2nd Ohio Senate debate marked by personal jabs

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — The sec­ond debate in Ohio’s hotly con­tested U.S. Sen­ate debate turned almost vit­ri­olic, as Repub­li­can chal­lenger Josh Man­del called U.S. Sen. Sher­rod Brown a liar and Brown said Man­del can’t be trusted.

The tenor of the tele­vised debate in Colum­bus mir­rored the bar­rage of neg­a­tive TV ads that have marked a race that is one of the most expen­sive in the nation.

Man­del, the 35-year-old state trea­surer, called the 2008 bailout spear­headed under then-GOP Pres­i­dent George Bush “fis­cally irre­spon­si­ble and morally wrong” and said he would not sup­port sim­i­lar moves if elected.

Brown, 59, crit­i­cized Man­del for fail­ing to sup­port the auto bailout that was con­nected to 800,000 Ohio jobs and for want­ing to pri­va­tize Medicare.

Man­del at one point urged view­ers of the Colum­bus debate to “type in Google Trans­late” to under­stand Brown’s “Wash­ing­ton­speak.” He said Brown has a poor record on small busi­ness and unem­ployed Ohioans need some­one new.

Brown, a Demo­c­rat, said he’s won the endorse­ments of many Ohio news­pa­pers because Man­del has held four offices in seven years and can’t be trusted to show up to work. He was refer­ring to the fact that Man­del missed the first 14 monthly meet­ings of the pow­er­ful Board of Deposits that he chairs as treasurer.

“He’s more con­cerned about his next job than the jobs of peo­ple in this coun­try,” Brown said. “This is hardly some­body who’s going to be Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

After one such exchange, Man­del stared into the cam­era and said, “Sen­a­tor, you are a liar.”

Brown replied that Man­del had taken his attacks to a new low.

The auto bailout con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate the con­ver­sa­tion, with Brown sup­port­ing it and Man­del call­ing it a mistake.

Man­del was a Cleveland-area city coun­cil­man and state leg­is­la­tor before being elected state trea­surer two years ago. Brown is a for­mer Ohio sec­re­tary of state who was elected to the U.S. House in 1992 and is serv­ing his first term in the Senate.

Brown’s defeat of Repub­li­can Mike DeWine six years ago sur­prised polit­i­cal prog­nos­ti­ca­tors — and has remained a loss the GOP would like to reverse.

That 2006 vic­tory made Brown the first Demo­c­rat that Ohioans had sent to the Sen­ate since for­mer astro­naut John Glenn retired in 1999.

Brown is among the Senate’s most lib­eral mem­bers, while Man­del is a polit­i­cal mod­er­ate whose posi­tions have become more con­ser­v­a­tive dur­ing the campaign.

Polls have con­sis­tently shown Brown with a slight lead.

For­mer Bush oper­a­tive Karl Rove’s Amer­i­can Cross­roads, the affil­i­ated Cross­roads GPS, and the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce have spent tens of mil­lions of dol­lars against Brown in the state. Man­del attack ads have come largely from labor-backed groups who favor Brown.

The debate was held at the cor­po­rate head­quar­ters of Nation­wide Insur­ance in down­town Columbus.

Posted by AP News on Oct 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.