Though his re-election to the United States Senate is not even officially certified, Sherrod Brown, the senior and Democratic senator from Ohio has let it be known that he is exploring a run for President in 2020.
Mr. Brown is lunch bucket middle American like Joe Biden, but younger. (Mr. Biden is 76. Mr Brown is 66.) He is a populist, like Bernie Sanders, but younger. (Mr. Sanders is a year older than Mr. Biden.) And he wins, and wins, and wins in Ohio — the electoral and maybe psychological and sociological key to presidential politics.
Any Democrat can win California or Connecticut. Not every Democrat can win in Ohio or, apparently these days, Michigan or Pennsylvania.
Mr. Brown is no Donald Trump admirer. But he has cannily reminded voters that before there was Trump there was Brown — a politician opposed to wide open free trade and committed to putting the success of the American economy and the American worker at the top of the national policy agenda. “America First,” or economic nationalism, is how and why Mr. Trump won middle America in 2016, and it is why Mr. Brown might be able to give Mr. Trump a run for his money in 2020.
Mr. Brown is not charismatic. Indeed, he is uncharismatic. And maybe the country is ready for that. With his rumpled suits and gravely voice and Columbolike self effacement, he just talks to voters. He seems to be able to talk to any kind of voter. He’s interested in people and their stories.
Any Democrat nominated in 2020 is going to represent the progressive agenda, which is becoming hard to differentiate from a socialist agenda. Senator Brown is better equipped than most to sell that agenda to the purple and red states.
First Published November 27, 2018, 11:00 a.m.
