The Republican nominee for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat released a new commercial Tuesday morning attacking interests that have been major backers of his campaign.
Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who is challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), uses the new ad to attack Wall Street and promote the creation of manufacturing jobs in the state. Mandel also attacks fellow Republicans in the ad, particularly those who voted for the Wall Street bailout. During his campaign, Mandel relied on Wall Street bankers and sitting GOP senators as part of his fundraising operation.
"Every Democrat and every Republican who took our tax dollars and bailed out Wall Street was dead wrong," Mandel says in the ad, which was paid for by his campaign. "It was fiscally irresponsible and morally wrong. Somehow those politicians in Washington think they can behave by a different set of rules."
Mandel, a Tea Party favorite, has long used Wall Street interests to help fuel his challenge to Brown. OpenSecrets.org lists the New York City metropolitan region as Mandel's fourth largest donation base, following Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio. Mandel raised $403,325 from the region, according to the website.
Mandels' filings with the Federal Election Commission show a list of employees of New York-based financial services firms contributing heavily to Mandel's campaign, along with branches of New York banks based around the country. The filings show Mandel raising money in affluent New York-area suburbs -- including Scarsdale, Chappaqua and New Rochelle in Westchester County and Summit, Short Hills and Bernardsville in New Jersey.
Among Mandel's Wall Street-based donors are David Liptak, the founder of State Street Partners, and his wife, Janette, who both contributed $5,000 a piece, Philip Geier Jr. of the Geier Group who contributed $10,000, and James and Jill Haber of Juno Investments who both donated $5,000.
Mandel made more than a dozen trips to Washington during the campaign for fundraisers, which several incumbent senators attended. Mandel spokesman Travis Considine did not return messages left for comment.
In the ad, Mandel tells a group of nodding manufacturing workers and senior citizens, that he supports non-Wall Street based jobs.
"The more we can empower hardworking blue collar workers to grow the economy, the stronger we'll be as a nation," Mandel says in the ad.
The ad's debut comes as Mandel faces criticism for saying he would not have supported the auto bailout and calling Brown "un-American" for supporting the bailout. Mandel is also facing criticism for appearing alongside Romney at a rally with coal miners who did not get paid for appearing at the rally, where Mandel called New York and Hollywood "radical."
Brown's campaign used the ad to attack Mandel's record.
“Instead of Sherrod Brown, a champion for Ohio manufacturing and middle class jobs, Josh Mandel would be a Senator who opposed fighting for Ohio's 850,000 auto industry related jobs and refuses to stand up for Ohio manufacturers against cheating China, and that's not the kind of change Ohio needs,” Brown spokeswoman Sadie Weiner said in a statement.
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