Ohio Voters Call for Big Ideas

We all knew Ohio was going to matter in the 2008 presidential election. We just didn't know it would be this soon.

As the candidates and their surrogates scurried from the Mahoning Valley to the Miami Valley, we heard the echoes of 2006.

Here's what we--as participants and observers--learned then.

In 2006, Ohio voters resoundingly shouted "stop" to a government which they believe betrayed them. Voters said "no" to pharmaceutical firms writing Medicare law, the insurance industry drafting health care legislation, oil companies dictating energy policy. No more job killing trade agreements. No more special tax privileges for hedge fund managers. No more privatizing government services to line the pockets of campaign contributors.

Now in 2008, voters are asking for something more.

During my first 13 months in the US Senate, I convened more than 85 roundtables, open discussions with community leaders and activists, to learn how we all could work together. Their local problems are more often than not our national problems. Plant shutdowns sending jobs overseas. High energy prices afflicting businesses, homeowners, and renters. Woefully underfunded water and sewer and highway needs.

Voters are looking for big ideas much more than the typically cautious, incremental change at the margins that is usually offered up at campaign time.

Ohioans sense a structural shakiness to our economy. A shrinking, anxious, middle class. Frustrated Ohioans working harder for less money. The loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs with an out-of-control trade deficit. A three billion dollar-a-week war with no end in sight. And, exploding budget deficits infecting the next generation.

As Ohioans have told me, we need to increase buying power among the two-thirds of the American people who have, in too many cases, maxed out their credit cards and borrowed all that they could. Families who, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich points out, have two wage earners and work longer hours than almost anyone else in the world.

More than anything, Ohio voters want to hear big ideas. Perhaps a Manhattan project for infrastructure and alternative energy. Maybe a Marshall Plan that would build our manufacturing base and create good paying jobs. Or a tax and trade policy which rewards corporations that play by the rules and are loyal to our communities and our nation.

The candidate with big ideas will likely win on November 4th. More importantly, come January 2009, the new president will have a blue print for how to repair a fundamentally crippled economy.

-- U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (OH)

Comments

[DRaymond]

Sorry, I don't buy it. If Ohio wanted 'big ideas' what did Hillary offer them? What was the Big Idea? A fear driven ad loosely cribbed from one Walter Mondale used against Gary Hart? An immitation news story regarding a completely discredited distortion of a meeting? I know you love your constituents, but they hardly proved that they were ready for Big Ideas. They proved that they were easily manipulated by moves from Karl Rove's playbook.

[anika]

senator brown..... just wanted to say that your wife connie schultz is super super super amazing !!!!!

i hope someday she will run for office... !!

[opie]

Mr. Brown:

You want big ideas, go read John Edwards proposals. You missed you chance.

[redtorm]

I hate to say it but McCain has a point.... "Those jobs are not coming back" We could repel every free trade pact from the past 20 years and it doesn't change the fact that the global manufacturing center is moving to China and other Asian countries. We have to move the economy into new sectors like Green Energy. Obama has a plan for investing in these areas. Clinton can't see that the times, both politically and economically, have changed dramatically since the 1990's. Unfortunately, the Ohio voters choose fear over hope last night.

[maggipost]

Sen Clinton proposed a plan for green energy jobs long before the phrase ever left Sen Obama's mouth. In fact, it is another of those areas where Sen Obama might easily turn to Sen Clinton and say "I agree with Hillary."
There is almost no daylight between these two long-time politicians when it comes to policy, and both are savvy enough to realize that they will have to work across party lines to achieve anything. The only real difference between them is actually stylistic, in that Sen Obama has a natural gift for oratory that Sen Clinton cannot match.
Both are ambitious, each passionately believes that he/she is the one who can truly get the job done and both are politicians, with all that that implies.

[NYCBri]

Actually, it was Edwards who came out with a "Green-collar" jobs plan before either Clinton or Obama. Sometime even before last summer!

