Tag: Don Jr.

Just How Good is Don Jr.: Don’t be surprised to see the campaign signs for 2024 saying “TRUMP/TRUMP”

Not that he needs to hear it, but one of the big topics I talk about in my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, is the concept of “ghosting.”  If you are valuable, do you need other people to know it?  It would be best if you were secure enough in yourself to be good at what you do, whether or not you get recognition for it.  And that is undoubtedly the kind of person Don Jr. is.  I don’t think he gets enough credit for just how good of a patriot he is, and how history will remember him.  His dad soaks up all the headlines, naturally.  But I’ve seen enough out of Don Jr. now to know that he’s doing the things he is for all the right reasons.  And he is certainly secure enough in himself to not be the headliner.  Donald Trump Jr. does things because they need to be done by somebody, and I would argue that without him, his dad, President Trump, probably wouldn’t be able to do what he has been doing.  But for the sake of fairness, I see it.  And so do many others.  When all the smoke clears from these turbulent times, and history is trying to figure out what happened, I think Don Jr.’s name will be one we talk about for many years to come, and how important he was to helping to make things right.  It would not surprise me at all if Don Jr. ends up being the VP pick because as I have said from the beginning.  It’s not enough to win in 2024.  We have to set up 2028 and 2032.  There are horrendous forces out there in the world who want us all dead so we have to get control of our government so it can do the job we need it to do.  And Don Jr. is in this game for keeps at this point.  And he would be perfect to take over and finish what his dad has started.  Don’t be surprised if the campaign signs for 2024 end up being TRUMP/Trump. 

I’ve had a chance to meet and see Don Jr. in person several times now, the latest at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester as he was campaigning for Bernie Moreno.  He is very good at what he does and interacting with the public.  But what’s missing from him is the usual pretentiousness of a person born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  Recently, a bunch of knuckle-dragging slugs questioned my judgment, asking me why I thought a person in the business world was worth as much as I said they were.  I didn’t talk about the many businesses this person had started and made much money at.  I didn’t talk about the many community affiliations they were members of.  I didn’t talk about the kind of car he drove or the size of his house.  I replied that he had raised eight children into adulthood, all good kids.  That was the most valuable thing he had done, which was why he succeeded.  You can’t cheat being a good person.  You have to be one.  And you can say the same about all of Trump’s kids.  I’ve met them all at some point, except for Tiffany and Barron.  But what you don’t see coming from Trump, even with all the marriages to different women, is him producing slack-jawed hippie slugs.  A lot of people these days follow the social mandates in parenting much to their detriment.  Don Jr. is undoubtedly his own person, but you know what, he’s a good person, sincerely.   And the MAGA movement is much better because he’s in it. 

Look at Joe Biden’s kids; they are all messes because their father was an idiot.  Many people look at their kids and blame their failures on something that the kids did.  But if you have crappy, no-good kids, it’s likely, (primarily likely,) that they are terrible because you did a lousy job as a parent.  That doesn’t mean that you have to be a perfect person.  Trump would never claim to be an ideal person.  But if you care and work healthily with kids, teaching them right from wrong, they can grow up and be fantastic, as Don Jr. is.  His brothers and sisters are, too, and Eric and Eric’s wife Lara are just wonderful people who are working hard to make the Republican Party better than it was.  And the public does not see much of what they have been doing.  There is very little pretentiousness in any of them.  You don’t hear from any of the Trump kids, “Do you know who I am?”  They show up at places and do the work year after year and have built an excellent network supporting their father, the frontman.  But when President Trump isn’t doing it anymore and finally retires, those kids’ work will resonate well into the future.  And I feel they will always be involved in politics because they want to Make America Great Again, whether in front of or hidden like ghosts in the pages of history.

