Look who popped up.

No sooner do I post about Ganley not taking the Senate race seriously, and there he is a few hours later with an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about how he's promising to push some more money into the race.

Car dealer Tom Ganley's campaign for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate is set to shift into first gear.

Ha ha. Amusing jab from the PD with the "first gear" comment. Portman's been running in high gear for months.

Campaign spokesman Jeff Longstreth said Ganley raised nearly $1.5 million in the fourth quarter and his campaign has nearly $1.3 million ready to spend.

Longstreth said he couldn't yet answer the one interesting question about the figure: How much of the fourth-quarter money comes from Ganley?

"I don't have that number," Longstreth said.

Wait. What?

Maybe Longstreth means he doesn't have that number physically on his person. Because trying to tell us that he has no idea how much Ganley has contributed to his own campaign is hogwash.

The fact is this - Ganley promised months ago to drop at least $7M of his own cash into the race. Even if all $1.5M of the cash he raised in the 4th quarter is his own, that clearly shows Ganley's willingness to only dip his big toe into the political pool.

With Portman likely to show upwards of $6M on hand in his 4Q report, that $1.3M on hand for Ganley looks that much more weak.

Additionally, Ganley’s few attempts engage conservative and grassroots leaders in Ohio have failed. Most recently I heard about Sheriff Rick Jones of Butler County. Jones is well known for his strong opposition to amnesty and any weakening of our immigration laws. And guess what - he recently endorsed Rob Portman, despite the Ganley campaign’s attempts to portray Portman as weak on immigration.

Ganley has also done what he can to woo the Tea Party crowd. I wonder what they would think about his history of supporting government intervention for his own benefit.

Finally, from what I've heard, Ganley has shown absolutely zero ability to build any semblance of a statewide grassroots organization. Portman, however, has more than 130 volunteer chairs and co-chairs throughout Ohio’s 88 counties and more than 9,100 individuals have contributed to Portman’s campaign through the end of 2009, 81% of whom are from Ohio, showing the tremendous support he has from Ohioans who are looking for the conservative solutions and leadership he offers.

I dunno what Ganley's deal is. Maybe he just wants to sell more cars.