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.

So What is the Iraq War End Game?

On December 18, 2007, the United States Senate voted on an amendment offered by Senator Russ Feingold, (D-WI), to re-deploy United States troops out of Iraq. The amendment failed by a vote of 71 to 24, with 71 Senators voting against it and 24 Senators voting for it. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio backed the Feingold amendment, but Senator George Voinovich voted against it. So here's our question for George Voinovich and the other 70 Senators who voted against the Feingold amendment: How much longer do you see us in Iraq? Here's another question: How much more are you willing to spend to keep American troops in Iraq?

Those two questions are very seldom asked by reporters covering this war. Bush is allowed to get away with trite sayings like, "We will stand down as the Iraqis stand up", whatever the hell that means. No one wants to talk about how longer American troops will have to stay in Iraq or how much more money Bush's war will cost this country.

If Bush would have told the American people that his Iraq War would cost over 3,000 American lives, over half a trillion dollars in taxpayer money, and would last over five years, the support for his war would have measured in single digits. It was only because he and his administration basically promised a cakewalk that he got Americans to support his war. It was only because of the stupidity of the Kerry campaign ("I voted for the resolution before I voted against it) that he got re-elected. This war was sold to the American public by lies and is being maintained not because it has the support of the American people, but because the Republican members of the Congress put loyalty to Bush ahead of the desires of the American public.

So, this is no longer just George Bush's war, it is now George Voinovich's war. Ohioans need to ask Senator Voinovich just how much longer he is prepared to support keeping American troops in Iraq and just how much money he is willing to spend to keep American troops in Iraq. All that is needed now is a way to ask those questions, since it is pretty obvious that the media won't ask tough questions of this war's supporters.

George Voinovich Chooses Bush Over Ohio's Kids

The Senate voted today on the Reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Sherrod Brown voted to invoke cloture while George Voinovich voted not to invoke cloture. The motion to invoke cloture passed 69-30, more than the required 60 votes. Our guess is that Voinovich will now to try and have it both ways by voting for the bill on final passage. This way he can spin it to the press and other media that he supports expansion of the program while, in reality, he voted against Ohio's kids and for George W. Bush on the cloture motion.

Good PD Article on Senator Sherrod Brown & How He Won Ohio

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article in the Sunday, August 12, 2007 edition about Ohio United States Senator Sherrod Brown. The article points out that Sherrod's populist campaign in 2006 was successful in winning Ohio and defeating a third term incumbent United States Senator. Here is a quote from Sherrod on winning Ohio: "I think that you can stand up for the middle class and stand up for workers and low-income people and win," he says.

As the article by Stephen Koff of the PD's Washington Bureau points out, Sherrod, and not the Republicans, has been proved right over the last several months since he was elected. He was right to be opposed to the Iraq War; right to be worried about healthcare in America; and right to be worried about trade with China. Sherrod Brown far more than Mike DeWine had his finger on Ohio's pulse.

Of course the Republicans quoted in the article disagree with Brown's analysis of why he beat their guy. They prefer to blame it on the ethical lapses of Taft and the other Columbus Republicans. They don't want to face the reality that America has seen how conservatives govern when they have total control and are rejecting it. Americans don't want to destroy government, they want to make it work. Conservative Republicans only want the government to work for them, not for the rest of us. That's why DeWine lost and that's why Democrats can carry Ohio in 2008.

Ohio's Senators Split Vote on Energy Bill

Ohio's two United States Senators split on the energy bill passed on Thursday, June 21, 2007, by the United States Senate. Senator Sherrod Brown voted "Yea" while Senator George Voinovich voted "Nay." The bill raises corporate average fleet mileage requirements on vehicles sold in the United States.

As this Washington Post article makes clear, the United States is behind Europe, Japan and even China in setting mileage requirements for vehicles. This is a quote from the Post article:

The United States, with current efficiency standards of 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 22.2 per gallon for SUVs and small trucks, has lagged behind the rest of the developed world. In the European Union, automakers have agreed to voluntary increases in fuel-economy standards that next year will lift the average to 44.2 miles per gallon, according to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. In Japan, average vehicle fuel economy tops 45 miles per gallon. China's level is in the mid-30s and projected to rise, propelled by government policy.

This is not a politically easy vote for Ohio's two United States Senators. Ohio has lost a lot of auto industry jobs over the last two decades. The United Auto Workers are an important ally of the Ohio Democratic Party and have supported Senator Brown in past elections, including the 2006 election. If political courage is defined as acting and voting for measures that either opposed by or not supported by political allies, then Senator Brown displayed political courage by his vote yesterday. Senator Voinovich? Not so much.

