“Total Fake And A Phony,” “Didn’t Have To Delete My Tweets” And “Trump Warriors”: How Republicans Spent The Week Attacking Their #OHSEN Candidates
February 11, 2022
February 11, 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.
“What do you get when you mix Twitter trolling, about $30 million in self-funding, a billionaire financier and big-money outside groups? You get this year’s GOP Senate primary in Ohio, one of the most competitive and chaotic Republican primaries on the calendar this year.” –NBC News, 2/4/22
Here’s what you may have missed:
MY LITTLE P(H)ONY. After a brutal Politico report on Vance’s super PAC warning the Vance campaign that it “needs a course correction ASAP,” Josh Mandel stuck the knife deeper in a Newsmax interview, saying, “He’s [Vance] a never Trumper, he bragged about being a Never Trumper, they see him as a total fake and a phony here in Ohio.” Welp, those attacks aren’t going away any time soon. And according to Vance’s super PAC, these kinds of attacks are exactly what is sinking Vance’s campaign. Their own 98-page PowerPoint (good God!) said that Vance’s “association as a Never Trumper has only grown since November” and that “being anti-Trump is the #1 reason voters do not like Vance.” I’ve watched people call out someone for being a “total fake and a phony,” but usually that’s on Real Housewives, not a Republican Senate primary!
NOT A TWEET DELETER. Banker millionaire Mike Gibbons went after Silicon Valley millionaire J.D. Vance for (you guessed it!) not adequately supporting Trump enough. At a Richland County Republican Party luncheon, Gibbons slammed Vance, saying, “I’m the candidate that didn’t have to delete my tweets. I supported Donald Trump from the beginning.” Gibbons is referring to Vance being so ashamed of his anti-Trump past that when he started his U.S. Senate campaign, he deleted all of his tweets where he called Trump “reprehensible” and admitted plans to vote for Evan McMullin. While the part about Vance is true, Mike Gibbons supported Carly Fiorina (where is she now?), John Kasich and Marco Rubio in 2016. So yeah, you weren’t with Trump “from the beginning,” nice try!
BEING IN THE BATTLE. Jane Timken keeps trying to use this “warrior” analogy to go after the other GOP Senate candidates on their Trump record. On Raw with Mindy and Boots Sunday, Timken said, “Out of all the candidates in this race who claim to be Trump warriors, I always say you have to have been in the battle if you claim to be a warrior. I didn’t see them out on the campaign trail. Didn’t see them at the rallies. They weren’t on the Trump train bus tour like I was. I’m the only one who can say they delivered Ohio by more than 8.5 points for President Trump.” This echoes a similar attack from Timken last month when she was on Hugh Hewitt’s show, she said, “We’ve got a lot of other people in this race who pretend they’re the Trump warrior…” All of these candidates are attacking each other to get to Trump, but when Timken saw Trump during their “Hunger Games” sit down, Trump made sure to bring up Timken’s past support for a pro-impeachment congressman. Good luck papering over that, Jane!
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!