I, for one, was comforted to hear the warm Southern drawl put on by Ohio treasurer and senatorial candidate Josh Mandel while he campaigned for Mitt Romney before Beallsville coal miners on Wednesday. As someone who recently spent six months living and working in Montgomery, Ala., it brought me back to simpler times when summer nights were spent drinking sweet tea spiked with rum on a porch and it was for some reason still OK to refer to a grown black man as “boy.” So when I heard Josh Mandel extoll the virtues of coal in a drawl reminiscent of fresh butter spread on cornbread, I immediately thought, “shucks, this guy gets me — he’s one of us.” Wait, what’s that? Mandel hails from Lyndhurst, a Cleveland suburb that’s the Hyde Park of Northern Ohio? He’s never even eaten cheese grits? (Editor’s note: CityBeat could not independently verify that Josh Mandel has in fact never eaten cheese grits.) Well now I just feel put on. LINK TO VIDEO Y’ALL The Enquirer reported that Mandel had never publicly used a Southern accent before. "As if blowing off work and hiring unqualified campaign workers and friends at taxpayer expense wasn't evidence enough of his blatant disregard for the people who elected him treasurer expecting that he'd do his job, Josh Mandel has now stooped to faking his accent as a means of earning votes," Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Andrew Zucker said in a statement. "It's sad, it's pathetic and unfortunately it's concrete proof that he is just another politician who can't be trusted." Sounding folksy or down-homey is nothing new in presidential politics. When campaigning in Alabama, Romney famously dropped “y’alls” into his speech and spoke of his newfound love for “cheesy grits” and catfish (my editor in Montgomery was quick to point out to me, another carpetbagger, that any real Southerner knows they’re cheese grits, not cheesy grits). If there’s one thing Southerners don’t take too kindly to, it’s Yankee pandering. “If you’re going to pander, at least pander well, and this isn’t pandering well,” Stephen Gordon, a Republican consultant based in Birmingham, Ala., told the Boston Herald shortly after Romney made his remarks.  “People in the Deep South have a bit of a natural distrust for Northerners, especially folks from the Northeast,” said Gordon, who is not affiliated with any campaign in the Republican presidential contest. “There are cultural differences, stemming all the way back to the Civil War, and they affect the way people perceive Mr. Romney.” Romney is by no means the first to affect an accent to fit in with the natives. Both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton adopted drawls while on campaign stops in the South. Though those two former presidents, from Texas and Arkansas respectively, had the bona fides to pull it off.

BREAKING NEWS EVERYBODY! The Boy Who Cried Wolf, yes, the proverbial shepherd boy from Aesop’s Fables who was so lonely that he invents a wolf attack to get the villagers’ attention, has endorsed serial liar state Treasurer Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate. According to the Ohio Democratic Party. We at CityBeat receive many news releases all day, but this appears to be the first time a fictional character has endorsed a candidate for Senate. Though the release is right that Mandel has a “penchant for repeating previously debunked lies,” the sheer absurdity of the release has caused the news team here at your friendly neighborhood alt weekly to dub it “the dumbest press release of the week.” Here’s the release in its entirety, with names of the guilty redacted. Happy weekend, y’all. Friday, August 3, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: [REDACTED] BREAKING: Boy Who Cried Wolf Endorses Josh Mandel For Senate Touts Mandel's Ability To Consistently Repeat Previously Debunked Lies: "Us Serial Liars Need To Stick Together" COLUMBUS, OHIO – The Boy Who Cried Wolf announced his endorsement of Josh Mandel today, ending speculation about who the world renowned liar would support in the Ohio senate race this November. "Josh Mandel shares my ideals, my values and most importantly my less-than-casual relationship with the truth," said the Boy Who Cried Wolf. "Us serial liars need to stick together, and now that Josh Mandel's officially been crowned King of Ohio's Liars, the choice for me is simple. I'm honored to support Josh and I look forward to joining him and his special interest friends on the campaign trail as they lie about Sherrod and distort his record on the issues from now through November." The Boy Who Cried Wolf rose to fame for repeatedly proclaiming that his sheep were being attacked by a wolf, when in fact, no wolf had attacked his sheep. Much like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, Josh Mandel's star has risen largely because of his penchant for repeating previously debunked lies. This week Josh Mandel earned the "Pants on Fire crown" from Politifact Ohio, an award reserved for the worst liar among all Ohio politicians. ###   Paid for by the Ohio Democratic Party, Chris Redfern, Chairman

