Sherrod Brown, Josh Mandel meet for final debate, talk Social Security

Sen. Sherrod Brown Last night was the final Ohio senate debate between incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown and challenger Josh Mandel, and reading the reports you have to think Brown is wondering what in the hell he did to deserve this for an opponent.

When Mandel was asked directly if he would have support the Ryan budget that his own party has endorsed, the 35-year-old newcomer to national politics didn't give a yes or no, and eventually said that he if was sent to Washington he would introduce his own plan to save Medicare and Social Security. 'I believe it is unfair to change Medicare or Social Security for my grandmother and her generation and my parents and my generation,' Mandel said.

Brown pounced. 'I know this sounds like Washington-speak to Josh, but you have to vote yes or no on issues,' Brown said.

Mandel's plan for Social Security is raising the retirement age, a solution the City Beat reporter deftly dispatches with real reporting. Brown's solution for Social Security is lifting the payroll tax cap, a solution that Republicans entirely reject because it raises taxes on people making more than $110,000. Mandel, of course, has signed his vote away to Grover Norquist.

Watching Josh Mandel stumble through three debates with shifting policy positions and a lack of command of the issues, you have to wonder how this has become a single digit race for Brown. Here's how: more than $26 million in dark money spent on ads attacking Brown, $20 million of it from secret groups that are concealing the identity of their donors. Brown has a good idea who they are, though:

'I can't prove any of it, but Wall Street and the oil companies and the outsourcers and the banks don't like me much,' he said.

In Mandel, they've found a perfect puppet. Don't let them get him elected.

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