the Republican nominee for Rob Portman’s U.S. Senate seat, Donald Trump’s legions of unquestioning followers have embraced the most unlikable and untrustworthy candidate imaginable. The darling of the GOP’s affection has already revealed that he doesn’t give one bit about the senseless slaughter in the Ukraine. He’s a willing stooge for a Silicon Valley billionaire, a self-described hillbilly turned venture capitalist who shamefully imported congressional trash like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene to assist in his intellectually bankrupt campaign.
- Not content to merely parade around the state with these vermin, Vance told Ohioans Greene “did nothing wrong” by speaking at a white nationalist conference in February, a conference where attendees lovingly chanted Vladimir Putin’s name. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell disagreed, saying of Greene’s appearance, “There’s no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism.”
- Vance must think there’s plenty of places for them in Ohio.
- The night before Tuesday’s Ohio primary, the U.S. Supreme Court may have changed the general election subject, sending a mid-term election campaign on a trajectory of obliterating any hope of a national reconciliation. In Ohio, it’s far less certain whether the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion repealing abortion protections guaranteed in Roe v. Wade will change the outcome of the election for Senate and governor.
- …it’s worth clinging to a hope the majority of Ohio’s sensible voters will come to understand that the book-banning policies of Vance’s “America First” crowd are also designed to strip women, minorities and gays of their freedoms. And Vance’s history as a reckless, at times cruel, loose cannon might cause voters to conclude he is indeed “a fraud,” as one woman in a television ad promoting Mandel asserted.
- Ryan told me Wednesday that Vance has said things that are “absolutely disqualifying.” He may be right, but that verdict rests with voters.
- Early this year, when a reporter asked Vance about his propensity to say and write things people find offensive, he answered, “People may not always agree with my rhetoric, but, I think, unfortunately, our country is kind of a joke. And we should be able to tell jokes about it.”
- If he wins, the joke’s on us.
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