Encouraging background information from David Wolfford in the print edition of the Weekly Standard:

[Rob Portman] rode the ’94 GOP wave back for a full term and won five more, typically with 70 percent of the vote. Portman was popular in Washington, too. His proudest moments in his 12 years in the House, he said, were “when we passed the balanced budget agreement and the welfare reform bill.” Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayer’s Union recalls Portman’s leadership on the IRS restructuring of 1998. “He set a professional work environment that rose above partisanship and ultimately gave taxpayers more rights.”

In 2005, George W. Bush named Portman U.S. trade representative, then later budget director. In his year at the Office of Management and Budget, Portman fought to contain spending and earned the sobriquet “Dr. No.” He also pushed for a revised line-item veto bill that would stand constitutional muster, and after consulting with taxpayer groups he established an online listing of earmarks. “He was extremely interested in engaging us and others,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, confirmed that Portman’s efforts “moved earmarks out of the shadows.”

From the inbox:

In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, I wonder which character Lee Fisher would play?:

Thankfully the phone company hasn’t shut their lines down for nonpayment yet:

Just listening to her call is depressing. Her heart is so not into this. Give me a call Jen and I’d gladly share some jokes to boost your spirits.

If you think this is all a big coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The sudden entrance of 2 new Democratic women into Ohio’s U.S. Senate race could spell trouble for the lagging campaign of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

1 of the women, Traci “TJ” Johnson of suburban Columbus, previously worked for Brunner’s chief competitor, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher. His campaign is adamantly denying any involvement in her candidacy.

Johnson was joined in yesterday’s filings by Charlena Renee Bradley of the Cleveland area.

Johnson and Bradley could divide the female vote, which had been favoring Brunner over Fisher.

Here is a nice parody of the the best Super Bowl ad of 2010:

Lee Fisher is probably happy the NRSC didn’t use the actual picture of him that shows up of him on Google Images, thanks to yours truly and his brat son.

From National Journal, about Jennifer Brunner’s email asking for donations for various charities:

Brunner has been plagued by low fundraising totals. Through Sept., she pulled in just $582K and had only $111K in the bank.

But the headline is just begging for an easy joke: “Don’t give money to my US Senate campaign this week …” it reads.

That led one Hotline editor to giggle: “Hmmm, so far this hasn’t been a problem.”

From CQ Politics:

President Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe endorsed Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in a fundraising e-mail for the Democrat’s Senate campaign.

“I get asked quite a bit what I think the most important campaigns in 2010 will be. And the Ohio Senate race is always near the top of my list,” Plouffe wrote. “That’s why I’m supporting Lee Fisher.”

Perhaps Plouffe is just working overtime, but his firm — AKPD Message and Media ­– also does media consulting for Fisher, who is the front-runner in the Democratic primary where he faces Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. According to campaign finance reports, the Fisher campaign had paid more than $3,100 for media production to AKPD so far this cycle through Sept. 30.

Geesh. Give me a call Lee. For the right price I’ll endorse you too, as long as the shirt stays on.

Update: I would like to thank the mummified, decrepit remains of Joe Hallett for bringing to the Ohio blogosphere together, in the true spirit of bipartisanship, to hate his crummy reporting.

What Kevin Holtsberry calls “bold,” I call cheap, gimmicky Keynesianism, and reminiscent of President Bush’s 2008 tax rebate which was part of his “stimulus” package and had no effect on household spending.

From WCPN:

U.S. Senate hopeful Rob Portman says the economy needs an additional stimulus, besides what the federal government is already providing. So he’s advocating a temporary reprieve of some of the taxes that are taken from workers’ paychecks.

The Cincinnati Republican spoke in Cleveland Friday afternoon. Among his proposals was one that he maintains would jump-start both hiring, and spending.

Portman said “to spur immediate investment by employers and encourage consumption by employees; I support a one year payroll tax holiday. Beginning immediately…. for workers and employers on the first $50,000 of income.”

Workers would still pay state income and Medicare taxes.

The Heritage Foundation explains why such tax holidays don’t work:

There are several factors behind the failure of temporary tax holidays to stimulate economic recovery. One reason is that even if the key to future growth was to increase household spending, a tax holiday will not prompt the necessary splurge. That is because Americans adjust their spending according to what economists call the “wealth effect.” When the value of their stocks or housing is going up, as it did for many years, Americans tend to save less and spend more. But when their housing values and stock portfolios have plummeted, as [they did in 2009], the first thing Americans tend to do with unexpected cash is to try to replenish their wealth by increasing savings or paying down their credit card debt.[...]