MCDAC Advice for Sutton, Kucinich, Ryan, & Brown on Framing the War

Okay, here's some free advice for Congresswoman Betty Sutton, Congressmen Kucinich and Ryan, and Senator Sherrod Brown: start pointing out that a vote against a timetable is a vote for a never-ending war in Iraq. The Bush adminstration and its supporters need to be asked this question over and over: how long is the United States going to have military forces in Iraq? The alternative to timetables isn't victory, it is a limitless war.

The Republicans have been allowed to get away with attacking the Democratic plan without coming up with one of their own. Well, that has to stop. Democrats have to start demanding that the Republicans address the issue of how long they are prepared to keep pouring American lives and money into Iraq.

If the American people had been told in 2002 that American forces would be tied up in Iraq for over four years, that we would lose over 3,000 American soldiers, and that the cost for a war in Iraq would be over 500 billion, they would not have supported going into Iraq. The administration got the American public to support this war by hyping the threat of imaginary weapons of mass destruction and by telling the American people that a war with Iraq would be short and relatively painless.

The reason why the American public was prone to believe that a war with Iraq would be short was that we had the experience of a very short war with Iraq in 1991. Most Americans didn't understand that defeating Iraq's Army would be the easy part, that the hard part would be what happened after Saddam was removed from power. Which is why, of course, that Americans have soured on Bush and his war. Not only were there not weapons of mass destruction, but the short war that Americans expected has become an never-ending war of attrition.

Yet, Democrats who oppose this war aren't stressing that the absence of a plan for withdrawal is a prescription for an endless Iraqi occupation. The American public doesn't want a never-ending war, but that is exactly what they are going to get if they listen to Bush and his supporters.

Once Again George Voinovich Puts Drug Company Profits Ahead of Ohioans' Pocketbook

Yesterday, the Senate voted 49-40 to adopt an amendment to legislation that prevented consumers from importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. You can see how the Senators voted here.

Senator Sherrod Brown voted with consumers and Voinovich didn't. It's really that simple. Oh, sure, George V. is going to say that it was to make sure that consumers are safe because the FDA doesn't regulate or police prescription drugs in foreign countries. Of course, earlier this year he voted against giving the Federal Government the power to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare. You can see that vote here.

If Choice "A" is making drug companies happy, and Choice "B" is making consumers happy, line up George V. on the side of the drug companies.

Where Did Mikey Get His Money?

The picture to the left is from www.politicalmoneyline.com and can be viewed here. The information concerns where Richard Michael DeWine got his money. (Did you know that his first name was Richard? Neither did we. We will avoid the obvious in-bad-taste puns.)

According to Political Moneyline, his biggest single source was from what they call "Single-Issue" Groups, followed by people and organizations engaged in "Finance/Insurance", "Health Care", "Communications/Technology", "Business-Retail, Services."

Organized labor gave DeWine $42,500 and public employees gave him $5,000.00.

Interestingly enough organizations and individuals allied with the legal system were 10th on DeWine's list of groups financing his election. We find that interesting because DeWine is an attorney. You think that he would have done better with attorneys and law firms. Makes us feel better about our profession.

The single biggest category of employers listed? Homemakers. Yep, homemakers. Women just staying at home, making brownies, and writing checks to Mike DeWine.

Anyway, that's our report on where Mikey got his money.

Pollster Mark Penn & the Clinton Campaign

The Washington Post did a story today by Anne E. Kornblut on Mark Penn who is, according to this article, not only a pollster for Hillary Clinton's campaign, but also a top-level advisor. In 1996, after Dick Morris had to resign for being publicly linked to a call-girl operation, Mark Penn became the Clinton campaign's pollster. According to all accounts he did a great job. His influence in the Clinton campaign in 2008, however, may strike some as problematic.

This is a quote from the Post article: If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon (he was part of the team that encouraged Clinton's husband to run on the issue of school uniforms in 1996).
If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

And if some opponents see Clinton as arrogant, her campaign a coronation rather than a grass-roots movement, it may be because of the numbers wizard guiding her campaign and the PowerPoint presentations he likes to give on the inevitability of his candidate.

Yet Penn also has everything that Clinton would want in a senior consultant: undisputed brilliance and experience, according to even his enemies; clear opinions, with data to back them up; unwavering loyalty; and a relentless focus on the endgame: winning the general election. And Clinton clearly adores him. She describes Penn in her autobiography, "Living History," as brilliant, intense, shrewd and insightful.

