My friend & VRWC-mentor Matt Lewis has a fantastic piece about Tom Ganley, who, on top of building a successful business in an area run by big-government liberal gangsters, was almost killed by the mafia:

Reporters who cover political campaigns get to meet all sorts of interesting candidates. Some are celebrities, or former football stars, or even fighter pilots. But Tom Ganley, the Republican nominee for Congress in Ohio’s 13th District, has a story that even the most hard-to-impress reporter might find interesting. He helped take down the Mafia in Cleveland.

Aside from running for Congress (he’s challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton), Ganley is the largest car dealer in Ohio, and owns insurance agencies, real estate companies and the largest independently owned finance company in the state.

Ganley, who started out as a car salesman, became extremely wealthy, which made him a prime target of the mob.

Frankly, Ganley’s amazing story has all the ingredients of a Hollywood movie (starring, perhaps, Matt Damon?).

And this is how he tells it:

In the early 1980s, Carl LaCava — who worked for a group that helped ex-servicemen find jobs — met with Ganley in his Ohio office. He was hoping to persuade Ganley, who then owned one car dealership, to hire one of his clients. During the meeting, LaCava casually mentioned he had just met with the owner of A.D. Pelunis Oldsmobile in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb, and that the dealership was for sale. He suggested that Ganley try to buy it. Ganley took his idea seriously, and six months later, he made the purchase. That’s when things got weird. One day Ganley received an invoice from LaCava for a $500,000 “finder’s fee.”

Read the rest here.

From Michael Barone:

Today a lot more Democratic incumbents seem to be trailing Republican challengers in polls. Jim Geraghty of National Review Online has compiled a list of 13 Democratic incumbents trailing in polls released over the past seven weeks.

Some of these poll numbers are mind-boggling. Tom Perriello, a 727-vote winner in Virginia 5 in 2008, has been running two weeks of humorous ads showing what a hard worker he is. A poll shows him trailing Republican state Sen. Robert Hurt 58 to 35 percent.

In industrial Ohio 13, which Barack Obama carried 57 to 42, a poll shows incumbent Betty Sutton trailing free-spending Republican Tom Ganley 44 to 31 percent.

As Geraghty notes, we haven’t seen polls released by many other Democrats on Republican target lists. Most are conducting polls; many have reason to release favorable results if they’re available. This looks like a case where the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Two years ago, Obama was elected president with a historic 53 percent of the vote — more than any other Democrat in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

These metrics — the generic ballot results and polls in individual districts — suggest that House Democrats are headed toward historic losses. Quite a swing in 18 months.

Mark Namick tries his hand at stand up comedy:

The general managers and employees of the Ganley Auto Group are throwing a fund-raiser for their boss, Republican Tom Ganley, who wants to go to Congress. Ganley dropped his bid for the U.S. Senate last week and jumped in the race for the 13th U.S. Congressional District, a much more practical use of the millions he’s pledged to spend on his political ambition. Democrat Betty Sutton currently represents the district.

In a letter to supporters – sent by Ganley’s campaign – the employees say the event is March 3 at the International Exhibition Center, timed to overlap with the March auto show.

Ganley’s employees, who filled out the audience when Ganley announced his bid for the U.S Senate in July, clearly love their boss.

Or, they are eager to get him out of the office, far away in Washington.

Tom Ganley just spent more than a million dollars on statewide TV ads trying to run for U.S. Senate, just because he could. How scared does Sutton have to be of a conservative candidate who doesn’t hesitate to spend his fortune in that way?

During the State of the Union speech tonight, which just like Ted Strickland’s State of the State, was full of awful tax incentives derived to micromanage your life while enriching accountants/tax lawyers, Tom Ganley, candidate for Senate, ran this ad twice on a broadcast TV channel:

What do you think of the ad? At least someone dressed him properly this time. This week, the Ganley campaign has announced it raised about $1.5 million.

I’ve heard stories about a certain Ganley dealership trampling over property rights, but am not sure if that’s worth getting into now. I’m still not convinced he is a serious candidate, but I give him credit for dropping serious money on TV.

However, if the Ganley campaign asked me for advice, I would tell them that this ad is very similar to the boring biography ads Jim Petro wasted two million dollars on very early during the primary campaign of 2006. It feels as if the ad shows Tom running a general election campaign for an election decided by the conservative Republican base… It is time for Tom to get creative, as not only is Rob Portman an incredible fundraiser, Rob is the more ideologically conservative candidate.

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

This is a fascinating article by Jessica Wehrman of the Dayton Daily News.

I had no idea Rob Portman’s family were abolitionists, Brunner comes from an accomplished Republican family, Tom Ganley was working on owning his own car dealership at age 22, and hairy Lee Fisher was probably picked on in grade school for not being able to compete in sports due to breathing issues.

Here is a sample of some fresh YouTube video from the Ganley for Senate campaign. I admire anyone who goes against the Columbus political elites:

I especially like Tom because: 1) I can tell he isn’t a career politician just by his unfashionable blue suit, 2) the strong Cleveland accent, 3) He is a successful business man who is mad as HELL about what Democrats have done to American industry.

Kevin Holtsberry did some excellent work covering today’s announcement by Cleveland-area car dealer Tom Ganley’s announcement that he will run for US Senate. Here is Kevin’s video:

So what do you think? Is this a serious campaign or a PR stunt? As a former Clevelander, I know a great deal about his business but little about Ganley personally. I would say that on the trade issues, he is likely closer to the mercantilism of Sherrod Brown than the free-market principles of Rob Portman.

But I certainly give anyone credit for ignoring the Columbus political establishment.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.