I've often said that we progressives need to get involved in primaries if we really want to have a say on election day, and now I'm putting my money where my keyboard is. I am officially endorsing Sherrod Brown for the Ohio Senate race. (And not just because a friend is working on his campaign.)
A lot of bloggers seem to think former Marine Paul Hackett is the best choice, in this climate of sock-it-to-em, make-my-day politics. Hackett is virulently anti-war. He's also virulently in-your-face, which a lot of bloggers seem to like. From Joe Klein in Time magazine:
Actually, Hackett's campaign is a vivid demonstration of that old Marine saying. His next stop was a meeting of College Democrats at the University of Toledo—earnest young people who seemed omegas to Hackett's very alpha alpha—and he got into their faces early and often. He said gun control was his big difference with Brown, but it was hard to tell: Hackett had only a vague familiarity with most of the other issues. He was stumped by illegal immigration and came up with a crude prescription: "Send 'em back if we can afford it."
I'll take true-blue liberal Brown, who prefers to listen to people rather than talk over them:
Brown was quite the opposite of Hackett on the stump: he asked people questions about their lives, listened carefully to their answers—and answered their questions, about unsexy issues like the Medicare prescription-drug plan, in detail and with respect. Many of those people were unemployed or about to be. There was a real intimacy with the candidate, whom they called Sherrod. It was the most basic sort of politics—an unintended reproach to political professionals who tend to fall for flashy war heroes, and to flashy war heroes who insult the public by thinking they can run for office without taking the issues seriously in a dead-serious time.
The next election is about more than the war. I'd like to move back to America one day, but not to an America without health care, Social Security, safe workplaces, or quality education. It's these issues that we need to refocus on as Democrats. Our bread and butter, Mom and Pop issues—"Security Moms" have kids, and parents in nursing homes, remember.
Here's another telling article on Brown.
Brown lacks the national profile of colleagues like Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, but for the duration of his six-and-a-half terms in office, he has been one of Congress's most stalwart progressives. "I've known him for many years," says Sanders. "What's very clear is that Sherrod Brown knows which side of the struggle he is on."
If you'd like to join me (a former Ohioan) in donating to a worthy Democrat, go here. Or visit his website.
