Sherrod Brown's "Class Move"

Atrios and Armando at Dailykos, two of the leading bloggers on the Internet, today points out what they call a "class move" by Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Instead of name calling against his primary opponent, Paul Hackett, and instead of threatening a "nasty" campaign as Hackett's people have done, Brown is spending money on an Internet fundraising drive to solicit for Act Blue's general election fund. The money will go to whoever wins the Ohio primary and not to any particular candidate's primary fund. The new ad, pictured right, goes out of its way to put a picture of Brown AND Hackett on paid ads, even though they are paid for by Brown. That's called being a team player - something Brown has long been both for progressives and for the Ohio Democratic Party over the years. Whether you are for Brown or Hackett, progressives should all agree that this is a laudatory move. Good for Sherrod.

UPDATE: One update from today - the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Brown has now filed his paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate. However, unlike Hackett who is announcing this week, Brown is not going to do formal kickoff events until after the November 8 election in Ohio - an election to pass a number of critical reforms. Strangely, the Columbus Dispatch claims that "speculation is that [Brown] wants to see whether Issue 4 passes Nov. 8." before he declares - a claim that seems to come out of thin air (not surprisingly, it has absolutely no source). The paper should have reported that Brown has been working to pass the reforms on the ballot, and that announcing your own campaign during the last few weeks of a bigger statewide campaign could be interpreted in some quarters as selfish...and that putting off your announcement until that campaign is over is being a team player...
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