Too bad:
Despite leading in the polls, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has decided not to seek the GOP nomination to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. Following is a statement Blackwell read to me over the phone:
After three months of quietly talking with my family, friends, political strategists, donors and two men who have expressed a strong interest in this Senate seat, I have decided to end my active consideration of a run for the U.S. Senate. I believe it is unfair to the conservative objective of defeating Sherrod Brown to stretch out my decision making process any further.
While it would have been fun to run against Ken Blackwell once more, I'm not even sure he would have made it out of the GOP primary. A PPP poll did show him leading, true, but that was entirely an artifact of name recognition. Not that the other wannabes are any great shakes, but this is Ken Blackwell we're talking about here after all.
So I suppose this makes Treasurer Josh Mandel the nominal front-runner for the Republican nod, though former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin is also hovering around the race (both have formed exploratory committees). A few other GOP names have refused to rule out a run, but no one seems to be particularly interested in making the race. Sherrod Brown might just get very lucky indeed.