Washington Post Breaking: Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat from Ohio, won't run for president

[BumRushDaShow]

Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat from Ohio, won’t run for president



By David Weigel and
Chelsea Janes
March 7 at 12:30 PM

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio announced Thursday that he will not seek the presidency, a decision he said came after a tour of early primary states left him more confident that his party was focusing more on labor and workers than it had in 2016. “I will do everything I can to elect a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate in 2020,” Brown said in a statement. “The best place for me to make that fight is in the United States Senate.”

Brown, 66, is the second Democratic senator to pass on a White House bid this week; Oregon’s Jeff Merkley had released a similar statement Monday. Both senators had hired staff in some early states and had begun to sketch out the argument that a populist Democrat with a record of winning white, working-class voters could break the coalition that narrowly elected Donald Trump. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg also announced this week that he would not seek the Democratic nomination.

“Donald Trump has used his phony populism to divide Americans and demonize immigrants,” Brown said in January, as he began his four-state “Dignity of Work” tour. “He uses phony populism to distract from the fact that he has used the White House to enrich people like himself. Real populism is not racist.”

But Brown, who had never seriously considered a presidential bid until urged to do so after the 2016 election, found that he did not have the same investment in a run as other Democrats. He was also encouraged to hear several rival candidates adopt his “dignity of work” motto on the trail, seeing that as evidence that the party was not making the same blunders that it had ahead of Trump’s win.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-sherrod-brown-democrat-from-ohio-wont-run-for-president/2019/03/07/32369840-3c8d-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html

[Ninga]

1. A lost opportunity for voters. Nt

[calimary]

7. However, there IS Jay Inslee.

I like Sherrod Brown A LOT. I like his wife, Connie Schultz, too. No slouch - she’s a hugely accomplished writer/journalist/columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner. He’s the lucky one.

[MH1]

12. Yes. BUT, if the eventual nominee shares his understanding of worker issues,

and if that nominee puts the due attention on those issues, in the end it may be a win-win. Because we get someone competent in the WH and keep Sherrod's Senate seat.

Although, I haven't figure out who will be that competent surrogate in the WH yet.

[BannonsLiver]

2. A wise move

He had very little chance of winning the nomination and even if he did that’s a senate seat we would have lost for decades to come had he ran for president and won.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Agree about that Senate seat

considering that the whole voting dynamic there needs to be seriously revamped lest the whole contingent becomes (R), including the House seats (where there are only 4 Democrats out of 17).

[Garrett78]

14. Agreed.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. That's too bad. He's a good guy.

[comradebillyboy]

4. I like Brown but we neeed to keep his senate seat.

[marylandblue]

5. That's disappointing. But I like Inslee, so he's my new choice for now.

[Hortensis]

6. Vox says he would have campaigned on "The dignity of work."

He'll be speaking up for that anyway, I'm sure. I didn't expect him to pull out ahead, but he's a good guy and of course there will be some who regret losing this choice.

[TomCADem]

8. That is Too Bad

I did not always agree with Brown on some issues like trade, but he was principled and supportive of the broader Democratic moement, rather than a narcissist who would happily trash fellow Democrats and the Democratic Party for his personal political benefit.

[sunonmars]

10. Got to be right at the top of the list for anyones vp.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Still need to keep that Senate seat

unless Strickland could give it another shot at a Senate run as a replacement.

[ZeroSomeBrains]

13. I love Senator Brown

With that said there may not have been a candidate in Ohio that could take the state right now. I also don't now if there was a lane for him Presidentially and he didn't really seem to want to be President. He looked like he was getting pushed by those in his state. Good luck to Senator Brown in the yers ahead.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. I think he was near the head of the pack last year

however this year, he seemed to wait a bit too long to officially throw his hat in the ring and a dozen folks jumped in... As it is, he threw out a trial balloon viewpoint that has some serious weaknesses when it comes to the current base of the Democratic party, mainly because of this fixation on code-talk of "working class" as only applying to "whites". Blacks and other POC who are "working class" too (the majority of these groups) are pretty much relegated to something akin to Frothy's "Blah----people".

[ZeroSomeBrains]

17. I won't criticise him too hard on that

Don't forget that he supports a lot of things that help poor people of all colors like Medicaid expansion and reducing the age to apply for Medicare to 55. Being a Senator from Ohio is particularly hard right now so he can't be Kamala, Bernie or Warren on a lot of the issues.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. He was actually on my short list last year

before anyone else jumped in. But when he started delaying I was thinking he was having 2nd thoughts so someone convinced him to do an Iowa swing to get some insight.

I think this next election will have a whole different dynamic as plants close and farms go belly up due to the trade and tariff mess.

[floppyboo]

16. I will miss his input during the debates

He will be an awesome minister of labour