# Would nominating Sherrod Brown checkmate Trump in the Electoral College? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 21, 2019, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950 "2019-02-21T08:48:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/21 "2019-02-22T13:01:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The downside is Democrats give up a Senate seat, but as painful as that is, I think it still might be worth it. Even if Brown stays in the Senate, it’s iffy as to whether the Dems will get to 50 in the Senate, which they will need to do just to confirm Administration appointees and judicial nominees, and pass appropriations bills. Brown giving up a Senate seat that would almost surely go Republican would make that a lot harder. To actually enact meaningful legislation in 2021, the Dems need to: 1. Win the Presidency, 2. get to 50 Senators, AND 3. get rid of the filibuster. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/22 "2019-02-22T13:34:46Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > And this is based on…what, exactly? Your assumption that Brown would carry Ohio and Michigan (but not Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, for some reason?). > > I like Brown a lot, but this analysis seems…less than rigorous. > > Also, I see from your Twitter icon that you’re a Deadhead. So now we can be friends. 🙂 I think Brown would sweep the Rust Belt. But he has to survive his own party first - that’s the tricky part. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/23 "2019-02-22T13:49:31Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Looking at the Northern Path map, IMHO it sort of puts a ceiling on how well Trump can do. I think his ceiling is the 2016 map plus Minnesota. Is Sherrod Brown the candidate best positioned to succeed on this Northern Path? That remains to be seen, but I doubt being from Ohio would be that big of an advantage. I think that Trump has a floor as well as a ceiling, and Ohio is one of the states below the floor. I don’t see Trump losing Ohio under any but the most bizarre of circumstances. > > ETA. If Trump loses Ohio, that probably means he already lost in places like Florida, North Carolina, and maybe even Arizona and Texas. I’ll even go out on a limb and predict that Trump is going to do better in Ohio than he will in either Arizona or Texas. Let’s not forget that Trump lost to John Kasich in the primary. Obama won Ohio twice. Ohio is conservative, but mostly the centrist type. There are parts of Ohio closer to West Virginia and Kentucky that are probably going to be fiercely Trump, but there are many others who voted simply for him (or simply stayed home) because they didn’t like Hillary and felt her campaign was out of touch. Sherrod Brown ‘gets it’. He would beat Trump, and I suspect he would give him a fairly good beat-down. Ohioans are definitely ‘Merikuns’ but they’re the nice kind. I think Brown would do well there, and his success would carry over into PA, WI, and MI. Where Democrats are increasingly weak - and astonishingly so - is in Florida. Of all the swing states that are in danger of becoming red, it’s Florida that should keep Democrats up at night. I don’t see anyone right now in the Democratic field who can beat Trump there. Being Latino and having the support of Latinos isn’t necessarily an advantage, either. Latin identity of Florida is different than it is in the rest of America’s Latin communities. A lot of them even look down on other Latinos, so sob stories about children locked in cages might get some traction states like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, but it won’t get much mileage in Florida. On the flip side, I think there’s real momentum in Florida, and I again think that Brown would do well there - perhaps better than the rest of the Democratic field. The potential danger is looking backwards into history a little too much and not seeing where the trends are taking us. I think almost any front-running Democrat who can convince the majority of the party that they’re not anti-white male will win the so-called Rust Belt states that Hillary lost. But they also need to look at what’s happening in Florida, where there’s a real danger of losing, and Texas and Arizona, where there’s a real chance to pick up some gains. That’s why I’m kinda leaning toward someone like Brown. Klobuchar, Castro, and Booker also strike me as having the potential to score as well. I simply don’t know enough about Kamala Harris to have an informed opinion on her, except for the realization that she’s obviously very good at politics and political organizing. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/24 "2019-02-22T14:14:59Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I think Brown would sweep the Rust Belt. > > But he has to survive his own party first - that’s the tricky part. I’d rephrase that as, “but he has to _gain support within_ his own party first.” He’s generally polling [down around 1%](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html#polls). Other than Emerson (and something weird’s going on with their numbers, so I don’t exactly trust them), nobody’s had him above 2% in any poll. That could change, of course, but until it does, how he might do as the nominee is academic. