Incumbent senator faces stiff challenge from Democratic campaign veteran

From The Columbus Dispatch:

DEWINE VS. BROWN
Gentle ads belie battle to come - Incumbent senator faces stiff challenge from Democratic campaign veteran

WASHINGTON -- The commercials began on Ohioans' TV sets last week: A doctor and nurse in a gentle, cuddly ad designed to show that Sen. Mike DeWine is on the side of children.

The unusually early TV spots are the first of what is expected to be a record wave of commercials in the U.S. Senate race between DeWine and Democrat Sherrod Brown.

...The drawback is that the commercial could provoke a sharp response from Brown, who intends to emphasize issues such as health care. Brown sponsored bus trips to Canada for seniors trying to save money on prescription drugs. He cosponsored a 2000 law that established a pediatric research project in the National Institutes of Health.

To Brown, the DeWine commercials are a sign of the Republican lawmaker's weakness. Joanna Kuebler, a spokeswoman for Brown, said, "When an incumbent puts up an ad this early in the campaign ... it indicates that he's nervous."

Click here to read the full article.

03/26/2006 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)

Ohio Senate Race Garners National Attention

Two lengthy profiles of the Ohio U.S. Senate race ran in this weekend's Washington Post. Both articles mark the campaign as one of the closest-watched races of the 2006 midterm elections.

Washington Post staff writer Peter Slevin details the many problems Republicans face to remain in office this year in Ohio, and Sherrod's progressive vision for the state:

The race is expected to be among the most competitive in the nation, and its outcome will say much about whether the GOP can retain its current 10-seat majority. Fifteen Republican seats and 18 Democratic seats are on the ballot this fall. With a far smaller number considered truly competitive, specialists agree that Democrats face a tough road to win the six they need.

For his part, Brown is staking his seven terms in the House on becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Ohio since 1992. The state, which narrowly put Bush over the top in 2004, is dominated by Republicans who control the legislature and have occupied the governor's office for 15 years.

And that, Brown and his fellow Democrats believe, is a blessing for them.

Polls show voter frustration with political corruption, a faltering economy and an Iraq war that has hit Ohio particularly hard.

..."This is a chance to change the direction of the state and the country," Brown, 53, said during an interview at his Avon home. "It can show a progressive Democrat can win in a state like Ohio. It's going to show that in 2008, there's a very different political dynamic in this country."

Click here to read the full article.

Also this weekend, Conservative columnist George Will writes that Sherrod's campaign is a "harbinger" for Democrats in the 2008 presidential election:

In the central Ohio town of London, an independent pharmacy was absorbed by a national chain because, says Rep. Sherrod Brown, the pharmacy could not afford the staff needed to decipher for customers the new prescription drug entitlement that Brown voted against because the Bush administration "let the drug companies write it." Brown, whose district is in the western portion of the Cleveland-Akron-Canton metropolitan area, where nearly one-third of Ohio voters live, voted against authorizing the use of force in Iraq, against the Bush tax cuts, against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and against school choice for 2,700 District of Columbia children. If Democrats are to recapture the Senate this year, Brown probably must defeat Sen. Mike DeWine in the state that secured President Bush's reelection when, late on election night, it turned red.

...A serious student of trade policy, Brown notes that the trade deficit for all of 1992 was $39 billion, but was $724 billion last year and $68 billion just for January 2006. He wants U.S. trade policy to force "stronger labor and environmental standards" in less-developed nations. He says the point is to "bring up their living standards." Oh, please. The primary point is to reduce the competitive advantages of nations with lower labor costs and lighter environmental regulations -- nations that many Ohioans believe have caused their state to lose 222,800 manufacturing jobs in the past 10 years.

Click here to read the full article.

03/26/2006 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)

Brown wants to tighten trade security

From Toledo Blade:

U.S. Senate candidate pitches platform in Toledo

The camera was rolling; the question, Iraq. Sherrod Brown was reciting the Democratic homeland security playbook until, suddenly, he jumped to a topic it's safe to bet no U.S. Senate candidate has touched in America this year: upcoming trade negotiations with Malaysia.

...Mr. Brown is a congressman from suburban Cleveland, the presumptive Democratic nominee this fall against U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine (R., Ohio), and, analysts say, the first Senate candidate post-9/11 to pitch voters on the notion that free trade threatens national security.

International trade, Mr. Brown has told reporters and crowds across Ohio in recent weeks, gives terrorists a potential path into America's ports, railroads, and highways. He introduced legislation this month to require a security review of any country that wants to negotiate freer trade with the United States - such as Malaysia, which Mr. Brown says has supported terrorist activity.

Click here to read the full article.

03/20/2006 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)

Plain Dealer Covers Sherrod On the Road in Southern Ohio

Sherrod visits his Marietta HQ.

Sherrod chats with patrons in local coffee shop.

In the first of an occasional series of multimedia slideshows, the Plain Dealer's political website OPEN covers Sherrod's campaign swing through southern Ohio.

