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Friday, October 8, 2010
U.S. Senate candidates Portman, Fisher trade jabs in debate
By Laura A. Bischoff Columbus Bureau
CLEVELAND — Suffering from a hoarse voice, lousy poll numbers and anemic fund-raising, Democrat Lee Fisher hammered away at Republican Rob Portman, painting him as a Washington insider and darling of the insurance and financial services industries.
“The bottom line is it’s not whether you serve, it’s who you serve,” Fisher said at a lunch-time debate at the City Club in Cleveland before 575 people. “…I think he’s serving the lobbyists, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the insurance industry, which is why he is able to put his ads on TV tonight and the next day and the next day.”
The two squared off in the second of three debates sponsored by the Ohio Newspaper Organization, which includes the Dayton Daily News. The two candidates for U.S. Senate will debate a final time in Columbus on Tuesday.
In his parting shot, Fisher told the audience: “You want to see the jobs that I have saved and created during this storm that he helped create? Go anywhere in Ohio. You want to see the jobs that he helped create? Go to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong.”
Portman managed to get in jabs at Fisher by trying to pin the blame on him for nearly 400,000 jobs being lost in Ohio since the Strickland-Fisher administration took office in January 2007.
“We need something new. We need a fresh approach. The status quo is not working,” said Portman, who served 12 years in Congress before resigning in April 2005 to become George W. Bush’s trade representative and later his budget director.
“We need to turn things around in Washington because Washington is putting out more and more job killing legislation, exploding the deficit and the debt, which is not helping to create opportunity here in Ohio.”
Fisher, who serves as lieutenant governor and had been development director, failed to help Ohio businesses, including DHL in Wilmington, Portman charged.
“What I’m hearing is that you didn’t go. You didn’t go until the company made the decision to drop 8,000 people, the largest employer in that several county area,” Portman said.
Fisher refuted that charge, saying he had spoken to the general counsel of DHL only weeks before the shipping company blindsided Ohio officials with its decision to leave Wilmington.
Portman also said Fisher failed to show up as promised to visit Wooster Motor Ways.
An exchange of emails last spring between Paul Williams of Wooster Motor Ways and Fisher show the Democrat solicited Williams for a campaign contribution and later offered to meet with Williams to talk about workers compensation and other issues. Williams said the follow up visit never happened.
As the campaign gets down to the final weeks, Portman, 54, is leading Fisher, 59, by double digits in most political polls and holds roughly a 7:1 fund-raising advantage.
The two are vying for the seat now held by U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, who decided not to seek re-election. It is the first time since 1998 that Ohio has had an open senate seat.
While the Fisher campaign had one TV ad on the airwaves two weeks ago, Portman is now on his eighth commercial and is expected to stay on TV through the Nov. 2 election.
The two men are no strangers to Ohio politics but neither wanted to claim the mantel of career politician.
Fisher, a former lawmaker and attorney general, noted that he was out of public office for 12 years before returning in 2006.
“He first ran for office back when I was getting out of college and disco was still cool. I mean it was 1980,” Portman said.
“It is still cool,” Fisher interjected.
“He has run for about every office in Ohio. He has run five times for office statewide in the state of Ohio. I’ve never done that,” Portman said. “So, for him to stand here today and say Portman is political and I’m not. … Let’s cut through all of this. He doesn’t want to talk about his record. And I can see why because it’s a record of failure for Ohio’s workers: 400,000 jobs lost.”
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