Another reason tax holidays fail to prompt economic renewal–and this reason is related to the wealth effect–is that a family considering a significant increase in spending, or an investor contemplating a new business venture or expansion, thinks about the long term, not the next few months. Consequently, such individuals are motivated by the likely future patterns of after-tax family income and the after-tax return on an investment when compared with the risk of that investment. That is why American families will not go out and buy a new car just because they get a short-term tax rebate or tax holiday and why Americans with large-scale resources to invest will not break ground on a new factory if they are merely relieved of taxes for a couple of months.

The only way fiscal policy can change this spending or investing inertia is to improve the prospects for future after-tax income from earnings or from capital investment.

Conservatives should agree with Milton Friedman, who once said, “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.” However, this sort tax rebate take off the table discussions of actual tax cuts and long-term tax reforms.

Instead, perhaps Portman could propose  to stop the torturing of American businesses with an absorbent 35% corporate tax rate (39.3% if you also include average state taxes), which is one of the world’s highest rates. Or perhaps a permanent repeal of the estate tax (a tax which Congressional Democrats are about to renew) or a multi-year reduction in income tax rates so families could predict their after-tax income.

And in the era of Obama the Messiah, cutting spending would be pretty swell, too.

To Rob Portman’s credit, he has pointed himself in a direction of lower taxes… which is much more than we would ever be able to say about a US Senator Fisher or Brunner.  But as President Bush’s former OMB Director, Portman should be more acutely aware of how bad this holiday proposal is than anyone.

Bill Sloat, former Plain Dealer newspaper reporter turned Democrat political blogger (no difference in the job, other than the salary), has caught onto an interesting story about Team Fisher.

The DSCC Chair has “all but endorsed” Lee Fisher.

In the Democrat Party, sexism is alive and well.

I’ll spare you the full generic, poorly-written email fund raising appeal from former President Clinton for Lee Fisher. But this part really jumped out at me:

Next year’s U.S. Senate race in Ohio is shaping up as a campaign with national implications between those who believe in working hard to find solutions to the unprecedented challenges facing us as a nation, and those who want to obstruct progress, let ideology rule the day, and leave those in need out in the cold.

I’ve known Lee Fisher since he helped me win Ohio, and the presidency, in 1992. Since then, I’ve followed Lee’s tireless commitment to public service, as attorney general, president of the Center for Families and Children, and as lieutenant governor. With Lee, we have a chance to send someone who has devoted his life to helping Ohio families to Washington.

According to GuideStar, when working for that charity, Fisher’s income in 2005 was $329,515, his deferred comp was $52,637, and his paid expenses were $16380.

I’ll let you decide if Fisher is worth almost 400k in expenditures from a charity.

Joke #1: But with making that sort of cash by caring for the children, just think of all of the t-shirts he could afford!

Joke #2: Clinton could help Fisher keep his shirt on, and in exchange Fisher helps Clinton keep his pants on.

This is Lee Fisher essentially supporting a tax, with its revenue ending up in the hands of special interests:

Democrat Lee Fisher, Ohio lieutenant governor and a U.S. Senate candidate, wants President Obama to punish Chinese tire manufacturers found by a federal trade panel to have been selling their products for too-low prices in the United States.

As recommended by the U.S. International Trade Commission, “I urge you to enforce our trade agreements and apply a strong remedy to provide the necessary relief to American workers who have been damaged by a surge of Chinese tires,” Fisher writes in his letter to fellow Democrat Obama.

With this type of thinking, I’d rather have no one run the Ohio Department of Development than this neomercantilist shirtless wonder.

From Hourglass 1941:

This is a perfect question to ask these pin heads, because the answer is, under the current budget projections, there is no real way to pay for ObamaCare. Instead, this is all about collapsing the current system, and bringing into existence a more socialist government. And the scary thing is, Mary Jo Kilroy is such a true believer that she would gladly sacrifice her House seat and vote against the wishes of her more moderate constituency if it means she can help eliminate the private health care insurance companies.

I was at this event, as you may have saw in a bizarre video re-posted on Wonkette, which was filmed by my white-trash stalker.