Don Jr. could be doing a lot of things with his life.  But he spends almost every hour of his day making America Great Again.  I catch him doing his podcast and giving interviews on other podcasts throughout the week at all hours of the day because his heart is really in it.  He’s not hoping to get his dad into the White House so he can become “richer.”  The good thing about the Trump family is that they have already tasted success in life.  Daddy Trump prepared his kids for life on top of the social pyramid, and they didn’t lose themselves the way so many other children of successful people did.  When success is the focus, not the family, it ends up screwing up the kids.  But when you are sincere in what you do, and success is the byproduct, the kids learn the right things along the way and can handle it.  And because of the way that President Trump raised his kids, we are fighting to save America today in ways that wouldn’t otherwise happen.  Don Jr. has quite a cast of characters working in the background while his dad draws all the cover fire.  And it’s not lost on me just how vital those background characters are to the future.  Democrats do not have such a network of characters.  They are hanging onto the past, while the Republican Party has all the new growth.  And a lot of that new growth can be attributed to Don Jr.  President Trump didn’t just roll out of bed and have all this great network of support that has pulled together in such a healthy way as we are seeing.  The most significant trait of a leader is to do as Don Jr. has done.  Whether or not you get the social credit for the action is irrelevant.  Who cares what some dumb fool thinks of you?  The question that must always be answered is, did you do what you did because it was right?  And Don Jr. can always say yes.  And his father taught his kids the difference, which good parents tend to.  But when kids go wrong, as Joe Biden and his kind often do, there is always a good reason.  It’s not a mystery.  It’s because they were terrible people.  And bad people make bad kids.  You can never cheat the results of a child who spends so much time with you in their life.  You can’t hide it from them if you suck.  When you look at Don Jr. and meet him, you learn a lot about how good his dad was.  And you naturally want America to have the same opportunity.  The ghost is always the most powerful position on the chessboard.  We play the pieces.  But the ghost plays the game. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

How Bernie Moreno Wins Ohio as the Next Senator: The three key factors

The results of the Republican primary for the Ohio Senate, where Bernie Moreno won over Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, will be similar to how Moreno will beat the entrenched Sherrod Brown.  It wasn’t that long ago when Jim Renacci ran against Brown, and I thought Jim had a great chance to win.  I knew Jim a bit and understood his personality.  And I’ve had a chance to get to know Bernie, and I think the lessons learned will undoubtedly fall in Bernie’s favor.  With Moreno getting just over 50% of the vote in that primary election against two other good Republican candidates, it is very telling how this will play out, which is something that many outlets have been considering now that the strength of the Trump pick had performed.  Can Bernie Moreno beat the dreaded Sherrod Brown?  The answer is yes.  Matt Dolan was a good sample of the anti-Trump vote, whether they be RINOs or Democrats, and statistically spreading them out from what we saw in the primary over into a general election should be pretty similar.  Looking at the voting results precinct by precinct, Bernie Moreno performed very well in the north, better than might usually be thought.  And, of course, in the south, Bernie Moreno dominated, which is somewhat expected.  Anything south of Columbus in a matchup with Sherrod Brown could be considered Bernie territory, while in the north, he is vulnerable because he’s not the Trump-endorsed candidate.  The Rust Belt unions want Bernie and Trump.  They will vote for the person Trump wants, which makes Trump the kingmaker in the Senate race if the anti-Trump forces couldn’t generate more than they did against Bernie Moreno, especially with all the negative ads that tell you everything you need to know about the matchup between Brown and Moreno. 

Additionally, this is something I discussed with the Moreno team during a private sit-down a few months ago.  Sherrod Brown may have been in the Ohio Senate for many decades and is a bastion for progressive politics on the radical left side, but he is vulnerable in ways that Jim Renacci didn’t exploit.  Jim got caught up in the classic high-ground strategy of not exploiting the problems with Sherrod Brown’s domestic violence issue.  The previous election results showed that Brown was vulnerable, but Renacci didn’t go there. In several debates, Brown turned the whole issue on its head and told Renacci he should be ashamed of himself for even bringing it up.  Since that election, Sherrod Brown has been much less ostentatious publicly, showing cryptic vulnerability.  Instead, being a crafty politician, he has pivoted towards Trump support as he was the president then and hasn’t run away from him.  Brown acts like Trump is his best friend to confuse voters into voting for a union ticket for further support.  However, a swing of 7-8 points could be eroded from Brown on the morality and ethics front, which could quickly put Moreno over the top in November.  So I don’t think it is as close of a race as the national pundits think using conventional wisdom.  I believe convention will be thrown out in 2024 because a new set of rules that nobody has ever seen before will be applied.  And Sherrod Brown doesn’t match up against that wisdom at all.  He is built for classic unionized politics where Democrats controlled the narrative.  But they have lost that narrative, which can’t be ignored when looking at any election results from around the country.

