Ohio GOP: Cordray is "uniquely qualified" to be AG

My god, how did we lose to these guys for so long?

Has there been anything more pathetic than the complete and utter inability of the Ohio Republican Party to capitalize on all the fodder Marc Dann gave them? Oh, and isn't it curious to see Bob Bennett finally be the talking head for the party instead of Kevin DeWine?  (Sounds to me like someone in the party realized DeWine was not executing an effective communication strategy when he got outflanked by Governor Strickland and the rest of the ODP)

From NaugBlog:

The Ohio GOP Chairman makes an excellent point:

“The last time Ohioans were electing an attorney general Ted Strickland told them to vote for Marc Dann, and I think it’s pretty clear how that endorsement turned out,” said Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett.

As a statewide officeholder and former employee of the attorney general’s office, no one was more uniquely qualified to speak out against Dann’s corruption and mismanagement than Richard Cordray, and yet he refused to say anything until it was too late." (ME note: emphasis added).

And what article would be complete without a quote from Mark Weaver?:

“Ohio voters resoundingly rejected Richard Cordray in 1998 when he ran for attorney general in one of the biggest defeats in modern Ohio elections,” said Mark Weaver, a GOP strategist who worked on Ms. Montgomery’s campaigns.

“Voters looked at his qualifications,” he said. “He has not done anything since then to enhance his qualifications for attorney general.”

So which is it?  Is Richard Corday "uniquely qualified" or is he "unqualified" because he lost an AG's race ten years ago?

And doesn't this mean that the ORP now has to find a candidate of impeccable qualifications who also was on the record condemning Marc Dann and publicly insisting that he resign before the Espy/Pfeiffer report came out? (After all, Cordray waited an entire weekend before he publicly condemned Dann along with the rest of the ODP.)

Is there such a candidate?  No, I don't think so, either.  Is it possible the ORP has no real expectation that it can win the special election, so it's resigned itself to do nothing more than taking the occasional potshot at Cordray and the ODP as they see an opportunity to double their number of statewide officeholders slip through their fingers?  Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like is going on.

And that can't even get on the same page on that, either.