Running an Empty Suit proving to be a challenge for Republicans

How voters apparently see Josh Mandel: The Man Who Isn't There.

By late December before election year even began, third-party (non-candidate) rightwing groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's outfit American Crossroads, the odious Concerned Women of America, and the 60 Plus Association had already spent almost three million dollars in Ohio attacking Senator Sherrod Brown, based on a whole bunch of bullshit (and that's being polite). The Chamber alone had spent $1.5 million.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/22/sherrod-brown_n_1162819.html

It was the largest amount of such spending anywhere in the country. While all the gushing is going on about Elizabeth "Walks on Water" Warren in Massachusetts, it's clear these groups see Sherrod as the biggest threat to their anti-democratic, favor-the-rich agenda.

Said a Crossroads spokesflunkie,

In an anti-incumbent year, Ohio's incumbent Democrat Senator is voting significantly to the left of his constituency and against a popular and well-funded Republican who is running a first rate campaign. This will be one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle, no matter how you slice it.

Really? A "popular" Republican who is running a "first rate" campaign? Yes, we all know Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel is well-funded — he's owned by every special interest you can name. But if he is so "popular" and his campaign is so "first-rate," obviously all the outside spending attacking Sherrod must be propelling Joshie into the lead.

Oh — what's this?

http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2012/01/19/Latest-poll-shows-Brown-with...

"Latest poll shows Brown with big lead over Mandel."

According to a Quinnipiac Poll released last week, all that third-party spending and first-rate campaigning has made only a teensy little dent in Sherrod Brown's commanding lead, currently 47%-32%.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/ohio/...

My favorite part of the Quinnipiac poll: "69 percent of Ohio voters have not heard enough about Mandel to form an opinion."

That's because there's been nothing to hear. In the year he's been running, Mandel has been careful to remain a cipher, a blank, a man who doesn't stand for much of anything. He rarely takes a position on issues, and his spokesman recently said that Mandel doesn't see that as his obligation since he's not in office yet. So apparently, he's going to try to slide through election year being The Man Who Isn't There.

The third-party groups can spend and spend and spend in their laughable and specious attacks on Sherrod Brown. But they're faced with the reality that they offer no alternative, merely an Empty Suit whose shiny youthful countenance may not be enough to replace his refusal to speak openly to voters and outline his agenda. Unless that changes, Mandel is going to remain to the voters as he appears in the picture above — a candidate without a face or an identity.