And what was most interesting about Kilroy’s speech was her talk of increases in health insurance premiums as “inflation.” As Milton Friedman said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” So in reality, Kilroy is supporting the inflation that will occur once the economy rebounds and banks start using all of this new money they are sitting on. THAT is real inflation, but calling it inflation when insurance companies respond to more government regulation and the lack of out-of-state insurance competition (which is currently illegal) by raising prices is just a way to excuse irresponsible legislators like Kilroy.

And I like how persistent the lady holding the camera is. With a camera in hand, suddenly, Ruben Studdard isn’t so tough.

Rob Portman explained his solidly conservative positions against ObamaCare and cap-and-trade in this video interview outside of  a fundraiser at the home of  Jim Smail. Considering the leftist radicalism you will find among the two Democrat challengers, Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner, there is no doubt that Rob Portman is the only Ohio senatorial candidate remotely interested in shrinking government and unleashing America’s entrepreneurs to create the type of prosperity that statists could never legislate into existence.

However, maybe I’m just not patriotic enough, but what is with this “end our dependency on foreign oil” rhetoric of Portman, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et cetera?  No matter where oil is produced, prices are set by the global market and this is synchronized throughout the world by the global demand and ease of its transportation. Portman, as the former U.S. Trade Representative, certainly understands this.

The question asked of Portman by the reporter was framed as a question of “national security.” But if this is a debate of OPEC and geo-politics, the attempted 1973 oil embargo was a failure (it was so expensive that OPEC was forced to drop it after 2 months), and what American consumers saw was a result of President Carter’s price controls and panic. If OPEC can’t harm America collectively, individual nations who wish to cut off their oil production most certainly can’t.

And the rarely-mentioned flip-side of our dependence on foreign oil is their dependence on us buying it.  Middle-east countries have economies largely based on oil, which gives the buyer more control and gives America vital political leverage by making it more expensive for irrational regimes to act irrationally. This isn’t a perfect equation, but its certainly more effective than supporting the impossible mission of having Americans try to produce and buy everything domestically.

While serving as a Congressman, Rob Portman, on Jun 26, 2000, voted against just about every conservative in the US House by supporting the bureaucratic implementation of some of the Kyoto Protocol. And he has a record of supporting inefficient ethanol. But he also supported drilling in ANWR, and voted against subsidizing those ugly, Malthusian hybrid cars. (Even though Rob bought one. Gag!)

So while his record as a conservative on energy is not spotless, Portman is certainly in support of an increase in sensible domestic drilling. But as a general principle, I think he should support new drilling, even if not a single drop of the increased production is actually used domestically.

From the Dayton Daily News:

State Rep. Tyrone Yates, D-Cincinnati, an early contender in the Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. George Voinovich, has backed Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in the Democratic primary.

Yates, who dropped out of the race earlier this summer, called Fisher “a talented leader.”

“He’s one of the quickest minds and graspers of issues that face Ohio, maybe that I know in public service in the state,” Yates said in a conference call Tuesday, Aug. 25.

I know Rep. Yates- and he is very smart and well read. In fact, he is such a big fan of reading that on my first day on the job at the Ohio legislature, he invited me to join his new, bi-partisan employee book club. Later in the day, his legislative aide asked me for reading suggestions, but after she rejected a few titles from F.A. Hayek and William F. Buckley, I said something terrible: “Why don’t we read Karl Marx and compare it to your party’s platform?” I was a stupid 20 year old, and came VERY close to losing my job before day #2.

My other two Yates stories:

1) On his car, Yates had three smaller campaign signs standing upright, and were connected together as a triangle. They would probably spin around while driving. This was referred to as the “Yatesmobile.”

2) OSU Political Science Professor Herb Asher teaches in his Ohio politics class that Rep. Yates was 1 of 5 black legislators who were essentially bribed with projects for their districts in exchange for passing Gov. Taft’s massive tax increases. Without their help, Speaker Householder did not have enough votes.

Mark Naymik reports, and privately crows because the story is about him.

Perhaps when the lefty blogosphere gets tired of picking on SoS Jennifer Garrison for not being a card-carrying member of their black helicopters & sodomy society, Jennifer Brunner’s campaign can feed them another non-story to harp on. Oh wait… never mind- Campaigns aren’t allowed to feed stories anymore!