"Mark brings a certain certainty about his point of view that can feel like an anchor in stormy seas," said Geoffrey D. Garin, a Democratic pollster who is not connected to any campaign. "It's clear -- and more importantly, it's clear to Senator Clinton -- that he has a consuming commitment to her, and that's not been true in all of the previous Clinton consulting relationships."

Here's what concerns us about Penn's influence on Clinton. We believe that the way to win Ohio and other red states trending purple is to run as an economic populist much like Sherrod Brown did in 2006 in Ohio, as Jim Webb did in 2006 in Virginia, and as Jon Tester did in Montana. We don't think that Clinton is predisposed to run that kind of campaign and we worry that with Penn advising her, she won't run that type of campaign.

We think that Republicans will paint her as a social liberal, elitist and out of touch with the ordinary concerns of Americans. They will run a social populist campaign. The way to beat such a campaign is to run an economic populist campaign. Sherrod showed the way to carry Ohio. The question is can Hillary follow his lead with Penn advising her?

Sojourners Magazine and Sherrod Brown

For those of you who aren't familar with Sojourners, it is a Christian organization founded by Jim Wallis. Wallis is the author of God's Politics: Why the Right is Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. Sojourners is an organization that talks about issues such as free trade, death penalty, and poverty as well as abortion and gay rights. It publishes a magazine. In its magazine this month is an article on free trade that points out how the mainstream media only pushes one side of the free trade debate, and that is the side the favors globalization. In that article is a favorable reference to Ohio's newly elected Senator Sherrod Brown. You can read the article by clicking on the link in this entry's title.

Senator Sherrod Brown: Doing the Work of Two Men

Since Sherrod Brown took office as one of Ohio's two United States Senators, it seemed to us that he was doing more, a lot more, than Ohio's other Senator, George Voinovich. This prompted us to run a search using Google's news feature on both men. When we ran a search using the words "Sherrod Brown Ohio Senator" the search returned 225 results. We then ran a search using the words "George Voinovich Ohio Senator" the search returned 39 results. That's why we say that Sherrod Brown is doing the work of two men in the United States Senate.

Democratic Divide: Economic Liberals vs Social Liberals

Since 1968 there has been a division in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party between what we call "economic liberals" whose main concerns are economic fairness and "social liberals" whose main concerns are social fairness. By economic fairness we mean issues such as increase in the minimum wage, universal health insurance, and barriers to union organization and representation. By social fairness we mean issues such as civil rights for minorities, gay rights, and freedom of reproductive choice. Now, we don't mean to imply that there people concerned with one aren't concerned with the other, but what we are talking about is emphasis, that is, which area progressives emphasize in their concerns.

This division became pronounced with the Vietnam War when a lot of labor organizations supported Lyndon B. Johnson's handling of the war and a lot of progressives became involved in the anti-war movement. People who had been allies in getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed found themselves on the opposite side of a very bitter divide. That division led to a very narrow defeat of Humphrey by Nixon in 1968. It also led to conservatives using wedge issues such as gun control, civil rights, and abortion to divide Democrats. This divide helped Nixon overwhelm McGovern in 1976, and helped Reagan roll up two landslide victories in 1980 and 1984.

Nixon, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, have all used this division to get votes from blue-collar Democrats and win elections. By painting Democratic presidential candidates as being out of touch elitists who didn't represent the values of middle-class Americans, they could win elections. Of course, the irony is that once in office they adopted policies that decimated the power of unions and increased the power of the economic elites that bankrolled their campaigns, especially Reagan and George W. Bush.

Yesterday there were two excellent articles in newspapers that reflected these divisions. One was a news story in the Wall Street Journal on why Hillary Clinton is having trouble raising money in Silicon Valley and the other was an opinion column by Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times on why Obama is having trouble with union leaders. The Journal article is here and the Brownstein column is here . Both of these articles deal with the divide described above.

Clinton is trusted more by union leaders because she articulates their concerns and values better than Obama. Obama is trusted more by Silicon Valley leaders for the same reason. This division could lead to a Republican victory if the Republicans can nominate a candidate who can package himself as being more in the mainstream and the Democratic nominee as an elitist.

Of course, there are Democratic candidates who can bridge the divide. We saw it here in Ohio with the nomination and election of Sherrod Brown to the United States Senate. Sherrod was against the war from the outset and didn't hide that fact, but a lot of his message was about representing the middle class in Washington. The question becomes whether any candidate who supported the war resolution in 2002 and hasn't made amends for that vote can bridge the divide.

One thing that George W. Bush has done for Democrats is unite us against a common enemy, but it is up to Democrats to make sure we preserve that unity. If we stay united in 2008 we can win the presidential election and maintain our Congressional majorities. If we don't, we won't.

