Yesterday, I posted a link to the latest endorsement excitement in the Republican Primary for Ohio Auditor, where Dayton Daily News reported that Montgomery County Republican Party Chairman Greg Gantt had not actually endorsed Seth Morgan. After that went to print, State Senator Gary Cates sent Morgan a harshly worded letter, which Dave Yost’s campaign circulated to the media.

But in this conference call with supporters of Seth Morgan on January 14, 2010, it sure sounds like Gantt endorsed. Take a listen:

Here is the transcript (emphasis added):

Rep. Seth Morgan: Mr. Greg Gantt, uh and uh, Greg we, we turn it over to you for a few words of wisdom.

Montgomery County Republican Chairman Greg Gantt: Thank you Seth. Uhh, my words of wisdom I guess are not so much in go for it, you can do it because I think, uh, I certainly know you would make an excellent candidate and encourage you to, uh, pursue that option and, and go for it. Umm, I guess my comment is more to everybody on the call, uh, on a personal level, that uh, you have begun a great career in the House and certainly you’re poised to win reelection and to say that, uh, myself and others are gonna stand behind you, uh, and support you and encourage you to go for the Auditor’s position, that uh, we stick with you, uh, and push you as hard as we can because you’re…you’re putting yourself out there….uh…..(unintelligible)..you’d have an easier race in a smaller district and continue on your wonderful work at the house and, uh, shoot for state level later and we’re so appreciative and (it’s) so wonderful that you’re considering doing this and uh, just want to let everybody know the fact that you’re putting yourself out there, that I’m willing and hope that other people are willing to put themselves out as well, and uh, and really stay with you, uh, as you pursue this goal. I’m very excited, and uh, very honored to be a part of this and especially, uh, somewhat uh….uh…weird to be in a almost fatherly figure at, uh, my young age of 43 to see some of my, uh, my first two candidates as chairman to get elected and now moving up to the state level and (I’m) very excited, very thrilled and I’m behind you a hundred percent.

Rep. Seth Morgan: Well thank you Chairman, uh, very much, we appreciate you joining us, and uh, your support is important obviously because we need to build a coalition that is uh, as broad as we can…we can make it. Umm…we look forward to continuing to pick up support from the establishment, if you will, GOP along the way and we very much appreciate you being on the call and for your leadership here in Montgomery County.

To make matters worse, Gantt also said this to the Dayton Daily News:

Gantt, a member of the board of elections, said Friday that he does not endorse candidates. Gantt, who chairs the county board, said that is both personal preference and board policy. He said the county party has not decided whether to endorse Morgan, a former Huber Heights councilman, or Yost for state auditor.

But on January 26, he proudly endorsed Rob Portman for US Senate.

It looks like Gantt Cantt get his story straight, or some other factors helped him change his mind.

And stay tuned for more Republican endorsement drama in the Ohio Auditor’s race!…

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 Hill:

For years, Rep. Roy Blunt and former Rep. Rob Portman touted their positions of influence in Republican leadership circles in Washington, D.C.

But now both are running for Senate seats and discovering their Washington résumés to be something of a liability at a time when the Tea Party and disaffected fiscal conservatives have new political power.

Blunt, who is running in a GOP primary in Missouri, and Portman, who is running in Ohio, have taken different approaches to explaining their years in Washington.

While Blunt has reached out to Tea Party activists, Portman has kept them at arm’s length so far.[...]

Portman has been more aloof, according to Tea Party organizers in Ohio.

“He has not reached out to our group,” said Rob Scott, founder and president of the Dayton Tea Party.

The Dayton Tea Party has invited Portman to a candidate forum scheduled for March 27 but still has not received confirmation from his campaign.

“They’ve put us off,” said Scott, who added that he will likely support Portman’s candidacy.

Charles Dyer, chairman of the Central Ohio Tea Party Patriots, said he has also found Portman less than enthusiastic to embrace Tea Party activists and voters.

“We’ve had the same experience in central Ohio,” Dyer said. “He doesn’t have any strong challengers on the conservative side so he might not see that as a necessity at this time.”

Portman’s campaign disputes this.[...]

Ohio Tea Party organizers note that before Ganley dropped his bid, he did significantly more than Portman to reach out to them.[...]

Scott, of the Dayton Tea Party, said Portman was “in Congress when Republicans were spending — not as much as the current Congress — but were spending beyond the means of the country.

“Portman was Bush’s OMB director, he was in charge of the budget and he’s going to have to explain that,” Scott added.

Strong words, but I think Scott- who I know well from Ken Blackwell’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign and is now Seth Morgan’s campaign spokesman- is right to raise questions. Just during this campaign cycle, it was rather unnerving when Portman endorsed the Cash for Clunkers program, since opposition to this type of creepy-crawly statist policy is part of what defines “conservatism.”

But The Hill is just making a big fuss out of something that is rather obvious. This is lazy reporting.

And regardless, Rob Portman will still be Ohio’s most right-of-center Senator since conservative icon Robert Taft left office in 1953. I think that’s worth mentioning.

Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine’s warning is an important one:

Conservatism wins elections. Good policy. Good politics.

From Jennifer Brunner’s Twitter page:

Doesn’t Jennifer know it’s not good to leave your dogs in a car for any extended period of time?

And why would Jenny-Benny, an anti-gun God-less liberal, be invited to the National Wild Turkey Federation dinner in Coshocton County, where she gave the dinner prayer? Can you even imagine Jennifer holding a gun?!