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/25 "2019-02-22T14:25:37Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I’d rephrase that as, “but he has to _gain support within_ his own party first.” He’s generally polling [down around 1%](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html#polls). Other than Emerson (and something weird’s going on with their numbers, so I don’t exactly trust them), nobody’s had him above 2% in any poll. > > That could change, of course, but until it does, how he might do as the nominee is academic. I don’t even know how serious he is about running. It doesn’t seem like he really gave it much thought until just recently, and people don’t know who the hell he is. If you’re thinking of running in 2020, that’s an important first step. I get the feeling he may have waited too long. And unfortunately, he’s not someone who’s going to shock the world because unlike Bernie Sanders, he doesn’t really have radical ideas. He’s a pragmatist and incrementalist, which I actually think is what we need, but tell that to the teeming masses of voters who want someone to shock the system and want to rage-vote. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/26 "2019-02-22T14:55:55Z")
I think if your name isn’t Joe Biden or Beto O’Rourke, it’s too late to get in the race. Brown lacks national recognition and an early start, he should think about 2024 or 2028 or being VP. It’s curious how Ohio went from a swing state to being quite red. If a Democrat carries PA, WI, and MI then all is well, the northern path wins. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/27 "2019-02-22T15:53:30Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I think if your name isn’t Joe Biden or Beto O’Rourke, it’s too late to get in the race. Brown lacks national recognition and an early start, he should think about 2024 or 2028 or being VP. > > It’s curious how Ohio went from a swing state to being quite red. If a Democrat carries PA, WI, and MI then all is well, the northern path wins. To me, Brown’s and Obama’s back-to-back election victories are evidence that Ohio is still in play for Democrats - at least for moderate democrats. It’s far less certain how Bernie Sanders or anyone who embraces the politics of Democratic Socialism would fare in the Buckeye state. Let’s not forget that Clinton murdered Sanders in Ohio in the primary. Trump was probably regarded by many centrist and independent Ohioan Republicans as not being a particularly dangerous Republican, and even if he was, they probably just were fed up with the Clinton dynasty. But voter distaste for the Clintons doesn’t mean that Sanders or an Ocasio-Cortez type candidate would necessarily do well there. It’ll be interesting to see how a candidate like Kamala Harris or Corey Booker would communicate or shift their campaign strategies post-primaries. Democrats may be running into the problem that Republicans have had for years: running hard to one side and then having to figure out a way to calibrate to centrists in the general election without alienating the base of the party. I think Obama’s strategy has been the most effective in recent times: pick one issue to give to the base (Obama’s was the ACA) and be more mainstream left on most everything else. If the Democrats push for a revolution, I’m not sure how that’ll play with mid-America. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/28 "2019-02-22T16:00:15Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > On the flip side, I think there’s real momentum in **Florida** , and I again think that Brown would do well there - perhaps better than the rest of the Democratic field. . Sorry, I meant Texas, not Florida. There’s real momentum in Texas, as Beto O’Rourke proved. But O’Rourke proved that moderates and pragmatists could compete with Republicans in Texas. It’s not clear how well more aggressive progressives would play there - I’m guessing not nearly as well. It’s paradoxical because nationally, I think the country is flirting more and more with liberalism. As I’ve cynically posted before, what would probably do the trick, what would be the tipping point, is a shock to the system. I think the country is starting to understand that there’s some good value in some of the things that progressives are offering - tangible things like healthcare they can use and worker protection as a result of organized labor. The problem is in the electoral math. In certain places, progressivism is viewed through a jaundiced lens. