The left-leaning press organs are in full panic about Rob Portman. On today’s First Read, MSNBC quotes Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown as follows:
“Rob Portman is the No. 1 George Bush look-alike in the country,’ Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio and a Fisher supporter, said in an interview. “I just can’t believe the voters are going to choose the candidate who more than anybody else in the whole country represents what got us into this situation.”
Secondly, a story in today’s issue of the New York Times is chock full of attempts to brand Portman as George W. Bush, and isn’t shy about it. Highlights follow:
As he travels through Ohio, Rob Portman, the Republican Senate candidate, talks to economically stressed voters incessantly about jobs — how to keep existing ones and create new ones for workers who have seen opportunities vanish as businesses cut back or pulled out of this once-proud manufacturing hub.
Yet it is jobs held by Mr. Portman himself that have drawn attention from Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, his opponent, and other Democrats. First there was Mr. Portman’s stint as his party’s Congressional liaison to President George W. Bush. Then he served as the Bush administration’s trade representative. Next was his tenure as Mr. Bush’s budget director.[…]
But in a troubling sign for Democrats bent on Bush-bashing their way to victory, Mr. Portman, 54, appears to be doing just fine in a race Democrats initially saw as one of their best chances to take over a seat now held by a Republican. Mr. Portman and Mr. Fisher are running to replace Senator George V. Voinovich, who is retiring. […]
With Ohio losing jobs overseas, Mr. Fisher said, Mr. Portman’s support of free-trade policies merits special scrutiny.
“While you may have some other Senate candidates who supported George Bush’s policies, there is only one who was actually the architect of those policies,” Mr. Fisher said. “There is factory after factory that is closed directly as a result of Congressman Portman’s trade policies.”