To Josh Mandel, ‘squishy RINOs’ bigger problem than Biden and the Democrats

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Republican Josh Mandel’s strategy for restoring America from the supposed malaise of President Joe Biden has little to do with purging Democrats from power.

“A lot of Republicans say the most important fight right now is against the Democrats,” the Ohio Senate contender and former state treasurer said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “I actually think the most important fight right now is for the conservative movement.”

Mandel has distinguished himself in the race for the Republican Senate nomination in Ohio by training most of his fire not on Biden and the Democratic majorities in Congress, but almost exclusively on so-called “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) members of the GOP. Majority parties, especially majority conferences in the House and Senate, always have at least a few centrists. There simply are not enough red states or districts to produce majorities otherwise. Mandel begs to differ.

“The soggy Republicans — that’s one side of the party,” he said. “I don’t think the party should be going that direction. I want to go to Washington to be reinforcements for anti-establishment fighters.” Which Republicans meet Mandel’s standard? Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and especially former President Donald Trump.

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Mandel, 44, has modeled his stump style after Trump. He is provocative and pugilistic — so much so that his Republican critics accuse the third-time Senate candidate of shamelessly, clownishly, and fraudulently aping the former president. Mandel, who lost his 2012 bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and aborted his 2018 Senate bid before the GOP primary, said charges that he is mimicking Trump are unfair. Nevertheless, he is unrepentant about his approach.

“I just try to be real and be myself. A lot of people don’t realize that I’ve been anti-establishment, and have been a blow-up-the-system type guy, from day one,” Mandel said, citing his intraparty battles in Columbus with then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich when he was the state treasurer. “My being unapologetic about Trump — it’s because I love the way he fought for the little guy and took on squishy, RINO Republicans.”

“When I look at the Trump ‘America First’ agenda, I agree with it in its entirety,” he added.

Mandel is an Ohio native and a Marine Corps veteran, having served in Iraq.

He was elected Ohio treasurer in 2010, at the relatively young age of 34, and was immediately identified as a rising Republican star. That he was among the few Jewish Republicans elected to statewide office in the United States added to Mandel’s cache inside the party. For his third Senate bid, Mandel embarked on a different strategy — different than his previous campaigns and different than his competitors’ campaigns.

The Republican is campaigning in churches and generally forgoing the typical circuit of stops and events that candidates tend to focus on when running for statewide office in Ohio. It’s part of Mandel’s strategy to outflank a crowded primary field and win a competitive GOP contest to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman in the 2022 midterm elections.

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“There is no one in this race that has a natural grassroots army of ideological grassroots Christian conservatives like me. My opponents might have a lot of elephant pins, but we have Christian activists who want to take their country back,” Mandel said.

“All of the other candidates in the race, they’re running traditional races through traditional Republican Party groups,” he added. “I’m running a totally different race.”

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