Then there is the Trump factor, which Sherrod Brown has not seen much of.  The first time around, Jim Renacci was the Trump pick.  I met them at the airport in Lunken, just outside Cincinnati, and Jim was very excited.  At that time, Trump was a popular president doing well, but the political left was in the middle of their Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense, looking for a hook to attempt to derail Trump.  Covid hadn’t hit yet, so nobody knew what to do about Trump’s popularity.  But Jim Renacci, as nice as he was perhaps, was too well-mannered for Sherrod Brown.  So even though Trump endorsed Renacci, the power of that endorsement was not fully realized, not in the way that Bernie Moreno will experience.  After seeing Bernie with Don Jr., J.D. Vance, and Vivek Ramaswamy over the last several months, I realized there is a much different atmosphere to this 2024 election that the Trump endorsement machine understands.  And Bernie has a personality that won’t waste it, whereas Jim just didn’t put the teeth into the effort to knock off Brown.  So Brown was more than a little lucky in that last election, that he didn’t have to face the Trump endorsement now that it has matured into a well-oiled machine.  And that endorsement means voter engagement, actual votes in a booth on election day and before.  I would say that the personality difference between Moreno and Renacci is worth about 8 points in a race like this.  Both were successful business people who were in the car dealership business.  But Moreno is much more like Don Jr regarding a likeability factor than Jim.  Nothing against Renacci, but personality means a lot and Bernie has a lot of it.  If people get to interact with him, they will learn it quickly.

So, three things identify Bernie Moreno as the best option for the Sherrod Brown senate seat: to join J.D. Vance as a Republican and MAGA member of the Senate.  First, Bernie is very likeable and people will want to vote for him, especially where Trump is also on the ticket.  Getting the Trump vote by itself will likely be enough to win this race.  Then there is the juice of the race, the ability to attack Brown and exploit his natural weaknesses due to poor family maintenance.  The media downplayed the domestic abuse conditions of Brown’s ex-wife, and even she gave him a pass publicly.  But there was plenty there to exploit and Moreno will be able to bring those weaknesses to the surface in much the way he stepped up and over Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan in this primary.  Then there is the geography of the situation.  Bernie needs to perform well in the north, north of Columbus.  He doesn’t even have to beat Sherrod Brown in the Cleveland area.  He needs to just do well.  Because in the South, it’s Trump country, and Bernie is the man.  It’s an easy math problem, one that Renacci wasn’t able to tap into.  There is just more pop for Bernie, and he has more endorsements from people who will hit the ground running for him.  Right before the primary election, Trump flew in, and Kristi Noem was in Dayton.  Then, the next day in Milford, Ohio, Kari Lake campaigned for Bernie with J.D. Vance.  Just a few weeks prior, Don Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and others hit the trail, especially in the south, and put their arms around Bernie to secure a victory.  And when that is done for the general election, the results will be very healthy for Republicans up and down the ticket.  So I don’t think it will be close.  Bernie cracks over 50% while Sherrod Brown will be lucky to get into the 40s.  And there is undoubtedly a clear path for Bernie Moreno to become the next senator in Ohio. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

