Man Crushes Boy

If you're in Ohio and were enough of a masochist to watch tonight's Senatorial Debate (like I did, god help me), you witnessed an embarrassingly one-sided affair.  When Josh Mandel (R) opened with his high-pitched, adolescent  squawk, and stiff, awkward gestures, he immediately confirmed the GOP's worst fear -- despite all their spending and lying, their Senate candidate is an unprepared, unqualified juvenile melting in the spotlights, utterly out of his league.

While Senator Sherrod Brown (D) easily rattled off votes, policies, legislation, towns, and companies that his opponent had obviously never heard of, Josh alternated between "deer in the headlights" and desperate, rote repetition of his advertising talking points -- "That's Washington-speak!" and "The only way to change Washington is change the people we send there," and of course, "I'm a Marine!"  According to Josh, all our problems were created by Sherrod Brown, and will be in the future.  Just him alone -- he's the root of all evil.

I personally enjoyed it when Brown referred to Mandel's signing of Grover Norquist's ridiculous "No Tax" Pledge as "the pledge to never think for yourself."

And as the lovely Mrs. Gammons pointed out, Mandel seemed to be preoccupied with our exact location:  "For those of you watching at home, . . . "  (What if I'm not at home?)  And, "If you're watching this in your living room, . . . "  (Sorry, dude, I was in the kitchen.)

This particular contest was probably decided already, but if you were undecided and watched tonight's pathetic Amateur Hour With Josh Mandel, it was game-set-match for Senator Brown.  The man took the boy to the woodshed.