Ohio Senate Candidate Appears To Call Opponent 'Pussy' At Forum

Republican Senate primary candidates Mike Gibbons and Josh Mandel stunned Ohio audiences Friday night when the two got in each other’s faces at a forum and Mandel appeared to call Gibbons a “pussy.”

“You’re dealing with the wrong guy,” Mandel, the race’s evangelical-backed candidate, appeared to say after a heated exchange about Gibbons’ business interests in China, seemingly mumbling under his breath: “You watch what happens. Pussy.”

Mandel’s campaign denied it was Mandel who used the slur, citing a different video purporting to show Gibbons uttering the word.

Meanwhile, Gibbons’ campaign spokeswoman Samantha Cotton said, “It was Mandel” who said the word. In a press release after the forum, Gibbons denounced Mandel as “unhinged, unfit and flailing — because he’s losing.”

Making the incident all the more disturbing, the two men are the current front-runners in the primary to replace Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring. It underscores just how intense Ohio’s primary has gotten and the extreme plays the candidates are willing to make to get Donald Trump’s attention. (The former president was famously caught on tape saying that as a celebrity he could he do anything he wanted with women, including “grab ’em by the pussy.”)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-mandel-mike-gibbons-ohio-senate-republican-heated-exchange_n_623511dae4b0d39357c7faaa
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Schoolyard namecalling now?