The Ohio Board of Regents has recommended banning tobacco on all school campuses. The ruling is meant to curtail students picking up smoking during college. According to the Ohio Department of Health, 40 percent of college-aged smokers began smoking or became regular smokers after starting college. Louise Nippert, Cincinnati philanthropist and art patron, died yesterday at the age of 100. Secret groups have been pumping Ohio’s Senate race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel with out-of-state money in support of Mandel. Unsurprisingly, the Brown team is not happy about it. More Ohio adults are on Medicaid and Medicare, a new study has found. Ohioans are also relying less on employer-provided insurance. The numbers apparently match a nationwide movement. Yesterday, the world got its first glimpse at the suspect in the Colorado theater massacre. He had orange hair. A coalition of labor groups is getting together to push for a higher minimum wage in Ohio. They want minimum wage raised to $9.80 per hour in 2014. Penn State is getting a heavy-handed punishment from the NCAA. It seems like the occult hand of former coach Joe Paterno will continue having a heavy grip on the university’s football legacy. Apparently, earth’s resources aren’t good enough for technology. Scientists want to use dwarf stars to improve computers in a big way.

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has already had a rough week, having to give back more than $100,000 in campaign contributions in response to an FBI investigation. Today The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Politifact website looked into one of the five claims made in Mandel's new 30-second TV ad, and it seems to be pretty false. Mandel claims that his opponent, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, “cast the deciding vote on the government takeover of health care." Politifact notes that since the health care overhaul passed by the minimum 60 votes necessary, that every vote was technically “deciding.” But, on the other hand, Brown was an early supporter of the legislation, and it is widely known that Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the final “yes” vote to join. Plus, technically, Brown was the seventh person to vote because it was taken in alphabetical order. Ohio public schools have received a waiver for parts of No Child Left Behind that will remove a requirement to get all of their students proficient in math and reading by 2014. Nineteen states have received the waiver, meaning they'll have to create their own federally approved academic progress standards. Covington leaders are expecting staff reductions as part of balancing the 2012-13 budget to cover $1.5 million that was left out. The city is facing $1.6 million in cuts to public-safety services and about $700,000 across other departments. Mitt Romney officially won the Republican presidential nomination yesterday, but no one's talking about it because all the stories involve Donald Trump and the fact that his iPhone app misspelled “America.” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has two weeks to offer arguments against extradition to Sweden after a U.K. supreme court ruling. The makers of Blackberry are considering how to remake their products into something people will actually want again. Facebook's public offering drama has caused experts to ask questions such as, “should investors see the wretched performance of Facebook’s IPO as any sort of signal about the likely future direction of the overall stock market and the economy?” While the rest of us were living our lives, two asteroids zipped past the earth early this week. Don't worry — they were small.

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has returned more than $100,000 in campaign contributions in response to an FBI investigation into 21 donors who had no record of giving to federal campaigns and many appearing to have low incomes. Mandel, a Republican, is running against incombent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown. Mandel's campaign treasurer Kathryn Kessler sent a letter to donors explaining that any contributions appearing to be under investigation would be refunded. From The Toledo Blade: Although the campaign provided a copy of the letter to The Blade, it would not explain the timing of the decision or how long it has been aware of the federal probe. The Blade revealed the unusual pattern of contributions in August. The company's owner, Benjamin Suarez, and 16 of his employees (plus some of their spouses) gave about $200,000 to Mr. Mandel and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci (R., Wadsworth) last year. Each of those donors gave $5,000, the maximum allowable amount, to one or both candidates. The Ohio Senate yesterday passed new fracking regulations, and the final version caused some environmental organizations to change their stance on the bill. The Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club had both been neutral on the legislation until changes were made forcing anyone suing over chemical trade secrets to show current or potential harm, according to The Enquirer. The regulations are part of Kasich's new energy bill and easily passed both the Senate and House and is expected to be signed by Kasich soon. Cincinnati Public Schools says it will apply for the latest available federal education grants, which amount to nearly $700 million. The grants are geared toward helping schools proceed with reform and innovation. According to a new poll, President Obama leads Mitt Romney in Ohio by six percentage points. Wonder if Obama's “cow pie of distortion” speech had anything to do with his lead. The John Edwards trial has entered day six of deliberations. United Nations inspectors have reportedly found uranium in Iran enriched beyond the highest levels previously reported. One diplomat said the measure could actually be a measurement error, though the reading could also mean that Iran is closer to producing bomb-grade uranium than previously thought. Scientists might be one step closer to creating birth control for men after U.K. scientists found a gene used to enable sperm to mature. From USA Today: “Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.” Facebook's initial public offering didn't go entirely as expected, and some investors are getting refunds after technical problems and other issues marred the company's first week of trading. The Reds completed a four-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves last night, winning their sixth in a row and overtaking the St. Louis Cardinal for first place in the NL Central.