{"id":34,"date":"2003-06-11T09:44:43","date_gmt":"2003-06-11T14:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/34.html"},"modified":"2003-06-11T09:44:43","modified_gmt":"2003-06-11T14:44:43","slug":"jerry-springer-forms-exploratory-committee-for-senate-run-in-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/jerry-springer-forms-exploratory-committee-for-senate-run-in-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Springer forms exploratory committee for Senate run in Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sleazy talk-show host Jerry Springer all-but-announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate yesterday, creating an exploratory committee<\/a> in Ohio.<\/p>\n

Springer has acknowledged that if voters judge him as a candidate based on the content of his syndicated program, he’ll lose on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Newsflash, Jerry, you’re going to lose anyway.<\/p>\n

The announcement of Springer’s exploratory committee doesn’t really surprise anyone. He’s been acting like a candidate for months, traveling Ohio giving speeches, meeting voters, assembling staffers, and laying the groundwork for an eventual candidacy.<\/p>\n

He’s even set up an official “exploratory committee” website<\/a>, where people can buy a $25 “Yokels for Jerry” t-shirt.<\/p>\n

However much Springer makes from the “souvenirs” people can buy on his site will pale in comparison to the $5 million of his own money<\/a> he has pledged to spend if he becomes a formal candidate.<\/p>\n

If he does run, he’s not necessarily a lock for the Democratic nomination. Ohio State Senator Eric Fingerhut has already announced his Senate campaign, and I suspect state party leaders will be strongly supporting Fingerhut over Springer.<\/p>\n

Whoever wins the primary will go on to face incumbent Sen. George Voinovich, who also served as a popular Ohio governor. A poll released in March showed survey respondents in Ohio supporting Voinovich over Fingerhut by a 67% to 24% margin. As for a Voinovich v. Springer matchup, Ohioans favored the incumbent, 77% to 16%.<\/p>\n

In other words, I’m afraid neither of these guys have much of a shot winning next November.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean, however, that Ohio Dems should just nominate Springer for the entertainment value because they have nothing to lose. On the contrary, I still believe, as I said in April<\/a>, that the negative publicity Springer would generate could hurt Democrats nationwide as Republicans begin tying Springer to “Democratic Party values” in campaigns across the country.<\/p>\n

Don’t go away mad, Jerry, just go away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sleazy talk-show host Jerry Springer all-but-announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate yesterday, creating an exploratory committee in Ohio. Springer has acknowledged that if voters judge him as a candidate based on the content of his syndicated program, he’ll lose on Election Day. Newsflash, Jerry, you’re going to lose anyway. The announcement of Springer’s exploratory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}