The slideshow was produced by Dale Omori of the Plain Dealer and includes audio and text throughout the presentation.

Click here to see "Brown Looks South for Votes."

The slideshow is an up-close look at Sherrod's personality and campaign style.

The Plain Dealer also posted a lengthy profile of Sherrod on Sunday, "Brown Foraging for Votes in GOP Bastions."

The gravel-voiced politico with curly flyaway hair is doing all he can to become the first Ohio Democrat to win a statewide nonjudicial office in more than a decade. Instead of relying on Democratic strongholds such as Northeast Ohio for victory, Brown is already foraging for votes all over the state.

"I am writing off nowhere," he promises during a week in Ohio's hinterlands in late February to find volunteers, develop a field organization and raise money.

The nation is watching Brown's progress. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid believes low approval ratings for President Bush and Republicans could return the Senate to Democratic control in November. A Brown victory in Ohio is key to his plan.

Democrats say Brown can defeat GOP incumbent Mike DeWine because Brown is a strong fund-raiser who has statewide name recognition from serving two terms in the 1980s as Ohio secretary of state. They hope DeWine will be stung by voter backlash against Republicans even though he hasn't been personally linked to the GOP scandals roiling Washington and Columbus.

Click here to read "Brown foraging for votes in GOP bastions."

03/02/2006 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, Southeast Ohio, Southwest Ohio, (all tags)

Brown slams drug program, calls for improved coverage

From Toledo Blade:

Days before President Bush is set to center his State of the Union address on health care, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate blasted one of the President's signature medical initiatives in Toledo yesterday.

U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D., Lorain) called the Bush-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan "the most confusing, corrupt, and costly health-care law in the nation's history" in a visit to a Pharmacy Counter store on Central Avenue.

"Customer service, or lack of it, is appalling," he said.

Mr. Brown, one of two Democrats attempting to unseat GOP Sen. Mike DeWine in November, was joined by a doctor, nurse, and pharmacist. Each ran through a list of complaints about the drug program that have grown familiar since it went into effect on Jan. 1.

The program is intended to provide prescription coverage to 42 million Americans. It has run into problems nationwide, prompting Ohio and more than half the states to step in to ensure some low-income residents get medication.

...Mr. Brown touted several bills he has co-sponsored or is drafting which he said would improve the drug program. One would allow patients to add prescription benefits to their Medicare coverage with the check of a box. Another would force the federal government to pay costs of ensuring patient coverage now borne by states.

Click here to read the full article.

01/30/2006 / Permalink / Health Care, Medicare Part D, Seniors, Sherrod Press, (all tags)

It’s Easy to Be Hard and Hard to Be Smart

From Time Magazine
by Joe Klein

...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.

01/22/2006 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)

High school homecoming launches U.S. Senate race for Sherrod Brown

From the News Journal

MANSFIELD -- Sherrod Brown returned to familiar ground Friday night to launch a new campaign -- the biggest of his 31-year political life.

Brown, a 53-year-old Mansfield native and current Democratic Congressman in northeast Ohio, came home to announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Mike DeWine.

He used his kickoff speech to tie the incumbent to President George Bush and Gov. Bob Taft.

..."Bush, Taft and DeWine -- the Republican leadership team -- have stood silently while our state has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs; while our communities are losing fire protection, police protection, and a traditional way of life. Their contributors have paralyzed them," Brown told a crowd of about 200 supporters, friends and staff crowded into the Mansfield Senior High School commons.

Click here to read the full article.

12/03/2005 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)

Who is Sherrod Brown?

An unabashed progressive takes aim at a Senate seat in Ohio
From In These Times

By Christopher Hayes

There are two small but revealing items affixed to Ohio's 13th District congressman Sherrod Brown. On his lapel, he wears not an American flag, but a pin of a yellow bird in a cage. On a Thursday morning in October, as we leave his office to walk to the Capitol for a committee meeting, Brown hands me a bookmark-sized slip of paper that explains: "The canary represents the struggle for economic and social justice." It recounts how miners once took canaries into the mines so that when the birds died, they knew the air was too toxic to breathe. "Miners were forced to provide for their own protection. No mine safety laws. No trade unions able to help. No real support from their government. ... It has been a 100-year battle between the privileged and the rest of us."

...Brown believes his long progressive record will help rather than hinder. "For 10 years I won in a congressional district that was slightly Republican," Brown says. "I think that voters that don't agree with me on some issues will still say, `Brown's on my side.' On economic issues I'm clearly not just in the mainstream, but in the great majority. The overwhelming number of people think the drug companies, the oil companies and the insurance companies rip Americans off. They don't like the Medicare bill, they want a minimum wage increase and they think our trade agreements hurt our country. On every one of those issues, I beat DeWine."

"I'll debate those with anybody."

11/21/2005 / Permalink / Sherrod Press, (all tags)