How Corruption Begins: When the power of government is used for personal gain

Everyone has different ideas about corruption, its appearance, how it was born, and the cost of it to civilization.  But I did get a clear view of it recently while at an event involving Don Jr. at Lori’s Roadhouse for a campaign event with Bernie Moreno, supporting him for senate.  At those kinds of positive events, there are always political people who show up, and as I arrived, I ran into Darbi Boddy, who wanted to attend and show support for the people there.  But, as this is a story that has all kinds of bad elements to it, Isaac Adi, the other school board member that I had been involved with to put conservatives on the board at Lakota schools; there has been a restraining order put in place keeping Darbi from being 500 feet from Isaac, essentially preventing her from attending school board meetings, because a bunch of political people want to get rid of Darbi off the school board and they are using Isaac to challenge her in court over a dispute the two of them have had where he claimed he was concerned for his safety.  This has resulted in Darbi losing her CCW and being unable to attend any event where Isaac was also present.  So when Isaac shows up at some political event that Darbi is at, she has to get up and leave, by the court order.  It’s an entirely ridiculous notion that a woman the size of Darbi was going to be some physical threat to Isaac Adi, who is a reasonably good-sized person, but that is what happens when your courts are corrupt and politics takes over logic.  As it stood, Darbi wanted to see Bernie Moreno, so I met her in the parking lot and scouted out the venue to make sure Isaac wasn’t there, which he wasn’t, so she entered and talked to people as she normally would.

About twenty minutes later, Isaac arrived, and as I watched him enter the building, I saw him walking in a way I had not seen before.  I’ve known him for a while and tried to help Isaac on several occasions, so I came to know him as a compassionate, nice Christian man.  This person he has become during his first two years on the school board was surprising to me.  I was most disappointed in him when he joined the labor union in laughing at my name when it was brought up in a school board meeting, as he joined the crowd in a mob-like free-for-all.  The criticism didn’t bother me; I expected that.  But that he played a part in it bothered me because I thought he was a better person than that and would not participate in those kinds of things.  But it wouldn’t be the first time someone like this let me down.  So I took note of it and moved on.  I have talked to Isaac occasionally, but I gave up on him over a year ago as he was politically useless.  It was an experiment that was tried, but when Lynda O’Connor went off-script, Isaac’s political future was tossed out the window.  So any interaction I had with him was minimal.  I had not seen enough of him to reveal the person he had become since he got caught up in this lawyer scam against Darbi, and the power of the courts had gone to his head in genuinely destructive ways.  He entered the building to sign in like Connor McGregor entering an MMA fight; he was slinging his arms out, counterbalancing his large belly in a very theatrical way, which was interesting.

Upon seeing this, I went to find Darbi to tell her that Isaac had arrived.  She immediately gathered her things to leave.  I offered to give her my hat and jacket so she could sit on the opposite side of the room, far away from Isaac, and attend the political rally anyway.  Nobody would have known the two of them were even close.  She declined the offer and said she had to honor the court order, so she left.  The whole thing was ridiculous; this court order put upon her for purely political reasons was taking away her liberty senselessly, and people weren’t doing anything about it to defend her, and all that power that Isaac suddenly had over her had gone to his head.  And he was enjoying that power way too much.  For something that was legally questionable, to begin with, it now was a power that a person like Isaac had over people in his community, a political rival, that was the most concerning.  And since I had not interacted with him much over the last few years, the corruption was evident.  What he was now was built by the corruption of politics and was a good lesson of everything that can go wrong and often does.  I knew him when the effort at elected office was full of good intentions, and he was promising.  And I can think of hundreds of people I have known, just like Isaac, who all started the same way.  But thousands of compromises later, and their shelf life near expiration, most of them fail and become corrupt to some level or another, and it was shocking to see how far Isaac had fallen in such a short time. 

When people stop doing what they know to be right or even think to be correct and serve institutional concerns, the process of corruption begins.  Then, corruption takes root when people like Isaac learn the kind of power they can have over other people given to them by the power of politics.  Soon after, they become one of the many who learn that institutional power compensates people who lack private power, so they seek the power of government to do what they lack the courage to do themselves.  And that is clearly what happened with Darbi and Isaac on the Lakota school board.  He lacked personal courage and was quickly swept away by the corrosive forces that enjoy making vast amounts of money off an institution that collects taxes from the public and distributes it for power, using children to extort the villainy.  And once he learned that he could have a lot of power from appeasing the institution over his values and peer groups, he knew what that power could give him.  In this case, he was able to meet celebrity political figures, and he could force Darbi to leave and deny her the same enjoyment through the power of the courts, which was given to him for other reasons, all corrupt in their own way.  We say corrupt because the relationship intends to abuse government power for personal gain.  Isaac might be a pawn in that game, but the seduction of the abuse of it was something he was enjoying, which encouraged more of the same behavior.  When the law is used to support personal power and punish other people who challenge that power, it is corrupt.  And when you look at the many millions of other such cases nationwide for many of the same reasons, you can see how our political landscape has become so corrupted.  The temptations to fall to corruption are too much for most people, and that is the case with the Lakota school board and the reason that Darbi Boddy had to leave that event.  Not because it was the right thing to do, but because political power had been abused to give power to private people they otherwise would have never had, if not for the power that government offers people willing to abuse it.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Bernie Moreno, Don Jr, and Vivek Ramaswamy at Lori’s Roadhouse: Good people doing good things for all the right reasons

