The American Prospect has posted the transcript and audio from the breakfast I attended with Sherrod Brown last week. Here's the question I got in:
ME: What do you think should be a sort of overarching progressive message when it comes to globalization writ large that's going to really resonate with voters in Ohio?
Sherrod's answer continues below the fold.
From transcript:
SHERROD'S ANSWER: I rarely talk about trade standing alone. I think it needs to be part of a whole jobs picture. No more new trade agreements with the model we have. My first year in Congress, the first year I ran, we had a $38 billion trade deficit; last year it was $721 billion. From 38 to 721. China -- 1992 was, I believe, barely double digits; now it's $200 billion. Put that aside for a moment. No more new trade agreements on this model. Go back and look at other trade agreements with an eye to labor standards, environmental standards, all of that. I know we're not going to bring back steel mills to Ohio,. but I also know we're still the third largest manufacturing state in the country, and a whole lot of those are 20, 50, 100 employees, often non-union, often family-owned, usually Republican ownership, all of that.
We need to pay attention to the manufacturing we have, not pass in response to WTO findings, not a pass a bill that encourages more outsourcing. Instead, we should reward domestic manufacturing. Education's a major, major component of this. Employer-based health care, we've got to -- not in this campaign because I don't we can get a solution that quickly -- but we've got to look at what employer-based health care does to our competitiveness, what it does in terms of our competitiveness internationally and what it does domestically. When Costco pays health care almost all its employees and Wal-Mart doesn't for a lot of its employees and the state picks up the cost. There's a study in Ohio: both McDonalds and Wal-Mart, they're the two leaders, have 12,000 children who are on state Medicaid whose parents work at each of them, each one -- 12,000 whose parents work at those stores. That's all part of a jobs-manufacturing plan.
I think unique to Ohio, which is maybe less interesting to all of you, is Ohio doesn't use what we have. We don't use our extraordinary healthcare institutions in northeast Ohio well; we're the first or second state in the country in food processing -- we don't use that well for energy production, for all kinds of job creation. We can do better.
A lot of the questions posed by Kossacks last week were asked, including:
Can a robust economic progressive platform counter national security and social issues among voters there?
Congressman, would you like to see your campaign become a referendum on the war?
Do you think that [former Democratic primary challanger Paul Hackett] will campaign for you in places like southern Ohio and how important a role do you think he can play in helping you win?
Is there some unified message the Democrats could have that could give them some power to fight back against the idea that we should all be scared and the Commander-In-Chief and the Defense Department are the only way to protect you?
What's the status of ballot security in Ohio, and are you concerned about it in terms of your election?
How are you going to respond when Republicans go on the air with ads that say you're to the left of Dennis Kucinich with your voting record, when they throw liberal-liberal-liberal at you?
I'd put in Sherrod's answers to the questions above, but it would literally run like 15 or 20 pages, so if you're got some time, read (and/or listen [mp3 file link]) to the whole hour. -- David
P.S. --- I wouldn't fault you if you didn't know it, but Sherrod actually has a primary challanger who wants to kill me ... no, I'm friggin' serious ... me, Elton John -- Mary Cheney too! And the guy also thinks "the United States should make conversion to Christianity part of the war on terror to teach Muslims the error of their choice in religion."