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Tom Ganley, the Republican nominee in Ohio's 13th Congressional District, originally wanted to run for state's open Senate seat. After complaining privately to friends about the direction of the country, they prodded him to put his money where his mouth was. He decided to do just that when Republican Sen. George Voinovich announced his retirement in January 2009.

But Ganley was not alone in his political ambitions. Just days after Voinovich opted against re-election, Rob Portman, a former congressman and budget director under President George W. Bush, announced his candidacy. Ganley would announce his Senate bid six months later, but after traveling to every county in Ohio, Ganley left the Senate race in February of this year in favor of a Cleveland-area congressional race.

In an interview with RealClearPolitics in Washington on Tuesday, Ganley, a wealthy auto dealer, said Washington needs more businessmen -- not more lawyers like his opponent, second-term Democrat Betty Sutton. He professed that the numerous lawyers in Congress over the years, in both parties, have not done a good job running the country.

"I know how to create jobs," he said, when asked how his business experience could translate to Capitol Hill. And unlike a lawyer, he said, "a businessman doesn't have the word 'deficit' in his vocabulary."

As opposed to many candidates for office who stick to talking points, Ganley is a shoot-from-the-hip type and acknowledges this could eventually get him into trouble. But, he says, "you've got to be completely honest with the voters, and that's what I try to be."

Ganley was in town along with more than a dozen other Young Guns, as these top candidates are classified by the National Republican Congressional Committee. He's been extremely successful in his business career -- the Ganley family chain of auto dealerships has 31 locations, and Ganley said he's the largest advertiser in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

He's no average challenger. Besides his personal wealth -- he's loaned his campaign a total of $6.5 million so far -- Ganley's already been on TV in the district for 40 years, as he was featured in ads for his dealerships. He credits that exposure and name identification for his 74 percent victory in the six-candidate primary in May.

The general election race against Sutton, however, will be far more difficult. President Obama won the district, which encompasses a portion of metro Cleveland in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties, by 15 points, and John Kerry won it by 12 points four years earlier.

Sutton won the last two elections with more than 60 percent of the vote, and had been considered fairly safe before Ganley's entrance. However, Ganley's unlimited resources and name recognition in the district, coupled with Sutton's underwhelming fundraising (less than $600,000 in the bank as of the end of June), has Democrats casting a nervous eye on this race in what is shaping up to be a very rough election year for them.

As a sign of how seriously Democrats are taking Ganley's challenge, last week the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included Sutton among a group of 60 Democratic candidates around the country scheduled to receive an advertising boost in the run up to November, part of a $49 million dollar effort by the DCCC to preserve the party's majority in the House.