Kind of hard to take in:
Josh Mandel, the front-running Republican in Ohio's 2018 U.S. Senate race, refused to say today whether he agrees with conservative firebrand Steve Bannon and others calling for the ouster of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Tea Party activists and other Republicans rebelling against the GOP establishment blame McConnell, who sets the Senate agenda, for failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act and press for other Republican priorities. Republicans, who have a bare, two-vote Senate majority and control the House of Representatives and White House, promised 2017 would bring big political and policy changes, and critics say McConnell should have better harnessed his party's power rather than see its priorities defeated.
Bannon, a Breitbart News executive who served briefly in President Donald Trump's administration and remains an informal presidential adviser, says McConnell is ineffective and weak. His demand to depose McConnell was joined recently by the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks and several other influential groups and ultra-conservative leaders.
That’s right, McConnell is so toxic that Mandel has had to turn to these clowns:
Josh Mandel, a U.S. Senate candidate from Ohio, has agreed to accept the first endorsement from a new political fundraising group put together by conspiracy theorists, a move that deepens an unlikely relationship between a Jewish politician and the “alt-right,” an amorphous political movement that has anti-Semitic elements.
On October 4, Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec launched the Super PAC #REV18 with the goal of advancing anti-establishment Republican candidates in the mold of President Donald Trump. Mandel, Ohio’s state treasurer and the putative Republican candidate against Senator Sherrod Brown in the 2018 elections, is the group’s first beneficiary.
Cernovich, who prefers to describes himself as “new right” rather than “alt-right,” is a leading social media voice of the movement who has used his platform to spread mostly-unsubstantiated rumors and claims against Democrats and to launch campaigns targeting feminists and establishment Republicans. Posobiec is an online provocateur who mixes journalism and pro-Trump activism while disseminating conspiracy theories involving Democrats and anti-Trump activists.
Mandel, 40, had publicly allied himself with them even before they created the PAC. Mandel defended them when the Anti-Defamation League had put Cernovich and Posobiec’s names on a list of provocateurs, dubbing them “alt-light,” a term referring to far right activists who “generally shun white supremacist thinking, but who are in step with the ‘alt-right’ in their hatred of feminists and immigrants, among others.” Mandel sided with the Cernovich and Posobiec and attacked a national Jewish organization:
By accepting #REV18’s endorsement, Mandel is sharpening his credentials in the emerging wing of the Republican party led by Steve Bannon, the financier-turned-publisher-turned-political kingmaker who made Breitbart into a “platform for the alt-right.” Bannon has already proven his ability to launch candidates by backing the successful dark-horse candidacy of Roy Moore in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary race.
“I would guess Mandel has said: ‘This is a train I want to get on. This is what wins Republican primaries in 2018,’” said Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkley Center for Right Wing Studies, who compared the rise of the Bannon-led wing in the Republican Party to that of the Tea Party eight years ago. Mandel was endorsed by the Tea Party in his first Senate run in 2012.
Yeah, Mandel is pretty awful. And while Mandel did get the endorsement from the Cleveland Police Union, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D. OH) picked up another big endorsement ahead of next year’s election:
Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has landed the endorsement of the United Auto Workers a year after Ohio Democrats saw a series of labor unions abandon their Senate candidate for his Republican opponent.
The UAW’s backing of Brown is hardly a surprise. Brown and labor are longtime allies. In a video released Monday to accompany the endorsement, Brown thanked the UAW and credited them with leading the creation of the American middle class.
Yet the unusual 2016 election threw many previously predictable political patterns into question — and not just at the presidential level.
Democratic ex-Gov. Ted Strickland saw several big labor unions — including the Teamsters, International Union of Operating Engineers and the United Mine Workers — shift their past support from him to Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman during the last cycle.
The Mine Workers’ defection hit Strickland, a native of coal country, particularly hard. It was attributed with helping Portman score a victory for Republicans in a state whose close political divide appeared initially to give Strickland a strong chance of unseating him.
The UAW’s support sets up Brown for a repeat showdown with Republican rival Josh Mandel, the Ohio state treasurer, on the issue for the 2008 auto industry bailout. Brown supported the rescue, and Mandel says he would have opposed it. Mandel must defeat Cleveland business executive Mike Gibbons in next year’s Republican primary to gain a rematch against Brown next fall.
During a debate in 2012, Mandel called Brown “the bailout senator.” Brown said there were so many auto assembly and parts plants employing people in Ohio that Mandel’s position “just boggles my mind.”
By the way, the BuzzFeed story on Brown that came out back in April is still worth a read. Here’s a taste of how Brown has been able to build his coalition of young voters, African American voters and white working class voters:
The exodus of white, working-class voters from the Democratic Party last November was a wake-up call for Democrats across the country. A decade of hard work to consolidate the support of minorities, women, the LGBT community, and progressive-minded white people had exposed the Achilles' heel of the Democratic Party, and nobody is quite sure what to do about it.
Some insist the party must return to Bill Clinton’s conservative approach and abandon the increasingly progressive ideals that President Obama used to fuel his cult-of-personality campaign to two terms in the White House.
Others argue that flirting with the sort of populist language Trump used to win over thousands of voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania would be to court the dark forces of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia.
Neither option seems workable. Reverting to moderate positions would fracture the party, threatening to erode gains it has made in minority communities; doubling down on a traditional liberal message would further alienate white voters who feel left behind.
The one thing both sides agree on is that with even establishment Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell embracing Trump’s nationalist populism, Democrats need to do something.
But here in the heart of Trump’s electoral revolution, Brown, a rumpled, gravelly voiced Democrat, is charting a third course.
For more than four decades, Brown has combined a fierce populism and unapologetic progressive ideals to repeatedly win local and state elections — even as Ohio has trended increasingly conservative. Like Trump, he’s won over social policy–minded voters and people in areas who were hit hard by the collapse of manufacturing in America. He’s won in rural areas and urban, black, and white communities. His approach to politics even got the attention of Hillary Clinton, whose campaign considered tapping him as her vice presidential candidate.
Republicans have taken notice, including many who worked with the Trump campaign and who view Brown as a potential threat to the president in 2020. State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who Brown beat in 2012, has already announced his 2018 Senate campaign, and with Trump wanting to solidify his control over Ohio, Republicans and their allies are expected to spend tens of millions of dollars against Brown and are already laying the groundwork for a brutal campaign fight.
The whole article is a must read. Let’s not let Steve Bannon and the Alt-Right win this race for Mandel. Click here to donate and get involved with Brown’s re-election campaign.