Huffington Post Claims Sherrod Brown's Internet Director Created Hillary 1984 You Tube Ad

If you click on the link in this entry's title you can read a blog post by Arianna Huffington in which she claims that Philip de Vellis, who she describes as follows: "the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean's Internet Team." Now we are not big fans of Arianna Huffington, although we read her blog. She is a former right-wing conservative who supposedly had this "road to Damascus" experience and has now become this left-wing blogger. Color us skeptical, but she has run columns from both Sherrod Brown and his wife Connie Schultz. She would seemingly have good contacts with the Brown campaign people. So we present this information for what it is worth.

UPDATE: One of our readers pointed out that Philip de Vellis resigned yesterday from Blue State Digital and has confirmed that he was the creator of the video.

The "Secular Vote" in the 2006 Ohio Senate Race

Right after the 2004 presidential election there were a lot of articles on how the Democratic Party was in trouble with members of the religious right and how that trouble led to Bush's re-election. For a long time this theme dominated the media. Very little attention was given to the other side of the equation and that is whether Republicans were in trouble with, for want of a better term, the secular left.

With the 2006 election cycle, however, some commentators began to pay attention to that side of the equation. John Green, director of the Bliss Center for Applied Politics at the University of Akron, was quoted in an article pointing out that Ohioans who were not regular church goers were organizing politically at the same rate as the religious right. Because of Green's comments, the following article at Huffington Post caught our eye: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-scher/the-conservatives-secul_b_42359.html In the article Bill Scher argues that conservatives have problems with the secular voters that are bigger than the problems liberals have with the religious voters.

Based on that column, we examined the results of the CNN exit poll for Ohio's Senate race in 2006. That examination showed some interesting results.

According to the exit poll, 16% of Ohio voters surveyed attended church more than once a week. Among that group DeWine beat Brown by 62% to 38%. The same poll showed 30% attending weekly and among that group DeWine beat Brown by the much narrower margin of 52% to 48%. Respondents who only attended church once a month went for Brown by a margin of 59 to 48% and they accounted for 13% of the respondents. Respondents who attended church a few times a year accounted for 27% of the respondents and Brown beat DeWine by 69% to 31%. Respondents who never attended church accounted for 13% of the respondents and they went for Brown by a whopping 74% to 26%.

The survey is interesting for several reasons. First of all, it shows that respondents who attend church once a month or less accounted for 53% of the respondents. Second, only among the voters who attended church more than once a week did DeWine have a significant lead over Brown of 24%. They accounted for 16% of the respondents. Brown, however, significantly exceed that margin with those respondents who never attended church when he beat DeWine by 48% and they accounted for 13% of the respondents. Third while the biggest group, those attending church once a week did go for DeWine by 4%, the second biggest group, those attending church only a few times a year went for Brown by 38% of the vote. Brown was able to decisively beat DeWine among voters who have no or little church attendance while staying close to DeWine among those voters who attend church weekly.

A lot of this is being missed by the mainstream media. Most media commentators would not find anything "new" in secular voters voting for Democrats. They probably believe that such voting has been taking place for years. Such a belief is probably correct. What is new, however, may be that such voters are now overwhelmingly voting for Democrats.
____________________________________________________________________
You can view the entire CNN exit poll results for the Brown-DeWine race by clicking on this entry's title.

Akron Beacon Journal Article on Retail Employees' Pay

The front page of the Akron Beacon Journal's Business section had a story today, (2.25.2007), about retail jobs in Ohio. It points out that retail jobs are paying less and that pay for retail employees is not keeping up with other sectors of the economy. In Medina County, for example, retail jobs have increased but retail pay has declined by 10% according to the article. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is quoted as attributing at least some of the decline in pay for retail employees to that sector's lack of organized workers. Other factors cited in the article include technology, which is allowing retail establishments to eliminate jobs by use of such mechanisms as self-checkout stations.

What is interesting about this article is that one of the arguments made by supporters of free trade treaties such as NAFTA is that while manufacturing jobs may be lost, service sector jobs will step in and fill the void. Well, as this article shows, the pay for such jobs is much less than the pay for the lost jobs. This affects all of us, not just the workers involved. If lower paying jobs replace higher paying jobs, then workers won't have as much money to spend on things like entertainment, cars, groceries, dining out, and recreation. It means that professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and dentists may find that their clients don't have as much to spend of their services. It will affect construction jobs because people who don't have as much money can't spend as much on housing. It will affect governments, especially governmental bodies like school boards, who have to go back to voters on a regular basis for approval of tax levies. In short, when one section of the economy suffers, all of the economy may suffer.