He’s one of the popular kids with the entrenched GOP (RINO-leaning) establishment in Ohio, yet he is a strong social and fiscal conservative who’s not afraid to buck the party to vote his convictions. Last week he joined other Tea Party-leaning candidates (Rand Paul, Rubio, DeMint) by signing the Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge, indicating he is all in with that group for the 2012 election, even before he’s officially announced that he’s running. Who doesn’t love that….except maybe…..Boehner…who still manages to pull a lot of strings in Ohio.

But Madel is a prolific fundraiser and the ORP can’t resist a big bank account. And they know he’s a rock star. I heard him speak this year at a school choice forum with Hugh Hewitt and Juan Williams. Mandel was the best speaker of the evening – no exaggeration. I also heard him speak to a group of teenagers when he was in the State Senate. He had them eating out of his hand. In fact my son and his best friend, who were sophomores at the time, are both majoring in political science, and both point to that talk by Mandel as inspiring them to serve their country and make a difference. My son helped organize a group of kids from Hillsdale College to come to Ohio to campaign for Mandel and other candidates last fall.

His only obstacle – and it’s a big one – will be the relentless attacks by the Dems. They’ve already started filing ethics charges against him and it will continue until after he wins the election. It’s mostly lame charges, like he used the same text on his campaign website as his State Treasurer’s website (i.e. “We cut the budget in the the Treasurer’s office by 20%”). So the accusation is that he’s using is office for campaigning. I’m sure he’ll sort it out in short order, but the opposition researchers will be relentless. Brown et al will be pouring millions to keep Brown in office, especially if Kucinich is re-districted to WA.

I hope the ORP recycles last cycle’s campaign slogan:

“Sherrod Brown let us down.” I think of it every time I hear his name.