Politico – There isn’t a Senate candidate in the country who has earned a more  consistent string of lousy headlines than Ohio’s Josh Mandel.

Yet the 34-year-old Republican state treasurer continues to defy political  gravity, inching increasingly closer to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in polls  despite repeated stumbles, the cloud of a campaign finance investigation and a  prickly relationship with his home state press corps.

So what gives?

Behold the post-Citizens United era of unlimited outside spending,  where even a blunder-prone candidate can stay in the game if there’s sustained  firepower trained against his opponent.