MANSFIELD — Sherrod Brown started his political career in Mansfield, shaking hands and talking about issues that mattered most to him.
Now a U.S. senator representing all of Ohio, the 69-year-old came home Saturday night to continue that tradition during the Richland County Democratic Party’s Joseph H. Mudra Legacy Dinner.
After remarks to a packed house inside the Life Celebration Center on South Main Street, Brown shook hands, posed for photos and chatted with a throng of people eager for his attention.
Elected to the Senate in 16 years ago, Brown understands Democrats face a challenge in November, given history in midterm elections for the party holding the White House and polling numbers that show Republicans are trending to regain control of both the House and Senate.
In response, Brown said Democrats must show voters the distinction between their candidates and the GOP.
“Democrats cut taxes on middle-class families. If you got kids, you got up to $3,000, you got at least a $3,000 tax cut. Republicans are talking about raising taxes on the middle class. Millions of people have gotten (COVID-19) vaccines in arms because of what (President Joe) Biden’s done,” Brown said.
“I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has been shocked by how well Biden has put together this international coalition to fight back against the Russians without escalating to nuclear war, but siding with Ukrainians to help them with food and to help them relocate temporarily and to provide them with guns and and other kinds of weapons,” said Brown, currently the chair of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
“We got the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Presidents for 30 years have promised infrastructure and this president did it. It’s gonna absolutely matter on on water and sewer rates and highways and bridges and all we need to do,” Brown said.
“Making the contrast that Democrats are the party of workers and Republicans wanna raise taxes. Republicans are are anti-union,” Brown said.
Brown, first elected to the Ohio House 47 years ago before serving as the Ohio Secretary of State and a member of the U.S. House, was introduced to the audience by Jim Mudra, a former classmate at Mansfield Senior High School and the brother of Joe Mudra, the former longtime local Democratic Party chair who died in March 2021.
Mudra recalled his school days with Brown.
“Have you ever liked to drop names in your life when you’re talking to people? I get to the point where I say, ‘Oh yeah, Sherrod and I were debate partners in high school.’ I bet Sherrod never said that once to anybody,” Mudra said, drawing a laugh from the audience.
In his remarks, Brown hit the Democratic Party highlights, speaking in favor of organized labor, producing items in the United States, the child care tax credit and support for public education.
He said he has never heard a president talk about unions in the manner of the current president.
During a visit to the Biden White House, Brown said he spoke about the protecting workers’ rights to organize.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, thanks for using the word union the way you do.’ And he smiled.
As soon as the 40-minute meeting was over, he got up and he walked across towards me and he said, ‘Why wouldn’t I use the word union?
“I said, ‘I’ve been in this office a lot of times over the last 30 years, I’ve never heard of president talk about unions the way you do,'” Brown said.
The veteran lawmaker said he understands challenges Democrats have in reaching working families and in rural areas, including Richland County, which supported Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 in presidential races.
“Republicans have sold them out time after time after time. But so did some Democrats,” Brown said, recalling a meeting he once had with former President Bill Clinton.
“I asked him, ‘What do we do to win places like rural Arkansas? What do we do to win southeast Ohio? What do we do to win my hometown of Mansfield, Ohio?’
“He said voters don’t think that either party will do anything for them, but they vote Republican because they think Democrats will do something to them.
“I’m not sure exactly what that means. It’s partly (because) Republicans played a fear so much on a whole bunch of issues. Most of them not real issues, but our answer has to be that we show them that we stand with them. We show them that we are on their side. We focus on workers on bringing these jobs back (to the United States),” Brown said.
“As it always does in politics, it comes down to whose side you are on. And we’ve got to every day show how we’re for workers. We’re for building a middle class, we’re for giving children more opportunity, we’re for public education and public health and public safety,” Brown said.
He urged local Democrats to do what he did when he started his political career — knock on doors, be active in the community and “show up all year long.”
“We don’t do better in Richland County just because we should … because we’re smarter or better looking or whatever we are.
“We do better in Richland County and win some of these races because you knock on doors, because you understand that progress doesn’t roll on the wheels of inevitability.
“It rolls because you organize, you canvas, you make phone calls, you register voters, you never give up. It rolls because you dedicate your lives, a big part of your lives, to making a difference for this community. So I thank you for that,” Brown said.
