The Policies Democrats Need to Unite the Party.

AuthorGlastris, Paul

This has happened to me a number of times recently. I'm talking with Democratic operatives about the party's frighteningly inadequate field of presidential contenders when somebody says, "God, I wish Sherrod Brown were running!" Everyone nods wistfully.

The Ohio senator's decision last March not to jump into the fray, after testing the waters extensively, set up probably the biggest what-if in politics right now. Had he chosen differently, it's hard not to think he'd be a, if not the, top contender. His progressive bona fides are as strong as Elizabeth Warren's or Bernie Sanders's--no one in Congress has a more pro-union record on, say, trade. Yet he's made a point of not endorsing positions that fire up the left but scare off most other voters, like Medicare for All and abolishing ICE. With his raspy voice, disheveled hair, and basic human decency, he has as much appeal to the Working Stiff Vote as Joe Biden--but is ten years younger than the former vice president. He's as smart and knowledgeable on policy as Pete Buttegieg, but with a decades-long career in public office stretching from the Ohio legislature to the U.S. Senate. And, sure, he's another white male, but I know women who would vote for him just to get his amazing wife, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz, into the White House.

Whether Brown has the performance skills required to take on Donald Trump, I don't know. I saw him speak recently in Washington and wasn't blown away. Still, he would be the kind of candidate the party desperately needs but doesn't have--a big-tent Democrat both left-liberals and moderates could comfortably unify around.

Another reason to wish he were in the race is that it would bring attention to his policy ideas. In September, he introduced legislation that would allow individuals to get an advance of up to $500 on their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a federal benefit normally paid at tax time to low-income workers. This might sound like a small thing. But it's actually a huge deal because it would be a simple, elegant way to save millions of families from the clutches of the payday-lending industry.

Payday loans are high on the long list of sick practical jokes America plays on the working poor. Such folk typically have little or no savings--they literally live paycheck to paycheck. So when they need quick cash--say, for car repairs or because their income unexpectedly drops (think hourly wage earners who lose days of work because...

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