Update [2005-10-7 16:7:0 by DavidNYC]: Maybe it is time for me to eat crow and deliver that apology.
Check this out. An internal DSCC poll apparently gave Sherrod Brown
77% name recognition in July. As I say in comments, I'd be curious to know what Hackett's numbers were in that Zogby Interactive poll (even though I have publicly questioned those polls), since I don't know of any other poll which would offer a basis for comparison.
On the flipside, the Ohio Poll here does show that 59% of people have heard of Brown, even if a large chunk don't know enough to form an opinion. In terms of pure name recognition, well, that's still quite a spread from 77%, but it's not monstrous. I still think I goofed pretty bad on this one, and I apologize to Sherrod Brown, and to the people who (rightly) took me to task for relying on old data. I know that the damage has been done, and I cannot put the cat back in the bag with a mere apology, but I do offer it sincerely.
[Original post begins here.]
If you were to ask that question to Ohioans, I'd wager that quite a few wouldn't really be able to answer. Why do I say this? Because the University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll asked about it a few years ago (sorry, no link - from a subscription-only database):
Would you say that you have a favorable opinion of Sherrod Brown, an unfavorable opinion, that you know too little about him to say, or that you have not heard of him?
Favorable: 21%
Unfavorable: 5%
Know too little: 32%
Not heard: 41%
N=941 Ohio registered voters
This poll is from 2001, but remember, Sherrod Brown had held his current office for almost a decade by that point, and had also previously held statewide office for eight years. So even by that point, fully 40% of Ohioans had never heard of him, and another third didn't know enough about him to form an opinion. These might be good numbers for your typical Congressman, but they certainly aren't great, and in terms of state-wide recognition, they strike me as pretty low.
The reason I make this observation because some people who support Brown haved touted his name recognition as one of his strengths. But, in fact, Brown doesn't appear to be all that well-known.
I can anticipate some of the objections to this poll, the main one being that it's four years old. I used it because it was actually the most recent (in fact the only) one I could find. But I also don't think things have changed all that much in the interim. Yes, Brown has recently enhanced his profile with Grow Ohio; yes, he's probably gotten a bit more visibility of late because the Ohio senate race has gotten some coverage lately; and yes, I also don't doubt that he's done his best to promote himself these past few years.
And if someone unearths a more recent poll which contradicts this one, I will gladly eat crow and apologize to Sherrod Brown. I did not post this poll willy-nilly in an attempt to ding Brown - it was a considered decision, and as I say above, I don't believe that these numbers are likely to have shifted a great deal in the past four years.
In any event, it looks like Sherrod Brown is not a Hillary Clinton-type (or even Eliot Spitzer-type) candidate - that is, someone who starts off the race with very high name recognition. Not at all, in fact.
I know that Brown has other merits, and I know that name recognition is only one piece of the puzzle. A lot of people more knowledgeable than I have said that Brown has a tremendous organization in Ohio, and has connections throughout the political strata. I haven't yet seen proof of these claims, but I will also grant that this poll does nothing to undermine them, either. It is limited to one question and one question only - namely, how well-known is Sherrod Brown amongst the general public?
And until someone demonstrates otherwise, I'm going to conclude that the answer is "Not very." At the very least, I'd have a hard time believing that Brown has any advantage in this category over Paul Hackett. I am not saying Paul Hackett is more well-known (though he might be) - just that I doubt he is materially less well-known than Brown.
Again I say, this poll does not speak to any other issues. I stress this point because I don't want this post to be misunderstood. I am making a very narrow argument here: On name recognition alone, I don't think Brown supporters can make any kind of strong claims that their guy has the edge. But again, I welcome any refutation of this argument.
Now, if you've read this far, you've rightly concluded that I'm a Hackett supporter. On this point, therefore, I come down on the opposite side from Markos. But of course, this is not the first time a front-pager has disagreed with our proprietor, and it's a testament to Markos that he encourages this kind of wide-open debate.
But I will say one thing to my fellow travelers: I think it's time we stop complaining about Sherry Brown's belated decision to run. As I've written elsewhere, I'm not happy about it, and I wish he had made a different choice. But this is the hand we've been dealt, and I don't think that whining about it (which is what it sounds like to most people) will help us win the primary. (Remember how most of us - myself included - sneered when Joe Lieberman sobbed about Al Gore's alleged disloyalty when the latter endorsed Howard Dean?)
Paul Hackett can definitely win this primary, and if he does, it's because he's the better candidate, ran a better race, fought a better fight, and had a better-mobilized corps of supporters. It's our job to deliver on that last point. Most of us have been through this drill before, and we know what we've got to do - whether it's to volunteer, make phone calls, help spread the word, donate money. But I can assure that what will not help Paul Hackett win is complaining. So I say we do our best to put that aside, roll up our sleeves and get to work. Let's keep it clean, and let's do this thing!