Yes, <i>that</i> Jerry Springer
Senator George Voinovich (R), despite irritating President Bush with a refusal to vote for any tax cut package larger than $350 billion, remains one of the most popular figures in the state of Ohio.
He’s the former mayor of Cleveland and was a popular two-term governor before running for the Senate. He easily won his first election to Washington five years ago and there aren’t many Democrats clamoring for the chance to run against him next year.
Eric Fingerhut, a former Democratic member of Congress and currently an Ohio state senator, is engaged in an uphill climb, but he’s running hard and has the enthusiastic backing of the state party.
It looks, however, like he’s going to have a primary challenger. The good news is Fingerhut’s competition for the Democratic nod to take on Voinovich has a lot of money, is well known throughout the state, has government experience as the former mayor of Cincinnati, and claims he can bring thousands of voters into the political process who are currently not voting at all.
The bad news is the candidate is Jerry Springer. Yes, that Jerry Springer.
The infamous host of a trashy syndicated “talk” show, Springer believes Fingerhut will get trounced by the popular incumbent. On this point, he’s probably right. Springer therefore thinks as an experienced and well-known candidate, he can, as he put it, “cut through the clutter” and get voters excited about the campaign.
As Springer recently told the Dayton Daily News, he’s working with pollsters and consultants about issues on the minds of Ohio voters and determining how (and whether) to get voters to think of him as a serious Senate candidate, not a purveyor of filth. After catching some glimpses of his show over the years, that will be a herculean task.
“You think the public cares about me?” Springer recently asked reporters. “They may be titillated about me or the show, but in the end people care about their own lives and their own families; and right now, George Voinovich, God bless him, is a wonderful gentlemen, but you know what, you’ve got 100 gentlemen and gentlewomen in the Senate right now and what the hell is happening? Ohio is being ripped by these policies, ripped by these cuts.”
That’s fine, Jerry, but you’ve run a modern version a freak show for the last 12 years.
I don’t want to sound insensitive, and Springer may have the best of intentions, but there’s no way in the world Ohio Democrats should vote for this clown. I believe the negative publicity generated by a Springer for Senate campaign will hurt Democrats nationwide as Republicans begin tying Springer to “Democratic Party values” in campaigns across the country.
Democrats shouldn’t have anything to do with this guy. He can’t win, he’s an embarrassment to himself, and he’ll hurt the party’s reputation. In other words, get lost, Jerry.