Sherrod Brown on the 2006 election

Jonathan Singer at Basie! does a great job on another well-done interview with a politican. Props to him on getting the truth out as to why Congressman Sherrod Brown is running for the Senate. Here is a short excerpt but go to Basie! for the full thing as well as an mp3 of the interview (15.5 mb):

Jonathan Singer: Let’s look at the primary, just briefly. This is the place where the blogosphere is very impassioned on one side or the other. Here’s the difficult question: Why did it take so long to make the decision to jump in the race?

Sherrod Brown: I was not working on any politician’s timetable when I made the decision to run. The first six months of the year, I devoted my entire professional life to the defeat of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. We lost by one vote – two votes, technically, one vote in reality (if one vote had switched it would have been defeated). It passed in the middle of the night only after the President cut all kinds of deals and made all kinds of promises to members, all kinds of pork, whatever they did.

Then during the next couple of months, I told Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer I could not say yes on their timetable. I needed more time. I had some family issues, which I’m not going to discuss, with my daughters and my wife, and just where we were in our personal lives at that time. And I was not able to make that decision, and told Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer I couldn’t by their timetable in August. If that meant they needed an answer, then the answer was no at that time.

By October, my one daughter had gotten married, my other two daughters were either back in school or back in work, and my wife’s work situation was such that we could go forward and make this race. And I plan to win.

I'm supporting Sherrod Brown and I will support the nominee whether it's him or Paul Hackett.