As a local (Boston, MA) financial supporter of an peace and anti-nuclear weapons group
Council for a Livable World, I was invited to a meeting in which members of the CLW board met with Ohio congressman and senate candidate Sherrod Brown, an interview after which CLW would consider endorsing him.
I should state that I have given money to Paul Hackett, and, if I lived in Ohio, was leaning to voting for Hacket, though I thought either one would make a fine senator.
Anyway, I was impressed with Sherrod Brown, in the sense that he really gets it. For example, he talked about Republicans "working the refs" in relation to the media. He talked about how John Kerry never talked about raising the minimum wage, despite the fact that it was on a ballot referendum in Florida and got around 70% support, and that Kerry lost the 10 poorest counties in Ohio. Brown plans to put economic issues front-and-center. He wrote a book on the dangers of so-called free trade.
He's also extremely concerned about the use of mercenaries, Haliburton and the "privatizing of war," as it "creates a whole new lobby that will be pushing for war."
Other things I learned about Sherrod Brown is that he's a devout Christian (Lutheran), is comfortable talking about his faith, want to get out of Iraq within a year. Also, he mentioned that, before the 2000 redistricting made his district more Dem, for 10 years he represented a district that leaned Republican, and that he had won statewide.
On the horserace front, Sherrod cited a telephone poll from a couple of weeks ago(Sorry, I forget the name of who did it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't internal) claiming that he was polling ahead of Paul Hackett something like 51-22. A whole bunch of well-known DC-based groups, as well has local party chairs, are endorsing him or are about to, and he had something like $2,000,000 in the bank, while Paul Hackett had almost nothing. In short he was making the case that his victory in the primary is inevitable.
Anyway, I came out of that meeting impressed with Sherrod Brown's sincerity and values, and feel that he's really on our side. He wants to make things better and, to paraphrase, take on the corporations who are screwing things up in the first place. Either he or Hackett will make a fine senator.
Now for the somewhat disturbing part:
After he left, members of the CLW board (who were in their 60s and 70s), had to decide whether to endorse him. They all went around saying how much they liked what Brown had to say. At this point I asked "I agree that Brown is excellent on the issues, and endorsing him in the general election is a no-brainer. But before endorsing him in the primary, should we hear what Hackett has to say? We have a limited number of dollars, and do we want to use them helping one excellent candidate defeat another possibly excellent candidate when there are so many terrible ones out there?"
Their reply was very illustrative of the DC-based groups' mentality. Basically, according to them, Sherrod Brown, as an incumbent, has a record of votes, and a record of winning elections. Paul Hackett is a rookie, and all we have is his word, which is worth a lot less than a record. We should stick to someone who has been in politics, as it's safer.
They unanimously voted to endorse Sherrod Brown. (I'm not a board member, so I didn't get a vote.) They did express hope that Hackett would run for the House seat again.
To summarize: Sherrod Brown good; overcautious, incumbent-loving DC-based groups perhaps not so good.
