(Adds election result)
Jews are famous for in-law jokes, and Ohio State Treasurer and GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel is in a prime position to make one, but he probably isn't laughing.
With 45 percent of the vote, Mandel lost the election to incumvent Democrat Sherrod Brown, who garnered 50 percent, according to the New York Times.
Nine of Mandel’s cousins on his wife’s side took out a paid ad in the Cleveland Jewish News attacking him for his stance against gay marriage and gays in the military.
When he got hitched, Mandel might have thought he’d married up. His wife’s family are the wealthy, connected Ratners of real estate fame.
But Bruce Ratner, an owner of the Brooklyn Nets and a builder of the Atlantic Yards, signed the letter, which said he and his co-signees were saddened by Mandel’s views given that his cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, were married eight years ago. Espionza, the letter went on to say, is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and the second woman in history to fly the U-2 reconnaissance plane.
“This family is sprawling and diverse,” the cousins wrote in the letter. “But it has always believed strongly in the values of equality and inclusiveness. Your discriminatory stance violates these core values of our family.”
Mandel’s campaign told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he has never met any of these cousins.
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