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Columbus Dispatch...
With
Blackwell out of U.S. Senate
race, Coughlin focuses on Mandel
By Joe Hallett
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Blood
was drawn yesterday in the Ohio
GOP race for the U.S. Senate, 11 months before the two remaining
candidates
will face off in the May primary election
Just
five days after J. Kenneth
Blackwell, the party’s nominee for governor in 2006, announced that he
would
not seek the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod
Brown
in 2012, former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, attacked his lone Republican
opponent, state Treasurer Josh Mandel.
“At
this point,” Coughlin told
reporters in a conference call, “the only thing that commends him to
this race
is he’s an awesome fundraiser.”
Coughlin,
41, of Cuyahoga Falls, declared
himself the true conservative in the GOP race and appeared to lump
Mandel with
politicians who go to the Senate and “do exactly what leadership tells
them to
do, do exactly what special interests tell them to do, and get lost.”
Anthony
Conchel, a spokesman for
Mandel, said the campaign would not comment on Coughlin’s remarks.
Mandel,
33, of Lyndhurst, is a former
state representative now in his sixth month as Ohio treasurer. He has
the
backing of much of the GOP establishment in Ohio and Washington and is
known
for his fundraising prowess.
Coughlin
said he has talked with
Republicans across the state and is “hearing very real reservations
about
Josh’s qualifications for the Senate (and) about the promise he made to
voters
to serve four years (as treasurer).”
Coughlin
owns a political consulting
and fundraising company. Referring to Mandel and Brown, Coughlin said
he is the
“only one who has earned a private paycheck.” Mandel is a two-tour
Marine Corps
veteran of the Iraq war.
Acknowledging
that Mandel’s candidacy
“is picking up steam,” Coughlin said he goes into the primary campaign
as the
underdog: “As long as I have enough money to put gas in the tank, I
will be
going around Ohio explaining why I am a better candidate for Senate.”
Coughlin
said he is just starting to
raise money, saying of Mandel: “He’s had a fundraiser almost every day
this
month, in June, somewhere in the country, from Honolulu, to Atlanta, to
D.C.,
to New York, and everywhere in between.”
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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