Shameless weasel JD Vance is one step closer to becoming the next US senator from Ohio. Vance defeated Martin Luther King scholar Josh Mandel and some other awful Republicans in Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary. Donald Trump saved Vance’s candidacy from likely oblivion, and Trump’s never shy about letting people know he owns them.
At Vance’s campaign stops, some attendees said they were persuaded by Trump [to support Vance]. At his rivals’ events, voters said they had planned to vote for someone else – but Trump’s endorsement had given them pause. [...]
The political press, Vance said at his victory party Tuesday night, “wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, it ain’t the death of the ‘America First’ agenda.”
God, he’s even adopted the whole “Ivy League asshole says ‘ain’t’ to stress his point like the common folk” schtick. It’s sickening when Ted Cruz does it, and the idea of this venal sack of shit joining Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley in the Senate is nauseating.
But on the upside, Josh Mandel lost.
Rep. Tim Ryan handily won the Democratic primary. You’d think this would be a simple choice: As Alexander Hamilton might say, Ryan has beliefs and Vance has none. Yet, Ryan is still facing strong headwinds. Trump won Ohio twice, and it wasn’t even close. Although about 15,000 more people voted for Ryan than Vance, Republican voters overall doubled Democrats in the primary turnout.
PREVIOUSLY: Here, Enjoy Your Shouty Tim Ryan!
Ryan is hoping at least some of those Republicans will look at him and just see a regular guy from Niles, Ohio, rather than a pedophile Democrat with prominent horns. He urged Ohio voters to stop “looking at each other and seeing a Democrat or seeing a Republican” and to be open to “heal,” to “come together” and to “forgive each other” for decisions that others may have made. Yes, Democrats should forgive Republicans for their overt support of insurrections and in turn, Republicans might give Democrats a pass for existing.
Look, we fully support pretending Republicans aren’t hot garbage if it means keeping Vance out of the Senate and sparing us an inevitable presidential run in 2028. Vance, however, has already gone personal, describing Ryan as a wannabe “Trump Democrat” who nonetheless supports Joe Biden’s America Last agenda.
Former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who won the Democratic primary for governor, took a similar conciliatory stance from 1996:
Ohio isn’t a red state or blue state. It’s a frustrated state that has been ignored by politicians from both parties for too long.
It’s also an American state, and Republicans don’t believe in American values. Oh well. Whaley will face incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine, who managed to fend off more conservative and loonier primary challengers.
In lighter and slightly hilarious Ohio news, there was a rematch between Rep. Shontel Brown and Nina Turner in the new 11th District Democratic primary. Well, “rematch” implies a competition of some sort. Turner was present when Brown easily won with 66 percent of the vote. Turner suggested (or threatened) that voters would see her again in 2024. No, she’s not going to keep running against Brown like some electoral version of Groundhog’s Day. She’s running for president, y’all!
Sister Turner ain't going nowhere.
I suppose it was too much to hope.
"They can't contain this Black girl magic ... 'Cause what I am gonna do is I'mma take this magic all over this country and shake it that way. And baby, 2024 is coming.
"And I think the great state of California got something to say about what Sister Turner should do," she said. "The great state of Iowa got something to say about what Sister Turner should do. The great state of Nevada got something to say about what Sister Turner should do."
She’s apparently sticking with the “Sister Turner” thing. It’s fucking bananapants.
People who clearly didn’t listen to whatever that was she said last night are worried that “Sister Turner” might run third party and siphon votes from Joe Biden. I shouldn’t dismiss those concerns out of hand. It’s possible the 2024 election might come down to a half dozen votes in Ohio.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
