OH-01: Steve Dreihaus campaign on the air; Republicans stunned it wasn’t a concession speech

In 2008, Steve Chabot’s twelve-year career in Congress ended when he lost to Steve Driehaus by 5%, or roughly 15,000 votes.  That was as big of a margin as any Republican incumbent in what is not considered a marginally Republican district that lost despite no sex or ethics scandal.

In 2006, Chabot barely won re-election by roughly 9,000 votes.  In other words, for some reason, people started to get “creeped” out at the idea of having Steve Chabot as their congressman.Nonetheless, as soon as he lost, Chabot conceded and then promptly began campaigning for his old job back.

Steve Chabot is one of those, shall we say, dim bulb conservatives who believes anything he sees or hears on Fox News or talk radio… like NASA caring more about making Muslims feel good about themselves by building a mosque on Neil Armstrong’s moon landing site or some nonsense.

We’re 68 days until the Election, and this is Steve Chabot’s Issues page on his campaign website (I shit you not!):

At least he didn’t put these on his page:

Of course, he probably didn’t do that because it would remind voters of all the construction jobs the stimulus helped create in Ohio.

To the extent the Cincinnati media has covered the race at all, it’s been noting that despite the less than favorable political environment for Driehaus, Chabot still finds himself having to defend his congressional record, especially his support for Bush’s unpopular plan to begin privatizing Social Security.

This ad is a good start to remind people why they voted out Steve Chabot in the first place.  Despite an attempt by Chabot’s campaign and outside Republican groups to tout some, well, laughable poll numbers, the race is still considered a tossup, even as forecasters like Charlie Cook have gotten more bullish on the GOP’s chances of retaking the House.