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/29 "2019-02-22T16:06:12Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I’d rephrase that as, “but he has to _gain support within_ his own party first.” He’s generally polling [down around 1%](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html#polls). Other than Emerson (and something weird’s going on with their numbers, so I don’t exactly trust them), nobody’s had him above 2% in any poll. … Right now the only choice that is running away with it in national polling, when given the choice of “undecided”, [is “undecided” … near half](https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1204a42020Election-1.pdf). After that it’s Biden at 9%. Even zero to 9 is a pretty tight cluster. But national polls WILL change dramatically and the first drivers of that change will be performance (especially performance relative to expectations) in Iowa and New Hampshire. He is not known well there yet either but his strengths are a good match to click with people there. He has already started [to visit](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/428040-sherrod-brown-pitches-economic-message-in-trip-to-iowa-democrats-simply-arent) there. His path _depends_ on a performance exceeding expectations in one or both of those states. If he runs and he is not in the top three in either he is done. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/30 "2019-02-22T18:41:37Z")
I linked to [this Mother Jones article](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/sherrod-brown-profile-democrat-president-ohio-unions-working-class-harrington/) in another thread but it really should be here too. > [@](#): > > … if Brown decides to jump into the race, catch-up may not be such a difficult game for him to play—and not only because he can connect with the white working-class voters that pundits worry have been lost to Republicans. He has a track record in lanes that are in vogue with Democratic voters, … > > …“He’s been very consistent all along in staking out progressive positions,” Ohio State’s Beck explains. In addition to his anti-free-trade stances, he’s been on the universal health care train for a long time: When he joined Congress in 1993, he pledged to pay for his own health care until Congress passed universal coverage, something he stuck with until he married his second wife, journalist Connie Schultz, who added him to her insurance plan when she was a reporter with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Brown has been dinged for not backing Sanders’ “Medicare-for-all” bill, but he has supported a single-payer system throughout his career and recently has focused on his own legislation that would drop the Medicare eligibility age to 55. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act and for the assault weapons ban when neither vote had consensus across Democratic lawmakers. And he’s focused his time in the Senate on progressive tax policy that aims to put more money in lower-class Americans’ pockets, a project that led the Washington Post’s Ben Terris to call him “Elizabeth Warren before Elizabeth Warren was cool.” > > One former DNC member eschewed comparisons to Brown’s contemporaries in favor of another: He told me he thinks Brown best embodies the legacy of Michael Harrington, the political theorist and activist who founded the Democratic Socialists of America and served as the organization’s chairman until his death in 1989. “That probably doesn’t help with the Iowa caucuses,” Brown joked when I told him this. … > > … “You’ve got to work with colleagues of both parties, and you talk to people outside, progressives, to put pressure on Congress,” Brown says of his strategy. A successful example of Brown’s “inside-outside strategy” occurred during the latter half of the Obama administration, when he led negotiations to make expansions of the Earned Income and Child Care Tax Credits permanent before they were set to expire at the end of 2017. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities credited this move with lifting nearly 6 million low-income working Americans out of poverty … > > … “He’s been this messenger for working people without selling short the civil rights message—he sees how they’re connected,” Whaley explains. “We hear a lot from the media, ‘Oh, it’s about the white working class,’ but it’s really not. It transcends race.” … His big primaries dings? One, he’s not as strong on environmental issues. Two, he’s an older white guy. Conversation with a progressive white woman friend who has always been an activist, she’s not going to work for another old white guy no matter what their policies. (She’s behind Klobuchar, even though Klobuchar’s positions are much more centrist than she is and Brown hits her positions to a tee. Harris is, in her mind, too Coastal elite to win.) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/31 "2019-02-22T19:05:08Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Right now the only choice that is running away with it in national polling, when given the choice of “undecided”, [is “undecided” … near half](https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1204a42020Election-1.pdf). After that it’s Biden at 9%. Even zero to 9 is a pretty tight cluster. I’m not seeing a rebuttal here. > [@](#): > > But national polls WILL change dramatically and the first drivers of that change will be performance (especially performance relative to expectations) in Iowa and New Hampshire. He is not known well there yet either but his strengths are a good match to click with people there. That’s an easy claim to make, and the proof of the pudding won’t be for nearly a year. > [@](#): > > He has already started [to visit](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/428040-sherrod-brown-pitches-economic-message-in-trip-to-iowa-democrats-simply-arent) there. Who hasn’t? > [@](#): > > His path _depends_ on a performance exceeding expectations in one or both of those states. If he runs and he is not in the top three in either he is done. Top three, my ass. Finishing second or third in IA or NH won’t save anyone. