Run Sherrod Run

An open letter to one of my US senators.

3-7-11

Evan Goodenow

Bellevue, OH 44811

Sen. Sherrod Brown

713 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Sen. Brown,

I recently returned to Ohio after losing my job as a journalist in Michigan and have been meaning to write and thank you for showing courage on issues like healthcare reform, ending tax cuts for the rich and ending the Senate filibuster which effectively allows gridlock and tyranny of the minority.

On Sunday I spoke with your State Director John W. Ryan who addressed a rally of striking Tsubaki workers in Sandusky. I told John I was pleasantly surprised with you.

Having not been familiar with your record in Congress when I first moved to Ohio in 2004, I was afraid that you were the kind of Clintonian, centrist, corporate Democrat who sold out working people, like the Tsubaki strikers, years ago. Instead, you have been an eloquent defender of working people showing far more spine than President Obama.

I cannot comprehend the enormous amount of money you would have to raise and organization you would have to form to run against Obama - AKA The Great Capitulator - in 2012, but I can tell you that I would volunteer to knock on doors on your behalf. I recognize a primary challenge would split the Democratic Party, but if it were mounted it should be to defeat Obama, not an effort to push him leftward.

The Tsubaki strikers and the thousands of Ohioans I protested with in Columbus last week against the union busting Senate Bill 5 don't want Republican Lite from Democrats like Obama whose watered down healthcare and financial reforms, inadequate stimulus and failure to push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act represent a failure to capitalize on the momentum he had when elected.

We need a president who remembers why he was elected, not one preoccupied with getting re-elected. While a run by you in 2012 might be quixotic, perhaps 2016 isn't out of the question although I shudder think of the state of our nation in 2016 if Obama continues to appease the right.

In the meantime, I ask you to push for a financial transactions tax on hedge fund and other risky, speculative trading, a windfall profits tax on corporations like Exxon-Mobil and General Electric which failed to pay any corporate income tax in previous years and a one-year foreclosure moratorium until the failed Home Affordable Mortgage Program can be reformed. The revenue from the taxes should go for preserving local and state public sector jobs and to repair our crumbling infrastructure.

I would also ask you to courageously support our troops by voting against appropriations for the disastrous and unwinnable Afghanistan War. Voting for money to keep our troops in harm's way is the equivalent of funding flame retardant clothing for people in a burning house rather than getting them out of the house. It is morally and financially bankrupting us.

If you were to articulate that to voters they would understand as well as explaining that for every civilian we kill in Afghanistan – as well as the illegal, secret wars being waged without our consent in Pakistan and Yemen – we create 10 more enemies. The blowback inevitably leads to terrorism like 9/11 and homegrown terrorism like the Fort Hood massacre and the attempted Times Square bombing.

I also ask that you push for new climate change laws and defend abortion laws and Planned Parenthood which is being defamed by Republican anti-abortion zealots. And please continue to defend Medicare and Social Security from the hypocritical deficit hawks who have no problem increasing the deficit with tax cuts for the superrich.

Being unemployed, I have a lot of time on my hands. If I can be of any help to you and your staff in pushing for the initiatives I described, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Evan Goodenow