Real Problems in Ohio

There are five candidates registered for the Ohio Republican primary for US Senate on March 6, 2012. However, the Republican establshment is doing its best to ignore all but one of those candidates - State Treasurer Joshua Mandel. At first glance, Mandel seems like a good candidate, he is the current Treasurer for the state of Ohio, he is a Marine Corps veteran with tours in Iraq, and he has experience as a state legislator as well.

Unfortunately, that's where the good stops. Mandel began running for office while he was in college and won the student body president position at Ohio State University twice. Before finishing law school, he decided to run for city council and won that seat. He held it from 2003 to 2006. Much of this time, Councilman Mandel spent in Iraq after he was called to active duty from the reserves. After returning from Iraq, Mandel ran for state legislature and held that office for four years, from 2006 to 2010. Again Mandel missed much of this time with another tour of duty in Iraq. In May of 2009, Mandel announced that he was seeking the office of State Treasurer. He was sworn into office in January of 2011 and annouced his candidacy for the US Senate in April.

Should he win the election, Mandel will be 35 years old when he assumes office. When he takes that seat, he will have never held a job outside of politics and military. He has no business experience of any kind, he has never worked within the economy, and his political experience is extremely lacking given that his time was sacrificed in the service of his country. It isn't clear exactly how long City Councilman Mandel or State Legislator Mandel spent in Iraq, but it is possible that he spent around half of the 7-8 years that he was in those offices in Iraq. Add to this the time spent campaigning for State Treasurer while a representative and the time spent campaigning for state legislator while a city councilman and the time that Mandel spent fully dedicated to fulfilling his duties in elected office seems to be almost none.

The problem with Mandel is not that his service shortened his time in office or that he spent large portions of his time campaigning. The problem is that even when he was present, Mandel didn't produce a record on which to judge his views and has no real conservative credentials. Instead of boasting about his support for conservative ideology, Mandel seems to be engaging in a deliberate attempt to ensure that he makes no statements on political positions of any nature. He does not write op-eds on any subject, he makes few speeches, and sticks to generic statements when he does speak in public. He also remains one of the few candidates for any elected office that maintains a campaign website with no statement on political positions of any kind.

As if lacking a tangible conservative record wasn't bad enough, Mandel has a history of changing his views to fit the surroundings. In 2000, he was filmed at an Al Gore for President rally, and later claimed that he was only there in the capacity of student body president and not in support of Senator Gore. He made public press statements in 2000 as student body president in which he supported same-sex rights for students at Ohio State University, and later admitted that he changed his positions and that he made a mistake while in college. In addition to this, Mandel failed to meet his first obligation as a Senate candidate by missing the deadline to file his financial disclosure statement by about 6 months.

Despite the fact that we know little about Mandel other than he began campaigning for US Senate less than three months after being sworn in as State Treasurer, he has been endorsed by the Republican machine. Mark Levin, Bill Bennett, and other icons of the conservative movement have endorsed a man whose primary job credentials are raising funds to campaign with and winning elections. He has yet to actually remain in any office long enough to establish a record and seems reluctant to establish his views on issues.

Should Treasurer Mandel win the nomination, he will face one of the most liberal Senators in office. Sherrod Brown is well educated on the issues, articulate in his positions, and prolific in his involvement with the state. He is active in support for NASA's Glenn research center, and very involved in the union organizations in Ohio. Brown is also passionate in his support for socialized medicine and amnesty for illegal aliens, and extremely active in trade policy. NASA, immigration, and trade policy, are all areas that Treasurer Mandel has yet to make a single statement about, even on his campaign website.

There are other alternatives for the race. There is a Medical Doctor named Michael Pryce that ran as an independent in 2010. He supports term limits, real reductions in spending, and real health care reform. Although his ideas in health care reform may differ from some conservatives, at least he is out there proposing solutions and letting his future constituents know his positions.

A second viable option is a commercial pilot named Rusty Bliss. Again, Bliss advocates for term limits and a return to liberty and the constitution on his campaign website. He opposes the encroachment of the UN into US laws, supports the enforcement of valid US laws on immigration, is pro-life, and supports NASA. All of these are subjects that State Treasurer Mandel has rarely, if ever, discussed.

Senator Brown's seat will not be an easy prize for the conservative movement to claim. Given Treasurer Mandel's unwillingness to remain in an office, unwillingness to state his views on even the most basic of positions, and the problems he has already had with consistency, maybe those of us in the conservative movement would be better served by a non-politician with stated conservative viewpoints.

If you live in Ohio and want to vote for any of these candidates, you must register to vote by February 6th. All the candidates can be found on the elections page for the Ohio Senate race.