[DietrichMoody]

Senator, If Ohio voters are looking for big ideas, are they looking with their eyes closed. You write, "as Ohioans have told me, we need to increase buying power ...too many cases, maxed out their credit cards and borrowed all that they could" What's the "Solution", more credit cards? In a state that is ground zero for the sub prime mess, I'm sure you'd want them to be more fiscally responsible. Responsible in both their actions and their knowldege. What is this on 60 minutes about Ohioans still thinking Obama was a Muslim, or easily catered to with fear and ads? Senator Clinton appealed to the insecurities of your state, and if overwhelming sentiment and pulse there, than I wish Ohio well. Mentalilty and way of thinking needs to change before anything gets done. This is not 1998. Big Ideas and Big Dreams die without a Big Foundation. That sir, is sorely missing right now in this country. The only way Ohioans are going to build the infrastructure of their state is from the bottom up. They are looking for leaders. Sadly they are electing plain politicans.

[racetoinfinity]

Thanks for the excellent post, Senator Brown.

[Countess]

These are the same voters that gave George W. Bush two victories so it is hard to have much sympathy for them especially after they fell for Hillary's garbage.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

It's been that way in The Rust Belt for thirty years. What are you and your colleagues in Congress going to DO about it?

May I suggest public campaign financing as a means to end the strangle-hold Corporations have on U.S. Policy.

[IrondWill]

Eh. Ohio is still mired in the traditional politics of logrolling and compensati­on-for-vot­es. Sure they want "big ideas" assuming "big ideas" equate to "big federal money with loose oversight and little accountability being spent directly on Ohioans". Worth noting that every one of Sen. Brown's examples of "big ideas" is exactly this - massive federal expenditures poured into Ohio in some sort of attempt to lift the state out of the decay their own conservatism has mired them into over generations while ignoring the economic realities the state needs to address.

Ohio represents a dying economic model which nothing short of massive painful economic restructuring can address, and most Ohioans appear to simply prefer to be kept on life support for as long as possible.

[SeaOats]

Ohio voters call for big ideas - as long as they're "white" ideas?

[whimsicalpig]

Please, Mr. Brown, differentiate between change as an actionalbe plan and
change" as a buzzword for "I am promising you everything you want all you have to do is demand it'.

I think we got the hint in 2007 that just demanding that congress change the war, was not enough to accomplish it.

I am exceptionally leary of promises of unrealistic change that are not accompanied with long plans and lists of representatives and senators who say they are willing to buck the K-street lobbyists who support them,

I wish someone would give the far left democrats a bucket of cold water and make them see that change doesn't happen like they are expecting it to.

they are beginning to act like that 25% of remaining bush supporters who ignore the facts about their guy in order to keep their dream alive

we all know this country needs change, but a large unweildy government does make hairpin turns without fear of capsizing.

[1849]

Dear Hon. Senator Brown,

I read your missive and I believe what you say is true. I say this with some conviction because I am native Ohioan who moved away because the opportunities were slim to none in the Buckeye state. When I lived in Ohio, I wanted to attend college but that was out of the question. I am glad to say that my dream came true. Moving to California ,working hard and gainIng residency in the Golden state, put the keys of my future in my hands as the doors of education opened. I can also gladly report that I am an American with a post-secondary degree. I wish I could have done this in my home state but I saw the writing on Ohio's walls in the late 1980s.

Ohio is still my home and I will visit but I will continue to live in California .

I wish Ohio all the best.

[avvocato]

Voters for HRC are not "Voters are [who] looking for big ideas much more than the typically cautious, incremental change at the margins that is usually offered up at campaign time. "
Sorry Ohio comes up small!

[davidly]

Dear Senator Brown,

You say that the voters are asking for more in 2008, but I hardly see what has been delivered as a result of 2006. This sounds a bit too self congratulatory to me. Lately, one of the Democratic candidates for President has been claiming to be a fighter. Yet the fight has not been in the Senate, rather on the campaign trail. Frankly I haven't seen enough fight from this House and Senate to warrant congratulations, and you better not count on November. You have already squandered the trust bestowed upon you in 2006.

[playera]

Sherrod Brown is a man of, by, and for the people. He is there for the people of Ohio and the people of the USA. Listen to him, please, Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton.