Athens News Rips Mandel a New One, Endorses Brown

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-37915-sen-brown-superior-on-both-...

Heh heh. I'll bet his birthday isn't going so well for The Empty Suit. He's probably on the phone to education tax dollar thief David Brennan of the mostly failing for-profit White Hat Charter Schools,waiting, "David, I don't understand what's going on here. Don't they know I'm going to be president one day? I know you've been showering me with big bucks since I ran for the state House in one of the best funded campaigns ever run for the legislature — I don't understand why it's not enough."

The Athens News becomes just the latest paper to explain why it's not enough, excoriating Mandel for his cronyism, his propensity for lying, his general lack of demonstrated competence ("yet to prove he can be anything more than a callow political operative pretending to be a public official*) and something else that's not brought out a lot — that the handful of position statements he's been willing to make publicly are all of the radical, obstructionist Tea Party variety. Often those groups are the only ones he's willing to speak to about issues, and he has eagerly embraced their sort of counterproductive craziness.

This hasn't gotten too much attention because of Mandel's ducking on major policy issues, just sending out a little signal here and there. But to these groups, he has on occasion indicated that he will be their willing water carrier. And of course he will owe the big money boys who've spent nearly $20 million in secret money, plus all the millions they've given to him directly. (David Brennan is addicted to giving money to Josh Mandel.)

The Athens News is one of the few to point out

In the U.S. Senate, we don't need any more inflexible obstructionists and party-first ideologues. Yet, everything that Mandel has said and done as a candidate – as well as his strong support among the uncompromising Tea Parties – suggests that he would line up with the conservative radicals in Congress against any of the problem-solving compromises that will be absolutely necessary if this country is going to address its problems. If you're a fan of gridlock in Washington, then Josh Mandel's definitely your man.

Wow. That's just not something that's been a big part of the discussion.

The paper spotlights two main reasons everyone should be voting for Sherrod Brown:

[we] feel he's clearly the superior candidate when it comes to character and integrity.

and

Our main reason for urging readers to support Brown is that unlike Mandel, Sen. Brown advances a reasonable and serious approach to addressing America and Ohio's desperately serious economic, health-care, energy and foreign policy issues.

A candidate with character and integrity with a reasonable an serious approach to solving problems for the good of all people vs a callow and insincere ideologue willing to tell any lie to further his ambitions. Gosh – who are you going to choose?