Don Jr Endorsing Bernie Moreno at Lori’s Roadhouse

A reporter for the Cleveland Plains Dealer wanted to talk to me after the Bernie Moreno rally at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, on February 28th, 2024.  It was an unusual rally in that Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle came with Bernie to support a President Trump endorsement ahead of the March primaries; these were all national figures campaigning for the second senate seat and had the full backing of J.D. Vance.  The reporter wanted to know when I knew I wanted to support Bernie Moreno instead of the two other guys, Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, and I told him it was late August into September.  I said that Frank had screwed up the election in August for Issue 1, and that was going to hang around his neck for a long time because of what it cost us in Ohio, incredibly loose abortion laws from radical progressive outsiders, and the legalization of pot.  And with Matt Dolan, who owns the Cleveland Indians baseball team and allowed himself to be arm-twisted into changing the name to the Guardians, he was simply too soft.  If that’s all he could do to resist the woke mob of lefties who have taken over our government, then he would be no good as a senator.  As Don Jr pointed out during the Moreno rally, a sports team is a little thing that doesn’t matter much to people in the grand scheme.  If Dolan fell short of courage for that little issue, what would he do in the SWAMP, where things mattered quite a lot and the pressure was much more intense?  As I told the reporter, I know both Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, and they would be nice, typical politicians under normal circumstances.  But they aren’t the kind of fighters needed these days, where we need MAGA Republicans to fit the Trump agenda once President Trump is back in office, and out of them all, only Bernie Moreno fits the need.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet Bernie Moreno several times now, including the private lunch we had back in September, and for me, it’s not even a question.  He is the right guy to go up against Sherrod Brown, which continued my reasoning to the reporter.  It’s not enough to win the Republican primary; once Trump endorses someone in the Republican Party, it seals it for whoever that is.  But to get elected into the Senate will be a brutal campaign against Brown, who is deeply entrenched, and it will take someone as likable as Moreno to pull it off.  Even with the Trump endorsement, it will be a steep haul, and the other guys have too much baggage.  They have brand damage that Brown will easily exploit in a general election, so it comes down to who can beat Sherrod Brown.  And Bernie is that person.  I knew it when I first met him, and now, in West Chester, Ohio, with the coveted Trump endorsement behind him and compelling personalities campaigning with him, it is pretty clear what the path forward is.  Ohio deserves some of the best possible senators we could get, and J.D. Vance has picked his partner in the act. Our task is to give him the tools he needs to succeed.  So, the picture was becoming quite clear at the Lori’s Roadhouse rally.  It was a packed venue for an afternoon event in the middle of the work week.  After the rally, everyone went up to a fundraiser at Wetherington, and the Republican Party was unifying behind a clear strategy, and it was great to see. 

Don Jr knows how to engage with a crowd

Seeing so many culminating aspects come together that I have watched uniquely over the last few years was very satisfying.  I enjoyed watching Vivek speak, Don Jr, Kimberly, and, of course, Bernie.  Don Jr. is such a good guy, especially in person.  I had some people with me, and Don signed the wallet of one of them, to have such a down-to-earth guy, the firstborn son of an ostentatious billionaire, is a real treasure.  Don Jr. balances celebrity with practicality amazingly well, and he’s funny.  I’ve seen him in person many times now, and he is always a fine line between comedy and serious political commentary.  And, of course, with Vivek Ramaswamy, I remember being invited to an event with him in Middletown where he essentially launched his political career.  The fabulous Nancy Nix was in front of me during the rally, proudly watching the events on stage at Lori’s, almost like a proud mother.  Many people don’t know it, but she has her hand in most of these things in Butler County.   She put Vivek and I together in a meeting ahead of the release of his book Woke, Inc., which I think will be the economic platform for American policy over the next ten years.  I felt it when I first read it, and I am very sure of it now, and Nancy knows it, too.  She was also very important to the launching of J.D. Vance, which I wasn’t convinced of initially.  But Nancy understood these personalities very well and worked hard behind the curtain to ensure everything worked and the right people got into the right jobs and met the right people along the way.

