I was hoping to hear from the Lee Fisher for Senate campaign before Election Day, which is tomorrow here in Ohio. I was hoping to get a personal appeal from Lee for my vote, hoping to hear some compelling reason to vote for him instead of his primary opponent, Jennifer Brunner.
Tonight around about 6 o'clock, as my family and I were eating dinner, the phone rang. It was from Lee Fisher. It was a robocall. It was the same tired talking points that Lee has been spouting in his TV commercials about stopping Congress from giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and so on. You know, parroting President Obama's talking point from his race.
Normally with robocalls, if I pick up the phone, I will just listen long enough to get a sense of who or what they are calling about, then hang up. I know what their pitch is going to be about. But when I knew it was Lee Fisher's campaign who was calling, I decided to listen to the whole thing from the beginning to end. I was hoping to hear something different, something compelling from Lee Fisher that would remove my doubts about him.
I was disappointed because I didn't hear anything different from him about what he would do about other issues that I care about--health care reform, marriage equality, alternative energy, and the environment, among others. As a progressive Democrat, I believe that we deserve to hear from our candidates about where they stand on the issues. I also believe that we have to have candidates who are passionate about their convictions. Finally, I believe that we need to have candidates once in a while who attempt to reach out personally to people and get them engaged in politics.
It's for all of these reasons and more that I am voting for Jennifer Brunner tomorrow to be our next United States Senator from Ohio. Early on I could tell from the way that she was running her campaign that she would be the best candidate for the Democrats this year. She was willing to take stands on the issues instead of being cautious. She refused to take corporate PAC money and relies instead on individual donations. (I dropped a few dimes on her page at ActBlue!) And she has embarked on daily sojourns around the state in a refurbished school bus called the Courage Express, to connect with real Ohioans. No robocalls. No D.C. fundraisers put up by the DSCC. Even if she doesn't win tomorrow, Jennifer Brunner will be remembered by people in this state for the way she has run this campaign.
I wish I could say the same about Lee Fisher. But there's just nothing compelling there. And the way he has run his campaign will either drive people away or leave them thinking that they should vote for him merely because he is the lesser of two evils. I wish it wasn't that way. I want Jennifer Brunner to go to the Senate and join our other progressive hero, Sherrod Brown.
So this diary is directed to Buckeye Kossacks in particular. If you haven't voted yet, go to the polls tomorrow and punch the button or darken the oval for Jennifer Brunner. We deserve this.