The Lee Fisher for Senate campaign has been one long, disgraceful slog thus far, with Lee needing to empty out his already small war chest to beat back a challenge in the Democrat primary from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (who had about $14.92 on hand at any given time in the race). Then Lee miscounted by about 48, when he WAY overestimated his grassroots support at the Northland Independence Day Parade last month on Twitter before disgracefully sneaking off the parade route, which would have been fine except that some people apparently have cameras AND internet access to see the nonsensical number counting (a crowd estimate that would have made the DC Police proud). On top of that, Lee is now on his third campaign manager, and has lost both his Communications Director & Research Director, at least one of whom went to work on another Senate campaign with a better shot at winning. To take the cake, though, media pundits and Democrat bigwigs took notice, culminating in this fantastic video summing up the smoking wreckage that is the Democrats’ best shot at winning a Republican-held seat in the US Senate, in an open contest to boot, against an opponent who had never run statewide versus Lee’s approximate 53 statewide ballot appearances (that number subject to Lee’s own counting practices). Check it out:
Posts Tagged ‘Lee Fisher’
Lee Fisher is on a roll (just not a good one!)
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Lee Fisher’s Grassroots Slowmentum
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010So, Lee Fisher recently tweeted about showing up with “50+” volunteers at the Northland 4th of July Parade. Unfortunately for Lee, this is the 21st century, and people have a) cell phone cameras, and b) Al Gore’s Internet. Here’s a quick take from the Ohio GOP on the Democrat’s great hope for the US Senate, Lee Fisher, and his “grassroots slowmentum”:
Later in the day, Lee showed up at the Westerville Independence Day Parade, where he had a whopping 8 walkers (along with 8 for Ted Strickland/Yvette McGee Brown, and 5 for David Pepper). Most of the state representative campaigns we saw in parades this weekend had more volunteers marching with them than that! These are statewide candidates, with paid staff, and supposedly extensive astroturfing grassroots networks. Now, for what a real campaign looks like when they go marching in parades, check this out, from the Portman for Senate campaign:
Lee’s lame jobs record–in his own words
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Lee Fisher was responsible for focusing on economic development and job creation as Lieutenant Governor and formerly as the Director of Development. In his run for US Senate, he has emphasized his record on jobs, and we couldn’t be happier about Lee’s willingness to embrace his record, or lack thereof. Unfortunately for Lee Fisher, his attempts to paint GOP candidate Rob Portman as responsible for the loss of over 430,000 Ohio jobs on HIS watch simply runs contrary to his own words. Check out this great piece of work from the NRSC on Lee Fisher, in his own words:
Make sure to check out www.FisherWrongforOhio.com for more on Lee’s miserable record.
Brunner fells foes with friendly fire
Saturday, December 19th, 2009Yesterday we took White House-preferred Democrat candidate for US Senate Lee Fisher to task for his endorsement by David Plouffe, who just so happens to be on Lee’s payroll, and welcomed him running on his miserable jobs record. Today, his opponent in the Democrat primary, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, joins the fun in calling him out on a few more endorsements, but she doesn’t do it where Ohioans will read her headline-grabbing comments, just for her primary foe and his backers to see. Instead, she gabs to National Journal’s Hotline, and we’ve got the details via the Plain Dealer’s Open blog.
Brunner takes US Rep. Zack Space (D-OH 18) to task for only endorsing Fisher’s campaign to avoid his district falling to the redistricting cleaver. Of course, this conversation was off the record, and you won’t ever catch Space with the guts to say it publicly. It’s almost like he treats his constituents–no public town halls where voters could possible pose a tricky question for the esteemed sophomore Representative who spends millions of George Soros’ cash to make sure voters in OH-18 think he is a “Blue Dog” instead of the lap dog for Speaker Pelosi that he really is.
Then, Brunner claims the support of several mayors around the state for Fisher is only coming because they fear funding cuts from Fisher’s boss, Governor Strickland. Of course, none of them will ever go on record with this sentiment either, but we’re seeing a pattern develop here as the Dems bring Cuyahoga County-style political muscle to this race. Democrats are apparently forgoing the carrot in favor of the stick to make sure the DNC and ODP get their guy in the race, and not a candidate they’ve seen tack to the left of even President Obama on various issues. Beyond this, Lee Fisher will take an endorsement from just about anyone, as evidenced by allowing disgraced outgoing Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner to publicly endorse his campaign, even after being recalled by voters this fall. No word on whether Carty took the opportunity to call any of Lee’s opposition by the vulgarities he was caught on tape using with young children in a local park last summer.
This primary battle is heating up, all the while Rob Portman is building a growing lead in the polls and in the fund raising department. Jennifer Brunner is not going away despite the Ohio Democrat Party, the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Governor Strickland’s scorched earth efforts to knock out the candidate of the liberal netroots. Our suggestion for the Democrats? Hire Brunner to stand off stage left during the debates with Portman and help Lee Fisher hold his finger in the wind before he takes a position on an issue–it seems to be working so far.
Let Lee run on jobs record!
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009If you haven’t been keeping up to date with Lee Fisher lately, you would be doing the same thing he was guilty of with the formerly Dayton, OH, headquartered NCR, which is moving over 1,200 jobs out of Ohio on his watch. Lee has been a busy bee lately, trying his hardest to reverse his slide in the polls and to shake the “regional candidate” label even friendly Democrat bloggers have tagged him with. In the past week, the Lieutenant Governor has made headlines with a couple of developments, neither related to success as a job creator: his endorsement by paid campaign consultant & President Obama’s right-hand advisor David Plouffe, and his willingness to run on a record as job creator-in-chief.
Speaking in Akron last Tuesday, the man asleep at the wheel while Ohio lost over 300,000 jobs and doubled our unemployment rate managed to look past the log in his eye to vaguely call out distinguished former U.S. Representative Rob Portman (R-Cincinnati). And that could not be better news for Republicans. Lee Fisher wants to talk about jobs, and so do we. If you have heard what Portman and gubernatorial candidate John Kasich (R-Westerville) are saying on the campaign trail, it is all about jobs–how we can’t afford to keep losing them, and exactly what Republicans will do to create new jobs and keep existing jobs here in Ohio.
Clearly, Lee Fisher was instrumental in the failure of Ted Strickland’s administration to create or even retain jobs in Ohio. You simply cannot serve as the state’s Director of Development for as long as Lee Fisher did, essentially the point man for economic development and job creation in Ohio, and not be complicit in the free-falling Ohio economy. Just as obviously, someone is advising Lee Fisher and his campaign team (who will all also be publicly endorsing Lee for Senate by week’s end in an effort to trump up momentum) to make a glaring weakness a strength, and to turn Portman’s strength (successful economic policies) into a weakness by talking about it all of the time like it is a bad thing. Unfortunately for Lee Fisher, Ohioans will not fall for the bait-and-switch. They know just who is responsible for this mess, and it is clear who can pull us out of this funk.
Don’t just take our word for all of this, though. Liberal bloggers agree that Lee is weak on jobs. Many are openly rooting for his opponent, Jennifer Brunner, and noticing that Lee seems to take many of his stances only after she speaks up on an issue. Lee is in for a primary dogfight because even Democrats aren’t buying his stump speech.
Us? We’ll be the ones watching eagerly from the sidelines. Should the left-wing blogosphere have their way, we get to face a candidate that Rob Portman is leading by an even greater margin.