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/32 "2019-02-22T19:06:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Two, he’s an older white guy. Conversation with a progressive white woman friend who has always been an activist, she’s not going to work for another old white guy no matter what their policies. (She’s behind Klobuchar, even though Klobuchar’s positions are much more centrist than she is and Brown hits her positions to a tee. Harris is, in her mind, too Coastal elite to win.) I was listening to a public radio show on yesterday morning (forgot which one) in which the guests were discussing the growing democratic party field of contenders. The conversation then turned to Bernie Sanders chances and one of the commentators said that he didn’t believe Sanders’ chances were good. In fact the all three or four of the guests (I assume left-leaning) tossed shade at Sanders’ chances. But one remark in particular jumped out at me, with a young black female activist essentially saying that an older white male can’t lead a revolution (whatever you want to call it). It was disappointing, not because I’m particularly interested in seeing another white male atop the ticket, but just because it’s an assumption that a white male can’t be the leader of the democratic party anymore. I wholeheartedly agree that it’s time that our politics reflect the diversity of our society and I agree it’s past time for more black candidates, more female candidates, more Latino candidates, gay candidates, Asian-American candidates, etc…being considered as contenders for the presidency. And since the Republican party doesn’t seem to be a particularly hospitable environment for candidates with diverse backgrounds, I’m fine with the democratic party being a vehicle for promoting that kind of diversity, even if it somehow turns out that we may not have another white male nominee for another 2 or more election cycles. But one of _the_ concerns I’ve had in the era of Trump is that polarization could be used to divide and conquer a political coalition that essentially depends on diversity in order for it to succeed. The Yugoslavian conflict was the result of racial and ethnic polarization, which splintered coalitions along racial lines. Russia has since copied this blueprint to sow unrest throughout Eastern Europe throughout the Putin era. Let’s not kid ourselves: It’s a potentially explosive and effective strategy that could be employed here. White males may be white and they may be male, but they are still a part of the diversity equation. I want to emphasize that I’ve seen nothing yet that gives me any strong and convincing indication that white males are an endangered species among democrats. Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden are all formidable candidates - all of whom absolutely should expect to be challenged by other strong non-white and non-male candidates. But the snippet that DSeid posted reminded me of that remark yesterday and I found it unfortunate. I’m glad that there’s a political platform that can be used to showcase the value of America’s diversity - I’m glad that Democratic party offers that. I just hope it doesn’t somehow become the anti white male party. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/33 "2019-02-22T19:33:28Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Let’s not forget that Trump lost to John Kasich in the primary. Obama won Ohio twice. Ohio is conservative, but mostly the centrist type. There are parts of Ohio closer to West Virginia and Kentucky that are probably going to be fiercely Trump, but there are many others who voted simply for him (or simply stayed home) because they didn’t like Hillary and felt her campaign was out of touch. Sherrod Brown ‘gets it’. He would beat Trump, and I suspect he would give him a fairly good beat-down. Ohioans are definitely ‘Merikuns’ but they’re the nice kind. I think Brown would do well there, and his success would carry over into PA, WI, and MI. > > Where Democrats are increasingly weak - and astonishingly so - is in Florida. Of all the swing states that are in danger of becoming red, it’s Florida that should keep Democrats up at night. I don’t see anyone right now in the Democratic field who can beat Trump there. Being Latino and having the support of Latinos isn’t necessarily an advantage, either. Latin identity of Florida is different than it is in the rest of America’s Latin communities. A lot of them even look down on other Latinos, so sob stories about children locked in cages might get some traction states like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, but it won’t get much mileage in