The Unshakable Senator Sherrod Brown at Lordstown Ohio (pix)
Last edited Fri Nov 2, 2012, 12:45 AM - Edit history (1)
Sherrod Brown came to the UAW local 1112 union hall Tuesday to speak to the autoworkers from the Lordstown Fisher Body plant that builds the new Chevy Cruze. Lordstown is located near Youngstown just North of Warren.
He's being challenged by a breadstick in a necktie named Josh Mandel and over $20million in Karl Rove superPAC ads. Mandel stands just to the right of Todd Akin on reproductive rights and promises to be a good republican soldier if elected. Here the appreciative crowd listens as 17th district Tim Ryan (the good Ryan) warms the crowd for Sherrod with one of his noteworthy 5 minute speeches:
Mr Brown entered from the rear of the hall and was lovingly mobbed by adoring union members as he and his wife, Pulitzer Prize winning Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz, walked up the center aisle. Here he takes the podium after a rousing opening speech by UAW president Bob King, seated to his right in this picture. King was on Big Ed's show tonight. You wouldn't know it for his unassuming stature, but he gives a fireball of a speech:
With Congressman Tim Ryan seated on the left in this photo, Sherrod Brown found his wife off to the side and related a story he likes to tell about how he was at a similar event not long ago when a man in the audience told Connie he hated his voice (Brown talks like he smokes 6 packs of unfiltered Camels a day). Ms Schultz simply replied that she likes his voice. When the man asked what she could possibly like about it, she said she likes how he leans over when she's sleeping and tells her he loves her. This seems to happen often enough because Schultz is so unassuming that she easily blends into a working class crowd:
Though I'm sorely disappointed in this photo, it was the only one I took of the wonderful woman Brown calls the love of his life. I (not so) secretly love her too:
After a spirited speech in which he thanked the autoworkers for their support and outlined a country under the rule of a Mitt Romney administration, Brown stuck around to meet as many people who cared to speak to him and signed autographs. I didn't know he was left handed:
Never one to shun a potential future voter, Sherrod made extra time for a young supporter while the boy's dad watches on:
After I took this pic, Brown looked over at me and jokingly said "Don't publish that". I lied and told him I'd wait until next Wednesday:
Hey Mitt... Come tell the guy wearing this XXL t-shirt that you have a plan to save the auto industry. Talk to him about the advantages of a national Right To Work law. It may be hard to get a hold of him though, because the plant is working all 3 shifts 7 days a week... so he may be at work that day:
These are the cars built at the Lordstown Fisher Body plant from the time it opened in 1965 until it's 25th anniversary in 1990. How many have you owned (or wish you had)? Until the Cruze platform was introduced here, the plant participated in the entire run of the Cavalier and Sunbird models. I worked 30 years during that time at the Packard Electric Division of General Motors (later Delphi Systems):
When the economy crashed and it looked like GM might crumble into extinction in 2008, I began to consider life in my late 50s without a pension check. I knew I'd have drastic changes that didn't promise much. President Obama bucked the demands from Romney and his band of economic terrorists to save the entire American auto industry. Thank you President Obama and Sherrod Brown.
I often point out that Ohio has seen two great senators in my relatively long life, John Glenn and Sherrod Brown.
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Given the competition.
