Ohio, with a detour thru Michigan

I’ve been attending some more political events in Ohio so have been quite busy. There’s some indicators of green shoots in the Buckeye State, so let’s start there, with the governor’s race and Dr. Amy Acton.

As I have written here before, I was not thrilled when Acton entered the race because as Ohio’s public health director during Covid I thought she was overly identified with pandemic and all the death, disorder and division attendant to that. However, I was wrong. She’s a great candidate. I’ve now seen her at four different events ranging from events with the Dem base to an event in my home county where half the attendees were either Never Trumpers or moderate Republicans who are fleeing the far Right and she was well received all along the spectrum. This is NOT because she’s a shape- shifting moderate with no real beliefs like Tim Ryan but is instead because she’s a wholly authentic coalition builder. She gets along with and likes people, even people she may disagree with. It’s impressive to watch and is in my view not something that can be implanted by consultants.

We have some pretty good polling for Acton too, so Ohio Democrats are starting to see faint glimmers of hope in this very Trumpy, very far Right state. We had a moment of horror when now- crypto and oil and gas lobbyist Tim Ryan threatened to jump in the race and fuck everything up, but he reconsidered.

On to Sherrod Brown. Sherrod’s opponent, Jon Husted, is from my county, has a very inspiring come-from-nothing story and is as slick a pol as you will find so will be hard to beat. In fact, both Husted and Acton were at one time in foster care as children, so that’s a funny (but great!) coincidence. Glad to see the former foster children heading tickets.

Anyway, Sherrod is running his (usual) great campaign and his polling looks very good. A word for warning though - Sherrod’s polling looked good at this point in 2024 and then it dipped and stayed there.

Sherrod is putting together a group of advisers from each region in the state and I was encouraged to put my name in but at 62 I think it’s time Sherrod got some advice from young up and comers in the Party, so I recommended our new county chair, Heather. Heather is a village councilmember in her small very Trumpy town, smart as shit and a genuine liberal. I think it’s better for Sherrod to get advice from younger women who are still navigating working and child rearing in a country that makes working and child rearing and family life a near-impossible to manage grind.

We’re now turning off 80 and going to Michigan for a check in with Gretchen Whitmer, who is quite obviously running for President in ‘28. She wrote an op ed in the WaPo about tariffs that was reprinted in the Toledo Blade (where I saw it). I confess I’m baffled and a little disappointed by it. It starts with three paragraphs trashing the Trump tariffs then awkwardly transitions to a poorly argued pro tariff position that somewhat contradicts her anti Trump argument. It’s a mess. There IS a coherent pro trade restriction argument in upper midwest/Great Lakes states Democratic circles but this ain’t it. No idea where she’s going with this or why she would put it out just as Trump’s tariff policy crashes and burns.