Trump-Endorsed Wackjob Bernie Moreno To Face Sen. Sherrod Brown In Ohio Senate Race
We'll take rumpled over Trumpled.
A quick request for Wonkette readers who live in Ohio and are big fans of Bernie Sanders: Could you cover up your “I’m with Bernie” bumper stickers until December? That’s because the winner of Tuesday’s Ohio Republican primary (Washington Post gift link) was one Bernie Moreno, a rightwing car dealer with no political experience who got Donald Trump’s endorsement because he was the most MAGA guy, we guess. Oh, it was because Trumpoid waste of space Sen. JD Vance asked Trump to endorse Moreno.
Moreno won an expensive, hotly contested three-way primary against two more establishment-type Republicans, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and state Sen. Matt Dolan, who was endorsed by Gov. Mike DeWine. While both are super-conservative and would ban abortion just as hard as any other Gooper, obviously neither was crazy enough to appeal to the MAGA base.
LaRose, you’ll recall, is the schmuck who scheduled that referendum last August in hopes people would forget to vote on a measure that would’ve made it harder to pass a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights. Ohio voters showed up in droves in August to vote down the fuckery amendment, and again in November to pass the abortion protection amendment, and while they were at it they legalized weed, too.
Now Moreno will be running against one of our favorite members of Congress, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the rumpled, witty, pro-labor guy married to columnist Connie Schultz. Brown, who for years now has been the only Democrat able to win statewide office in Ohio, is seeking a fourth term in the Senate. He’s been targeted by Republicans who want to flip the Senate, and it’s likely that the race will set campaign spending records, or at least come close.
Here’s the good news, kids: As red as Ohio has become — it went for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 — it still has a lot of people who would rather support a Mike DeWine than a Trump puppet in the general election. In polling, Brown has maintained a consistent but narrow lead against all three Republicans in the race, with Dolan generally coming closest, so there’s that. Brown is also one of those rare politicians with positive favorability ratings, because the guy’s affable as fuck. (There’s a free bumper sticker slogan for you, Senator.)
Moreno was generally seen by strategists as the weakest opponent for Brown, and several Democratic groups set out to McCaskill him, running TV ads like one that “warned” voters that he was too Trumpy and conservative, oh my.
MAGA Republican Bernie Moreno is too conservative for Ohio. In Washington, Moreno would do Donald Trump’s bidding. That’s why Trump endorsed Moreno, calling him “exactly the type of MAGA fighter that we need in the United States Senate.”
We have no idea whether any primary voters actually fall for that these days, especially in a race where the three Republicans were all busy smearing each other, including an ad for Moreno that accused LaRose of being too nice to gay and trans people because he once sent a supportive message to an LGBTQ+ group, that monster. The ad featured a great big Pride flag digitally added behind LaRose to prove he was evil.
Oh hey, speaking of, we should probably mention this Associated Press story that dug up what may be an old account on the swinger site Adult Friend Finder that was linked to an email account used by Moreno. The AP notes that Moreno once was a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights but has shifted to being a “hardline opponent,” but the only message ever posted to that 2008 account sought “Men for 1-on-1 sex” and read
“Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling,” reads a caption on a photo-less profile under the username “nardo19672,” according to an Associated Press review of records made public through a massive and well-publicized data breach of the website. Records also show the profile was last accessed about six hours after it was created.
The AP figured out, with forensics, that the profile was created by someone with access to Moreno’s email, though who it was couldn’t be confirmed.
Now, Yr Wonkette loves a good scandal as much as the next blog (all the blogs are gone but us, sigh), but we must add that after the AP broke the story, Moreno’s attorney said that the account had been created as a prank by a former intern, that scamp.
The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said. The AP couldn’t independently confirm Ricci’s statement and he didn’t immediately respond to messages left for him on multiple phone numbers listed to him.
Ricci also donated $6,599 to Moreno’s campaign last year, so clearly he’s made good use of that internship to become a respectable guy with some money.
What a puzzle! On the one hand, some asshole making a fake gay profile for his boss sure sounds like something some future MAGA chuds would get up to. On the other, hiding a real gay profile also sounds equally plausible in MAGA world. We figure it was probably “asshole prank” unless anything else comes out.
The AP piece also goes into detail about what a creepy jerk Moreno became on LGBTQ+ rights issues as he moved further into Republican politics, so it sure would be a shame if terrible homophobic rumors about that old prank were to harm his credibility with fellow MAGA types, who tend not to worry too much about whether something is true or not.
Seems to us that the far better thing is to be, like Sherrod Brown, fully supportive of all Americans’ rights, and to be disgusted by bigotry. Maybe there’s a lesson there, huh?
In any case, the contrast between Brown and his MAGA opponent couldn’t be clearer; it doesn’t seem like Moreno is going to win any charm offensives. Here’s Brown on MSNBC Tuesday night, talking to Lawrence O’Donnell about what sets him apart from Moreno. (Everything, basically.)
Even against a MAGA chud like Moreno, Brown is facing the toughest campaign of his career, so if you wanted to send him some Ameros, we bet he’d appreciate it.
PREVIOUSLY!
[CNN / WaPo (gift link) / AP / Photos: Brown, US Air National Guard by Ralph Branson, public domain; Moreno, Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons License 2.0]
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𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔, 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒖𝒚’𝒔 𝒂𝒇𝒇𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌.
Also his wife is delightful, and their dog is a very good boi.
Ohio is tricky, because any state that could elect that eyelinered phony bag of shit JD Vance could do just about any stupid fuckheaded thing you can imagine, and an exodus of educated people from that state has moved it out of swing territory. On the other hand, Brown does fairly well with working class voters and if he (and the Biden camp) can repeat this, he could hang on.
Tip--define Moreno before he defines himself. The swing vote as usual will be conservative leaning people who liked the John Kasich/Mike DeWine types, but might not be all that thrilled to vote for a culture warrior wackjob who has to spend the next few months sucking sweat off of Trump's gross feet as the latest episode in humiliation-play that Republicans go through (hey Dems--if you could plant the idea that a lot of these candidates aren't loyal enough to Trump, it could spur them to demonstrate their fealty in ways that will turn off more swing voters. Just a thought!).