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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMichael Kazin: Sherrod Brown Should Challenge Hillary Clinton for President
(This isn't particularly my position, since I don't know too much about Brown. But he seems to be liked here, when he's mentioned, so I thought this worth putting into the mix)
Yet, for progressive Democrats, Brown would be a nearly perfect nominee. During his two decades in the House and Senate, he has taken strong and articulate stands on every issue which matters to the partys broad, if currently dispirited, liberal base. When George W. Bush was in office and riding high, Brown opposed both his invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act. He has long been a staunch supporter of abortion rights and gay marriage, and is married to Connie Schultz, a feminist author who writes a nationally syndicated column.
Browns true mission, however, is economic: He wants to boost the well-being of working Americans by any means necessary. Brown has been talking and legislating about how to accomplish it for years before Elizabeth Warren left Harvard for the Capitol. During Obamas first term, he advocated a larger stimulus package, called for re-enacting the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in big banks, and stumped for comprehensive immigration reform. He champions the rights of unions and the power of the National Labor Relations Board and criticizes unregulated free trade for destroying manufacturing jobs at home. He also led the charge among Senate Democrats that pressured Obama to drop his plan to appoint Larry Summers to head the Federal Reserve and appoint Janet Yellen instead.
On his lapel, Brown wears a canary pin to honor the workers movement that gave us all food safety laws, civil rights, rights for the disabled, pensions and the minimum wage. Like the canaries which miners once took with them into the pits to warn them of toxic gas, the pin symbolizes the need to stay on guard against any employers and politicians who threaten those gains.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120351/sherrod-brown-president-2016-he-should-challenge-hillary-clinton
madokie
(51,076 posts)on every issue I've heard him take on I am on the same side as he is
merrily
(45,251 posts)RiverLover
(7,830 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)The only real problem I have is that all of our best potential lefty type candidates are Senators. We have to strip mine Congress for a President?
We need to start building name rec and trumpeting accomplishments of non-Senatorial lefty populist types. Union leaders, mayors, governors. People we can get into races that don't undermine what little pull to the left exists in the Senate.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I think New Democrats have praIctically been the Democratic Party for so long that a lot of Democratic Mayors and Governors are either Third Way or converts to Third Way. I'd go for a populist non-politician.
brooklynite
(94,745 posts)RiverLover
(7,830 posts)That's what EW says too, and I think that will change.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Because when you posted about approaching Schweitzer, it was only to run if Hillary decided not to run.
brooklynite
(94,745 posts)Some people actually DON'T want to be President...
(nb - I did not ask Schweitzer to run if Hillary didn't; I said I would support him if Hillary didn't)
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Sherrod Brown is someone I hold in extremely high regard, but the "xyz pol should run for president" genre always overlooks the fact that reluctant presidential candidates are a disaster (see, e.g., Fred Thompson).
merrily
(45,251 posts)And Thompson would have been a disaster, no matter what.
northoftheborder
(7,574 posts)However, he does not have the wide recognition necessary at this point to be elected President. He could run in the primary, to boost his chances for later possibilities. He is one of the few real progressives in the party.
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)It's the GOP that seems only ever to nominate candidates who have first run and lost. Obama wasn't widely known before running, nor was Clinton, nor Dukakis, nor Carter, nor McGovern. Win or lose, we have never been a party that only ever nominates known quantities. I'd love to see Brown run, and feel certain he could win in the general if he were our nominee.