Florida. > > On the flip side, I think there’s real momentum in Florida, and I again think that Brown would do well there - perhaps better than the rest of the Democratic field. The potential danger is looking backwards into history a little too much and not seeing where the trends are taking us. I think almost any front-running Democrat who can convince the majority of the party that they’re not anti-white male will win the so-called Rust Belt states that Hillary lost. But they also need to look at what’s happening in Florida, where there’s a real danger of losing, and Texas and Arizona, where there’s a real chance to pick up some gains. That’s why I’m kinda leaning toward someone like Brown. Klobuchar, Castro, and Booker also strike me as having the potential to score as well. I simply don’t know enough about Kamala Harris to have an informed opinion on her, except for the realization that she’s obviously very good at politics and political organizing. I think the issue with Florida is that the numbers of conservatives continues to increase as older white people who skew conservative retire and move down from up north from places like New York or Massachusetts. Texas, on the other hand and as you mentioned in a later post, is becoming bluer since the people moving in tend to be younger and from places like California, so they tend to skew more liberal. That’s in addition to the growing Latino population, which skews younger and Mexican-American rather than Cuban, so that each election the proportion of Latinos in the youngest part of the electorate is increasing. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/34 "2019-02-22T19:36:40Z")
From the MoJo link: > [@](#): > > He didn’t support the 2009 cap-and-trade proposal that would have put a price on carbon emissions, he voiced support for coal jobs during his 2012 reelection campaign, and he balked at a 2014 Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, suggesting that states should have flexibility to address climate change within the bounds of their own economies. In recent years, he’s come along: He later voted to preserve the rules when Republicans tried to scrap them, and his 2018 reelection platform stressed investments in clean-energy jobs and in offshore wind, ethanol, and biodiesel fuels. But he hasn’t joined some of his fellow 2020 candidates—notably, Sanders and Warren—in their pledge to reject fossil fuel contributions and in the support they’ve voiced for the Green New Deal. Well, fuck him. It’s perfectly OK for him to reject AOC’s half-baked wish list. But every Dem candidate had better say what **they** think a Green New Deal should look like, and then we can have a good, healthy debate over the specifics. If they don’t have a plan of their own yet, it’s fine to say they’re for such a deal in principle, and will either sign on to a plan or come up with their own by summer. But if you were against cap-and-trade in 2009 when you were in a position to make a difference, fuck you once. We had a chance, however slim, to start doing something about climate change a decade ago, to start bending the curve ten years earlier. And if you can’t be bothered to make up for that now, fuck you twice. My son is more than half a century younger than I am. So half a century more of whatever mess our generations leave behind is the world he will live in and I won’t. I have prayed many times that we haven’t already failed him, and I greatly fear we have. But whatever chance we have, whatever time we have left, to avert a global climate catastrophe, I insist on having Democrats in control who consider it one of their highest priorities to take full advantage of that time, to maximize whatever chance we have. Sherrod Brown is not such a Democrat. Ohio can have him. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/35 "2019-02-22T20:05:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Three comments: > > (1) Is it just a home-state advantage? Or would Brown’s status as an Ohioan carry over to Pennsylvania — still the swing state #1 in importance? Biden would have a huge home advantage in Pennsylvania, I think. How about Klobuchar? Would her popularity in Minnesota carry over into other Midwest states? > > (2) EVERY Democrat wants to work toward UHC. It’s a complex matter; soundbites aren’t the whole answer. Many smart people decided that ACA was the key first step. PLEASE don’t reject a candidate just because he or she doesn’t parrot the exact Sanders-AOC party line. > > (3) IIUC, the election of Brown would almost automatically cost the Dems a Senate seat. That is just too huge … unless you can prove that Brown would have significantly better November chance than anyone else. Can you? Assuming #2 was directed at me, septimus, I resent the hell out of your implication. I have followed this issue closely for many years and am quite well informed on the topic. Why would you assume that my opinions are formed by “soundbites” or mindlessly following some “party line”? ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/36 "2019-02-22T20:07:08Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > From the MoJo link:Well, fuck him. > > It’s perfectly OK for him to reject AOC’s half-baked wish list. But every Dem candidate had better say what **they** think a Green New Deal should look like, and then we can have a good, healthy debate over the specifics. If they don’t have a plan of their own yet, it’s fine to say they’re for such a deal in principle, and will either sign on to a plan or come up with their own by summer. > > But if you were against cap-and-trade in 2009 when you were in a position to make a difference, fuck you once. We had a chance, however slim, to start doing something about climate change a decade ago, to start bending the curve ten years earlier. And if you can’t be bothered to make up for that now, fuck you twice. > > My son is more than half a century younger than I am. So half a century more of whatever mess our generations leave behind is the world he will live in and I won’t. I have prayed many times that we haven’t already failed him, and I greatly fear we have. > > But whatever chance we have, whatever time we have left, to avert a global climate catastrophe, I insist on having Democrats in control who consider it one of their highest priorities to take full advantage of that time, to maximize whatever chance we have. > > Sherrod Brown is not such a Democrat. Ohio can have him. But if he can win Ohio, it’s foolish to overlook him just because he doesn’t meet your anti-global catastrophe litmus test!😛 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/37 "2019-02-22T20:13:36Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I’m not seeing a rebuttal here. That’s an easy claim to make, and the proof of the pudding won’t be for nearly a year. Who hasn’t? Top three, my ass. Finishing second or third in IA or NH won’t save anyone. Not sure what there is to rebut and I am not rebutting anything. Simple comment: the biggest chunk of voters have no idea who they will be supporting yet. Not being known by most yet and leading the pack at 9% or 4% doesn’t have much predictive value. Haven’t seen your ass and don’t care much about it. But the results in Iowa and NH _will_ winnow the field. If a known established big expectations name (Sanders, Biden, Warren) underperforms (not in top two in either) the storyline for them is how down they are and they sink fast. If a lesser name (pretty much everyone else) overperforms (in top three in one or the other) that is the media cycle, even more than an expected winner winning. And those of the pretty much everyone else who do not hit the top three in one or the other are pretty much done with forks sticking out. > [@asahi](#): > > … It was disappointing, not because I’m particularly interested in seeing another white male atop the ticket, but just because it’s an assumption that a white male can’t be the leader of the democratic party anymore. … Oh I was definitely disappointed too. Her dismissing out of hand someone based exclusively on their race and gender really took me aback. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > From the MoJo link:Well, fuck him. … if you can’t be bothered to make up for that now, fuck you twice. … Pretty sure you won’t be voting for him in a primary, or donating. It’s his biggest negative on my list too, although I do also note he’s evolved since that cap and trade vote. I agree that he’d need to come up with what his plan _would_ be by summer and that would need to be solid. He needs to be very clear on what his pragmatic solutions now _are_. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/38 "2019-02-22T21:23:01Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > …It’s curious how Ohio went from a swing state to being quite red. **If a Democrat carries PA, WI, and MI then all is well, the northern path wins.** The bolded part is a point I have made in several discussions since 2016 - Florida is lost, the path for the Democrats is to bring PA, WI, MI and if possible OH back to their side. There are several combos of those states that will do the trick. The other point I’ve made is that other than Biden I don’t see any East coast or West coast Democrat being likely to accomplish this in 2020. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/39 "2019-02-22T21:33:47Z")
I’m a bit surprised by the attitude that the Dems should try to win back OH (Trump won by 8 points) but “Florida is lost” (Trump by less than 2 points). It’s also worth noting that HRC barely eeked out a win in NH, and only won NV by a couple of points. Even if the 2020 Dem wins MI, WI, and PA back, if they lose NH and NV, [President Trump would still win 270-268](https://www.270towin.com/maps/3ooGX), so they’ve got to protect those places too (and MN, CO, and VA but beyond that, we’re getting into flipping-OH levels of wishful thinking). ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950/40 "2019-02-22T22:05:07Z")
I agree that any white candidate needs at least a top 2 finish in IA or NH to stay credible. I wouldn’t write off any of the minorities until SC and NV have been heard from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-nominating-sherrod-brown-checkmate-trump-in-the-electoral-college/829950.md?page=3)