Lori Fisher and her husband Greg own Lori’s Roadhouse, and they certainly go above and beyond. A great place to save America!

I only mention Nancy because as I have come to know some of these people, and this is what I was thinking about while talking to the reporter for the Cleveland newspaper, there is some real magic going on with these events that defy conventional political thinking, and my articulation of the point struck the reporter.  These were not typical political considerations but a fight between the life and death of a country and the world’s economy.  And none of these people, including me, needed to do any of this stuff.  All the people traveling with Bernie are rich and powerful.  They don’t need to be in politics.  And I’ve been involved in Butler County politics in Ohio most of my life, and there aren’t that many good people like Nancy Nix who are not in love with name-dropping and power playing, who just do good things because they want to do good things.  There aren’t enough good people in the world doing good things for good reasons.  That includes Greg and Lori, who run Lori’s Roadhouse, they didn’t need to do what they were doing to support these kinds of events.  As I looked around the room at all the people present, Jim and Lee Redkey were standing next to me, T. C Rogers too, and Michael Ryan, along with many others who could have been doing a million other things with their time.  But they were there to support people who were going to great measure to do the right things for our country.  And it was wonderful to witness.  When you start to see the hidden hand of righteousness working over time toward a grand fortissimo of justice and history playing out before our eyes, it’s a magnificent spectacle that doesn’t quite fit the description in a typical newspaper commentary on politics.  It’s simple yet infinitely complex, as so many moving pieces starting many years ago have moved toward this moment as a destiny seeking to be fulfilled.  And so many people played their part, least not the people on the stage supporting Bernie Moreno.  A promise of great things yet to come because people who define greatness purely, not for the recognition they might get or the financial resources that follow, but because it was the right thing to do is a hope for a future that nobody has yet witnessed in the history of the world.  And it was at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, on an unusually warm day and a political onslaught yet to come that greatness peaked its head out for all to see.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

I Endorse Bernie Mareno for Ohio Senate: The necessity of Defeating the radical Democrat Sherrod Brown

I had been thinking about Frank LaRose for the next senate seat in Ohio, where Sherrod Brown, the long-time extremely progressive Democrat, is vulnerable.  There are three Republicans looking to take a shot at taking on Sherrod Brown, and because he was Secretary of State and I knew the most about him, Frank was well positioned to defeat Sherrod Brown, which will be a tough job under optimal conditions.  I remember how tough it was when another person I supported, Jim Renacci, tried to do it a few years back but fell short.  Jim left some opportunities on the table, so this has been cooking in the background for quite a while.  Winning this seat would significantly impact the balance in the Senate from Democrat control to Republican.  But it needs to be a good Republican, and there was an upgrade when Rob Portman stepped down and J.D. Vance won that seat opposite Sherrod Brown.  Rob Portman had essentially become a Democrat, and between him and Sherrod Brown, Ohio was not being represented in the federal Senate with conservative values.  So, this next chance at Sherrod Brown was critical, and I thought only Frank had a chance.  The other guy running is another person I have met a few times, Matt Dolan.  He’s a good guy, but he’s a traditional country club Republican who doesn’t think much of Trump supporters, and nobody is going to win anything in Ohio if they don’t have the Trump base.  Plus Matt is one of the owners of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team in Cleveland and people haven’t forgotten how he caved to woke pressure to change the name from the Indians, which people miss.  So he is damaged goods.  Then there was this guy Bernie Mareno, who I didn’t know much about until I met him at a fundraiser for Nancy Nix.