From Brent Larkin’s column:

“As one of my supporters in Cleveland suggested, by the time we get to 2010, the governor will be held by the people of Ohio squarely responsible for the economy — deservedly or not,” (Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner) told me last week. “If you have on the top of the ballot the person responsible for Ohio’s economy [Strickland] and the one responsible for providing jobs for Ohio [Fisher, in his former role as development director], that’s not going to play well for Democrats.”

If this Senate stuff doesn’t work out, perhaps John Kasich will hire Mrs. Brunner as a press secretary.

According to Julie Carr Smyth, they pulled out of the “women’s summit”:

From Mark Niquette:

Nearly two months after Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner asked for a ruling to resolve questions about her U.S. Senate campaign using equipment bought by her former state campaign, the request is still languishing.

Both the campaign and the Federal Election Commission are refusing to provide key details about it.

Brunner’s campaign sent a letter June 11 asking the commission to determine the legality of an agreement designed to allow her U.S. Senate campaign to use around $15,000 worth of equipment purchased with state campaign funds, which normally is prohibited.

But when asked this week about the status of Brunner’s request for an advisory opinion, the commission said it doesn’t consider the request complete and won’t move forward until it does.

The federal panel had 10 days to respond to Brunner’s June 11 request and to notify the campaign whether the request was complete or to seek additional information.

This entire story is bizarre, and would be a huge story if Jennifer Brunner wa a Republican.

IT was back in June, when her spokesbabe told us that she “doesn’t know where the equipment and supplies are now.” But the records shows Jennifer Brunner knew EXACTLY what she was doing.

Here is what she bought ilegally:

2/13/09 Best Buy- Office Equipment Purchase-$3490.14

2/13/09 CDW Office Equipment Purchase- $8446.40

2/14/09 Staples- Office Supplies- $2379.14

2/17/09 Best Buy– Cell Phones- $1250.02

What is interesting to note is that she bought the cell phones on the VERY SAME DAY she announced her run for Senate. Brunner, who is the Ohio Secretary of State is certainly not ignorant of campaign finance laws. She and her campaign knew exactly what they were doing with buying those cell phones, even though FEC regulations prohibit that purchase.

And Jen Brunner has changed her story. At first, Brunner said, “I don’t know the final details of it and “needs time to determine what happened…”

But after several inquires from The Columbus Dispatch, Brunner said she signed an agreement with her husband’s law firm concerning her use of the state funds for her senate campaign FOUR MONTHS PRIOR:

The agreement calls for Brunner’s Senate campaign to donate the value of the equipment, estimated at $15,000, to charity beginning Oct. 29. Brunner’s campaign says that would enable the Senate campaign to legally use the equipment purchased by the state campaign.

After several Dispatch inquiries, Brunner’s campaign asked the FEC on Thursday for a legal opinion about an agreement that her husband’s law firm and her Senate campaign purportedly signed about four months ago. Brunner’s Senate campaign declined to release a copy of the agreement but said it would be sent to the FEC.

Although no one from the Brunner campaign would talk on the record yesterday, a spokesperson designated by the campaign indicated that there was confidence about the agreement’s legality when it was first reached and that the campaign remains confident that it was well within the bounds of campaign law.

Brunner didn’t ask the FEC until four months after the purchases were made, because she was caught. That same Dispatch article notes that “Several campaign-finance and ethics experts say Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner should have asked the Federal Election Commission to determine the legality of a secret agreement.” Wouldn’t you assume SoS Brunner would have access to that same type of good advice?

As Melanie Sloan of the Citizen for Responsiblity and Ethics said, “Certainly it is on the shady side, and you don’t expect the secretary of state, of all candidates, to engage in activities like that.”

And as Darryl Rowland noted back in June:

Maybe there’s a simpler explanation for all this, but so far Brunner and her campaign refuse to offer one. Instead, they say the matter has gotten improper attention and that her family has been unfairly dragged into the muck. (For the record, Rick Brunner’s law firm has gotten nearly $100,000 from his wife’s state campaign.)

The “simpler explanation” is that Jennifer Brunner is arrogant enough to think she is above the law, but she was caught red handed. Not only does this show Jennifer Brunner to be a terrible candidate for US Senate, but it shows that Brunner is unfit to serve as Secretary of State.

Lee Fisher is pleased.