“Failed,” “Flailing” And “Unforgivable”: How Republicans Spent The Week Attacking Their #OHSEN Candidates

December 17, 2021

Happy Friday, and welcome to “Buckeye Brawl,” a weekly newsletter from the Ohio Democratic Party highlighting the nasty, chaotic and expensive Republican primary for Senate. This out-of-control primary is making conservatives “deeply worried” about the prospects of Republicans losing this seat.

As the Republican Senate primary continues to sink lower and lower, these GOP candidates are injecting even more nasty personal attacks, more chaos and more money into this race. We’re here to help you keep track of all of it.

Two new reports this month showed just how nasty this race has gotten. WVXU’s Howard Wilkinson said this GOP Senate primary may be “Ohio’s ugliest ever.” And Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser said that “the showdown is fast becoming the most expensive and ugly GOP Senate contest.”

Here’s what you may have missed:

AN UNFORGIVABLE DEMOCRAT. On the Mark Levin Show, Mandel went after J.D. Vance for his political transformation on Trump, saying, “The fact that my opponent J.D. Vance did that and refused to vote for President Trump, it’s just unforgivable.” Mandel then said J.D. Vance should be running on the Democratic ticket. In a race that’s all about Trump (with attack ads airing highlighting Vance’s anti-Trump past), this issue isn’t going away any time soon.

A FAILED, FLAILING RINO. Following Mike Gibbons’ ad saying J.D. Vance is on the wrong team for his anti-Trump past, Vance’s campaign responded in an email to their supporters. The email says, “Another day, another RINO attack against JD Vance. This time, it’s already-failed-candidate, Mike Gibbons…Now, Gibbons is running another flailing campaign where he is failing to gain any traction among Ohio Patriots.” It’s hard to keep track of who’s a RINO in this race because it seems like everyone!

“A BUNCH OF WEALTHY PEOPLE.” Josh Mandel (a millionaire) went after other GOP Senate candidates in an interview with Mark Levin, saying he is running against a bunch of wealthy people. Mandel has a point, the Republican primary does have a large number of self-funding millionaires with “eye-popping” amounts of money in their financial disclosures. In typical Mandel fashion, he forgot to include himself. Mandel is an out-of-touch millionaire who serves on corporate boards, fitting right in with the rest of the field!

MORENO VERSUS HIMSELF. Chris Pack, a consultant for Matt Dolan (why?), went after Bernie Moreno (who?) for changing his position on whether the 2020 election was stolen. Moreno apparently forgot there are tweets out there of him saying “accept the results” and “now is the time for unity.” Pack said, “We’ve seemingly entered the ‘Bernie Moreno vs. himself’ phase” of the Ohio Senate race. Well, everyone in this race is a phony calling each other a phony so why can’t Dolan get in on the fun?

Thanks for reading along – that’s all for the Buckeye Brawl this week. If you have questions, my email is [email protected]. Have a great weekend!