Hey, Rob Portman: Adios, Binch!!!!
Even if Jim Jordan replaces him, the effects will still be the same.
Rob Portman, the man who was reliably anti-LGTBQ until his son came out as gay, is a cowardly punk. He came in like one, and it’s no surprise to see him going out like Stan Chera.
Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein reported that, behind closed doors, Portman was one of the many Republican Senators that detest Donald Trump, the crass cartoon villain who said the quiet part of GOP policy out loud.
Portman never said a word of this in public. Deep down he lived in terror that Trump would snap his fingers and summon a hobgoblin to primary Portman from his right flank. That scared him much more than any Democrat ever did.
RELATED (OCT. 2020): Democrats should recruit Dr. Amy Acton or LeBron James to run for Senate in 2022.
That’s why Portman, the self-appointed Chairman of the Ukrainian Caucus, voted to acquit President Business Deals of impeachment charges after Deals was caught on tape suborning foreign policy to extract a faux investigation into Joe Biden from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Portman lived in terror of Trump cyber-bullying him, which is why he could never condemn whatever heinous shit Trump said or did during his four-year reign of chaos.
The funny thing is despite all the feckless obsequiousness, Portman must have read the tealeaves and seen that he was still likely to face a Trump-backed challenge and that challenger would be a lot more popular among Republican primary voters than he would be.
So rather than stand and fight on the principals he claims to have, he chose to tuck his tail and “retire” while lamenting the partisan gridlock in Washington D.C. that he spent his career creating.
Despite all the subservience to the MAGA agenda, Portman still gets to maintain his reputation in some circles as a “serious policy guy” who stands head and shoulders above whatever MAGA freak will likely replace him in 2022.
Make no mistake, from a legislative standpoint, there is no difference between Rob Portman and Jim Jordan. Go ahead and write it in blood: Portman will vote to acquit Trump at his second impeachment trial, too. The rest is simply semantics.
It’s better for Democrats to face an extremist like Jordan, who can’t help but be anything but a bomb-throwing carnival barker (not that I’d know anything about that). As sad as it is, there are tons of everyday voters that bought Portman’s “statesman” hustle like a cheap trick off the street.
Here’s how I would rank potential Republican Senate contenders:
Typical Republican Trash Tier: Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Attorney General Dave Yost, Congressman Steve Stivers. There is nothing special about any of these guys. They are your typical loafs of bread that have rotated seats of power in this state for nearly 30 years. None of them would have much juice in a Republican primary without a Trump endorsement.
Hobgoblin Tier: Venture capitalist J.D. Vance and former Congressman Jim Renacci. Vance is your typical venture capital gremlin that serves at the altar of that bloodsucker Peter Thiel. He is an Appalachian lore hustler which is ironic considering he is not from Appalachia nor has he ever lived there. Renacci, once one of the richest members of Congress, is the Steelers season ticket holder that during his failed Senate campaign went to pander at a Browns game and tweeted that he enjoyed his time in “the dog pound.” Thankfully he will likely be trying to primary Mike DeWine in a gubernatorial election that up until yesterday promised to be the biggest shit show of the 2022 state cycle.
Awoken Demon of Hell Tier: Congressman Jim Jordan, a dude who has been in Congress for 15 years and has yet to pass a single law. Other than stirring up the anti-maskers while whining about Democrats trying to cancel Christmas, the second worst part of Jordan’s would be liberals calling him dumbass shit like “Gym Bro Jordan,” as if turning a blind eye to systemic sexual assault is a punch line. Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer would be in this tier if he hadn’t fucked off to Jacksonville to coach the Jaguars to four wins a year.
PRINCE OF DARKNESS TIER: FORMER TREASURER JOSH MANDEL
Former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, like Portman, quit like a dog when the going got tough in his abandoned Senate campaign against Sherrod Brown in 2018.
Mandel has since divorced his wife (rumors say he’s a serial cheater) and deleted all his social media profiles while sitting atop nearly $5 million in federal campaign cash from his abandoned campaign.
Let’s review some of this sewer creature’s greatest hits:
Ran anti-Muslim ads against his Christian opponent in the 2012 Treasurer’s race. He eventually got shamed into pulling the bad-faith attacks.
His wife’s family took out a full-page ad in the Cleveland Jewish News to shit talk him.
Defended white supremacist Jack Posobeic and Pizzagate peddler Mike Cernovich from Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center attacks.
Accepted $100,000 in illegal donations from convicted felon Ben Suarez, even going so far as sending a letter on official Treasurer’s office letterhead in Suarez’s defense to the presiding judge.
Spent $1.84 million in public money on what amounted to a campaign ad featuring Urban Meyer.
Refused to condemn pedophile preacher Roy Moore’s failed 2016 run for Senate in Alabama.
“Became the only state treasurer in three decades not to attend a single meeting of the Board of Deposit, a monthly gathering of financial officials to determine billions of dollars of state investments.”
Hired young, inexperienced flunkies to high-ranking advisory positions. One 26-year-old staffer had to take a beginner’s course into municipal bond law. He then promptly gave raises to his unqualified underlings.
Worked six hours a week during his final year as Treasurer in which he drew a $110,000 salary.
His final project, OhioCrypto.com, allowed businesses to pay their state taxes in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency favored by criminals and nerds. The state received “fewer than 10 payments” before Attorney General David Yost shuttered the site after ruling it illegal.
But hey, don’t take my words for it. Take the advice of somebody who has known Mandel for as long as he has been in public life, via cleveland.com:
Back in 2003, it was hard not to be impressed with the polite young man who launched his political career with a tireless, door-to-door campaign for a seat on Lyndhurst City Council. Eddie Haskell had nothing on the fresh-faced kid who sat in the kitchen of then-Mayor Joe Cicero and broke bread with his family.
Looking back, Cicero now knows: "Josh was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
"He fooled everyone in the city. He was opportunistic from the start, one of the worst things that ever happened to Lyndhurst. Josh Mandel is inadequate as a human being."
That type of quote used to be enough to disqualify somebody from public life forever. Not anymore! Power-hungry rats like Mandel don’t simply walk away from a historic chance to get back into the mix. He has sat on that campaign cash for this very reason and I would bet my life that he is already moving towards replacing Portman. If Ohio elects him, it may be time to move to a state that isn’t actively trying to kill me.
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