Just Another Magic Monday in the Ohio Treasurer’s Office

Our elusive state treasurer, disappearing before our eyes.

Today many of us were having the usual manic Mondays, getting up and running again after the weekend. But down in Columbus, the livin’ is nice ‘n’ easy in the Ohio treasurer’s office — not a lot going on, weather is nice, why don’t you take off, the taxpayers who pay your salary will never know (wink wink).

You may remember just two weeks ago when apparently there was so little for the treasurer’s office to do that state treasurer Josh “The Empty Suit” Mandel took off at least half a day to head to Washington D.C. to do some fundraising. And unless he took a vacation day, Ohio taxpayers footed the bill.

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/what-our-quotstate-treasurerquot-do...

So guess where Mandel was today? Hint: not in his office in Columbus.

Where oh where was Joshie?

Here:

12:00 p.m. Reception, Johnny's Half Shell
400 N Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
1:00 p.m Lunch Johnny's Half Shell
400 N Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
2:00 p.m Conference Call w/ RJC
Clark Hill 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20004
4:30 p.m. Reception w/ Sen. Ayotte
220 E Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
5:30 p.m. NRSC Reception with 30 GOP Senators
425 2nd St. NE, Washington, DC 20002

And no, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) don’t have departments to advise state treasurers on how to collect, invest and disperse tax money (their job, although Joshie wouldn’t know about that.)

Given that his first event today was at noon, this week he had to miss an entire workday. Can you recall an elected official more transparently uninterested in doing his job?

There is an astonishing arrogance to this. Mandel clearly KNOWS what he is doing looks bad and he doesn’t care. He has demonstrated that he believes rules don’t apply to him. Currently, Mandel is being torn to pieces by both a usually cautious national media and a right-leaning state media who normally struggle to put a positive spin on Republican candidates. And Mandel can flog the tired line about “liberal media” until he’s blue in the face, but everything they have written about him is legitimate and provable.

Keep in mind this is the same Josh Mandel who last year, in a fit of ugly partisanship, posted the salaries (many erroneous) of every government worker in the state on his official website (never mind that it had nothing to do with the business of the treasury) in order to try to trump up some anti-public-worker resentment ahead of the SB 5 repeal vote. Oh wait — not EVERY government worker. He left out some of his own top (and as we’ve found out now, best paid) appointees.

A normal candidate with a little bit of political savvy would look at these valid critiques and make some adjustments. They would probably start by showing up for work, making a lot of appearances as state treasurer, like Rich Cordray and Kevin Boyce did, speaking to everyone from bankers to farmers to homeowners to impress them with what he’s doing in the treasurer’s office to boost citizens’ economic security. That would even likely win him some votes for his Senate campaign.

They would also make sure that their political activities, especially fundraising, took place evenings and on weekends. They would not leave taxpayers scratching their heads and asking “How many vacation days does a state treasurer get, anyway?”

But Mandel’s arrogance or his ambition or a combination of the two is blinding him to common-sense moves. And this is just ONE of the multitude of Mandel stories making the rounds. There’s much more coming!