Sherrod Brown and Southeast Ohio

When Sherrod Brown announced for the United States Senate, he pledged that he would campaign in all 88 counties in Ohio and he wouldn't concede any county to Mike DeWine. He kept his word and it paid off for him in the 20 counties that make up the southeastern quadrant of Ohio. For purposes of this entry, we are defining the southeastern part of Ohio as being formed by following IS 70 out of Columbus to the Ohio River and then drawing an imaginary line from Franklin County due south to the Ohio River, but not including Franklin county itself.

There are 20 counties in the area described above. Sherrod carried 18 of them and got 54.4% of the vote in that area. This contrasts favorably with his state wide percentage of 56.16% to 43.82%. He beat DeWine by 210,898 to 176,366 votes in that area.

What is interesting about this result is that Sherrod was thought by many to be too liberal to do well in the southeastern part of Ohio. That area tends to be conservative socially although much more liberal economically. It tends to be a relatively poor area of Ohio and one that understands the need for an active government. It is no coincidence the the lawsuit that held Ohio's method of financing public education unconstitutional came out of Perry county, which is in the southeastern quadrant.

Too often the Ohio Democratic Party has nominated candidates from one of the big urban counties who believed that they could win their election by rolling up the numbers in the big counties. Given the fact, however, that much of Ohio's population has moved from big urban counties to exurban counties, that approach doesn't work. Instead an approach like Sherrod's, where you fight for every county and concede nothing to the Republicans is a better approach.

Another aspect of Sherrod's approach was that his economic populist message resonated in the southeastern part of Ohio. By stressing economic populist themes and not socially liberal themes, he was able to win counties that DeWine had thought would go for him in 2006.

Bottom line for national Democrats in Ohio in 2008? Concede nothing and run on a platform of economic populism. Oh yeah, and before you campaign in Ohio, check in with Sherrod Brown. He knows how it is done.