I was surprised that Nancy Nix had already come out in favor of Bernie at that point.  But the special election in August hadn’t happened yet, and the loss on Issue 1 essentially damaged Frank LaRose for the foreseeable future.  And I couldn’t help but think how funny Bernie Mareno was at that event, which featured comedians for entertainment. That was quite a nice touch by Nancy.  Nancy usually has a great sense of people in politics, so I pay attention to who she supports and why, and suddenly, Bernie Mareno looked a lot better for that senate seat.  So, I was already leaning in the direction of Bernie when I had a chance to have lunch with him and get to know him better.  And I’m glad I did because there are things I learned that I wouldn’t have otherwise come to know about him personally, which makes him to me an emphatic yes on an endorsement. Bernie Mareno is undoubtedly the best Republican to take on Sherrod Brown, and after hearing from his team, they have the best game plan I have heard yet for taking down the long-time Democrat.  Bernie was good on all the conservative boxes, great on Ukraine support, great on business first in Ohio, and great on MAGA positions.  He has been a successful businessperson, so he has an independence that I find very valuable in political figures.  After spending some time with Bernie it was clear to me why Nancy came out so early in endorsing him.  Bernie was likable, brilliant, and getting into politics for all the right reasons.  Essentially, and I understand completely, he’s at a place where he has been very successful and wants to leave the country in good hands to the next generation. 

Unlike Frank LaRose, who is now damaged goods politically because of the Issue 1 failure, and Matt Dolan, who does not like Trump supporters and is best known for changing his name under woke pressure, Bernie Mareno is a well-connected fresh face.  He has a great relationship with J.D. Vance, the current senator.  I had met J.D. under similar circumstances in the backyard of Nancy Nix, by her pool, ironically.  So, it has been interesting to watch this new generation of politicians emerge and build a new teamwork network.  And Bernie is undoubtedly part of that because with J.D. Vance also comes relationships with the Trump family, especially Don Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle.  Bernie also told me that he had formal endorsements from Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA, so these were all great things, and there are many more to come.  Bernie Mareno had quietly put together all the pieces for a successful run against Sherrod Brown that he would need, which certainly consolidated the Trump MAGA base in Ohio without ostracizing all the other degrees of Republicans along the way, which can be a tricky balance.  And he’s full-time committed to running for this seat, which means a lot of leg work across Ohio, which he has already been utilizing, with a lot more work to do.  But it’s a tough job, even with great endorsements, and one obvious thing was that Bernie Mareno was a hard worker who was faith-based.  We talked about God and moral perspective on the Washington D.C. culture, which he was great at.  And he had the right mindset for what it would take and the energy to put it all to work. 

I endorse Bernie Mareno for the Ohio Senate seat.  I would give it based on what I know about Bernie himself.  All the other good stuff is just reassurance.  To beat Sherrod Brown, you must be able to tap into his union support in the northeast, and only the Trump base can do that with the percentages needed.  There are a lot of union people who support Trump and are willing to vote for Republicans on anything, so long as Trump is part of the story.  Then, of course, the rest of the puzzle is that Bernie will have to perform with significant margins in the southwest.  Only Bernie has a chance at any of this.  I worry about Frank being stubborn and not repairing his brand before another run because he could easily make himself a future Ron DeSantis.  You lose a lot of political capital when you suffer a loss, and Frank needs to be part of some wins before he attempts anything like a state race again.  And, of course, the MAGA base won’t turn out for Dolan, and at this stage, there is no way to be who he isn’t.  Dolan will get soft support and nothing better, and that won’t peel away any votes from Sherrod Brown.  Only Bernie Mareno has a plan and personality to pull that off, which is exciting.  I’ve heard a lot of happy talk over the years about taking on Sherrod Brown, but nobody has had the gas in the tank to do it.  Bernie Mareno does.  And I’m looking forward to watching it happen over the coming race.  Replacing Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown with J.D. Vance and now Bernie Mareno would be excellent for Republican politics and change the face of the Senate into a much more conservative body of representative government.  And it is what Ohio deserves after several long years of the wrong people representing us.  We all deserve better, and Bernie Mareno is what we should have had all along. 

Rich Hoffman