The folks who go to this type of event are sportsmen, usually with plenty of disposable income to spend on silent auction items (guns, knives, prints of wildlife scenes, and hunting gear). In other words, not a big turnout of Democrats who vote in primaries.

And I have confirmation that the Pink Pistols were not there. So is Jennifer already in General Election mode?

Kevin Holtsberry has the details here.

If Jennifer Brunner is trying to smear Rob Portman as badly as Murtha smeared US troops in Haditha, she will have to try harder than this.

From Americans for Prosperity:

Please join Americans for Prosperity, OH (AFP-OH), the Columbus Tea Party, Ohio Freedom Alliance, Citizens United to End Ohio’s Estate Tax, Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, and Ohio Citizens Accounting Standards Board at a rally demanding that Ohio’s legislature get spending under control and stop treating taxpayers like an ATM every time they run out of cash. The rally will be held in front of a 15-foot-tall inflatable ATM machine to drive the point home that Ohio’s citizens are “Already Taxed to the Max.”

Date: Saturday, January 30th, 2pm

Location: Hyatt on Capitol Square in Columbus.

I’ve heard that Auditor candidate Seth Morgan and Senate candidate Rob Portman have confirmed that they will attend. Are you going or know of other candidates who will be there? Then please leave a comment. Thank you

They commissioned Fritz Wenzel for the survey:

Gubernatorial Race
Kasich 42.5
Strickland 32.6
Other 7.8
Not Sure 17.2

Governor Strickland’s Job Approval Rating
Excellent 6.3
Good 24.6
Fair 38.2
Poor 27
Not Sure 4

U.S. Senate Race
Portman 36.9
Fisher 30.7
Other 8.8
Not Sure 23.7

Portman 40.4
Brunner 34.5
Other 6.4
Not Sure 18.8

“The results in these Ohio races reflect a significant change from just a few months ago, which mirrors the dramatic change in the political landscape this year,” said pollster Fritz Wenzel. “National issues have dominated, and the Democrats have seen a steep decline in the popularity of their leaders and their proposals. Democrats Strickland, Fisher and Brunner have the added difficulty of presiding over a state that has languished through a very tough economic time.”

The poll questions were asked in conjunction with the Ohio Cultural Index. These results are available in their entirety at www.ohiolife.org. The Index will be released on January 25. The survey was conducted January 8-12, 2010, and included 1001 Ohio registered voters contacted by phone. The poll carries a 95% confidence interval and a margin of error of +/- 3.07 percentage points.

More details and the crosstabs are available here.

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.

COAST says yes.

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 Ohio GOP’s Twitter:

I had no idea the Huron County Fair was in Virginia.

Kevin Holtsberry on his RedState blog notes:

Democrats and their lefty blog supporters have been trying to pin whatever negative association they can find on Rob Portman.  The primary one being that he worked for George W. Bush (in one giggle inducing stunt they called him the “architect” of the Bush economy which was news to Portman and Bush I am sure).

They must be getting tired of that particular tune because now they are branching out in ever greater desperation [$ sub req].  They are now combing through the cases of the law firm Squire Sanders, & Dempsey and associating anything that might be seen as negative with Portman.

Guess who else works at Squire Sanders, & Dempsey? Ohio Auditor candidate David Pepper. Perhaps Todd Hoffman at the ODP forgot to mention that when he fed this lame attack to the almost-dormant Buckeye State Blog.

The laws of economics matter, regardless if President Obama, Betty Sutton, and Rob Portman don’t thing so:

Basing their argument on the fact that about 250,000 clunkers have already been traded in for new cars and that with another $2 billion in funding expected, up to 500,000 more used cars could be taken out of the market, Kelley sees the value of used cars in general rising steeply, if only for a brief time.

The average increase estimate is between 5%-10%.

I caught him at a Josh Mandel event, but this was AFTER Kevin caught him at a Rob Portman event.

And at this very moment, he is attempting to film John Kasich’s Beavercreek event!

So just who is this guy named “Troy”? The Boyce Bandit must be stopped, and I will gladly hunt this jackass down myself.

Distinguished senior citizen Joe Hallett of The Dispatch reports that Senate Candidate Rob Portman supports C-f-C. This is the same program which diverts money away from legitimate charities, destroys cheap cars that the poor would have been able to afford, and has a website which makes your home computer the property of the Federal government. geesh

Perhaps I was onto something when noting Portman’s website’s new “green” color scheme.

Kevin Holtsberry rode the bus today with Rob Portman and did a Flip Cam interview. Nice job

looks like a carbon credit offset program.

It takes an insane lefty to believe this site was rebuilt in 48 hours after the Ohio Democrat Party released a silly attack website… And I’ve been told that hack Ohio reporters have actually questioned the campaign about it, in serious fashion!

But I already miss the old Portman blue.

is willing to spend between $5-7 million against Rob Portman.

It is another lame attempt by Democrats to keep the focus on former President George Bush. oh hum

Perhaps Ohioans would like to return to the “Bush economy,” where Ohio had 6% unemployment, instead of the 11.1% in the Strickland/Obama economy?

But something stinks here- Typically, attack websites, designed for some cheap newspaper coverage, are more fun than this. Perhaps the ODP is too busy counting the piles of money from Mrs. Chris Redfern’s shady gambling lobbying interests to put any real effort into the internets.