Brown's switch to Senate race raises stakes in '06 election

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/ispol/1128855470165840.xml?ispol&coll=2

Sunday, October 09, 2005
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief
Washington

-- After the dinner of chicken and a chocolate mousse dessert, after former Vice President Al Gore addressed the crowd and after several hundred thousand dollars had been raised, Ted Strickland had a little chat with his friend Sherrod Brown.

You really should run for U.S. Senate, Strickland, a congressman and Ohio gubernatorial candidate, said.

This happened to be nine days ago, after a Friends of Sherrod Brown fund-raising dinner at the John S. Knight Center in Akron. Those friends presumed they had donated to the re-election campaign of Brown, a seven-term Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gore was there as the big-name draw.

But Brown, 52, of Avon, had heard others, too, say that he should switch to a Senate race, even though he had announced in August that he would stay in the House. He says no one in particular talked him into running, and Strickland says he certainly wasn't the one...(long)




DeWine challengers trip over each other

http://www.cleveland.com/politics/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/ispol/1128850235291450.xml&coll=2

Sunday, October 09, 2005
Ohio Democrats eager to reclaim a seat in the U.S. Senate finally have gotten what they've craved for years - an established pol like Rep. Sherrod Brown to step up and challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. But their dream hardly unfolded the way they wished.

When Brown, a seven-term congressman and former Ohio secretary of state, entered the race last week, his timing was a mess. It came three days after the entry of another Democrat, Paul Hackett, a Cincinnati attorney who had been courted for weeks by party leaders in Washington after Brown and other big-name Democrats announced that they wouldn't challenge DeWine.

Hackett, a tough-talking Iraq war veteran with little political experience, electri fied Democrats this summer when he nearly pulled off an upset in a special congres sional election in one of Ohio's staunchest Republican dis tricts.

Hackett's surprising per formance gave hope to Democrats nationwide that 2006 might be a much worse year for Republicans than anyone had imagined. And when summer ended with no top Ohio Democrats willing to challenge DeWine, party leaders in Washington were happy to have Hackett jump into the void...


http://www.house.gov/sherrodbrown/home.htm

[jaysunb]

1. I don't like this...

I wonder who's really behind this. :evilfrown:

[NCarolinawoman]

2. Money and Chuck Schumer, apparently.

This should infuriate the grassroots. Paul Hackett had already bought a special trailer to go campaigning in after being encouraged by Schumer. Then the polls looked favorable and Brown changed his mind aabout running, with lots of promises of money from the bigshots in Washington DC. So now Schumer is trying to talk Hackett OUT OF running......after previously ENCOURAGING him.