Ohio: Lee Fisher

Jennifer Brunner says that if she's elected to the U.S. Senate next year, one of her priorities will be to toughen the just-passed credit-card bill to limit interest rates consumers can be charged.

Brunner, currently Ohio's secretary of state, is running against Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher for the Democratic nomination.

Brunner lauded the credit-card bill's passage but said last week, "Until this bill becomes law next summer, Americans trying to pay down their credit-card balances will be at risk for being slapped with sudden interest-rate increases, excessive fees, double-cycle billing or charging interest on paid balances, and credit-card companies applying payments to low-interest balances before the higher-interest ones."

Brunner said Congress should quickly cap the amount of interest a company can charge, "so that the bill has some teeth and actually protects everyday Americans when it finally becomes law.

Brunner also questioned the economic rationale that GM used to decide which of its dealerships
will remain open.

"When America's taxpayers are footing the bill to the tune of billions to keep these car giants
afloat, they deserve to know how and why the money is being spent," Brunner said in a release.
"While cuts may be inevitable in the process, decisions to manufacture cars overseas and sell them
in the U.S., while cutting jobs at dealerships who sell them, may be just short of ludicrous to
American taxpayers."

In her release, Brunner also noted that she and her husband own a GM truck and a Chrysler
car.

Brunner, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and state Rep. Tyrone Yates all have announced plans to seek the
Democratic nomination next May for the Senate seat that George V. Voinovich is vacating, and trade
and the future of the domestic auto industry are critical issues in the Democratic bastion of
northeastern Ohio.

COLUMBUS -- Nursing homes and utility companies are both powerful interest
groups that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has taken on publicly. Now, both are contributing to the U.S.
Senate campaign of his right-hand man, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher.

Fisher's first campaign finance report as a Senate candidate includes more than
$32,000 from nursing home interests and another $27,000 from employees, family members and PACs of
electric companies.

Fisher collected more than $1 million in the first fundraising period, well above
what his chief rival, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner raised. Her total was $207,000.

President Obama's job approval has taken a dive in Ohio, a new poll released this morning shows.

"Not surprisingly, the honeymoon is over," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"But the era of good feeling is still alive."

What that means is that the survey's new numbers for Obama 57 percent approval, 33 percent disapproval are still healthy, especially in a state Obama won by only 4 percentage points last fall, Brown said.

But it's quite a fall from the stratospheric numbers 67 percent approval, 16 percent disapproval in Quinnipiac's poll a couple of weeks after the president's inauguration.

"The huge numbers he had immediately after the inaugural are coming down to earth," Brown said.