Brown stands alone as the last Democratic statewide elected official in Ohio. Ohio's Brown an unabashed liberal

The formula was supposed to be something like this for swing-state Democratic senators: Ditch Obama, tack to the center, fight for your political life in 2012.

But Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has tossed the conventional rulebook in the trash. He’s running as a consistent, unapologetic liberal who promotes “Obamacare” and is as pro-union as they come.


And thanks, in part, to a weaker-than-expected opponent, it seems to be Brown’s race to lose.

Brown stands alone as the last Democratic statewide elected official in Ohio. The state’s Republican turn in 2010 set the tone for Brown’s 2012 race, and before his opponent was even named, conservative groups saw the senator as a prime target. The race has become one of the most expensive in the country, and outside groups backing Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who’s running against Brown, are outspending groups backing the senator by around 5 to 1.

“You voted for the stimulus and ‘Obamacare’; you voted for reckless spending,” blared one Crossroads GPS ad directed at Brown. “No more blank checks.”

Brown hasn’t moved an inch in his politics. But the polls have. Though the two were tied in early August, recent polling showed Brown 7 percentage points to 9 percentage points ahead of Mandel.

“Voters look for authenticity. I think they look askance at someone who changes their opinions and positions at election time,” Brown said in an interview. “You stand for something, and you stay with it. I think voters will reward that. I don’t think of this as a strategy; I think this is who I am, and this is why I run for office.”

Strategy or not, senators like Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have moved noticeably to the political middle since their elections in 2006. But unlike Missouri or Montana, Ohio’s swing-state status gives Brown more leeway to tout his record. His support for things like the auto bailout, which remains popular in the state, give Brown an edge among Ohio’s blue-collar class.

His support for “Obamacare” could end up being a key split between Brown and the electorate. Ohio voters rejected the Affordable Care Act when they passed the Health Care Freedom amendment last November, a mostly symbolic rebuke of the law.

When Brown ousted Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in 2006, a year that was terrible for Republicans around the country, he ran on a very similar socially liberal, populist economic message. Then a congressman, Brown was initially viewed by some as “too liberal” to win statewide election. But he was able to connect with white working-class voters and beat DeWine by wide margins among union households and the middle- and lower-income families.

Instead of shifting, Brown is betting that formula will work for him again.

“Fundamentally, the voters don’t see left to right, liberal or conservative, but they want to know if you are on their side,” he said. “When it comes to the auto rescue, when it comes to China currency manipulation, when it comes to a health care plan, people understand I am on their side.”

The Mandel campaign says it is working overtime to convince voters otherwise.

“A lot of our internal polling shows the race is still within the margin of error,” said Mandel spokeswoman Nicole Sizemore. “The biggest challenge for Josh is trying to catch up to the name recognition of a politician who has been in Washington for two decades. [Mandel] is out there every day, and voters are getting to know who he is and what he stands for. We feel good about where we are.”

Brown’s Ohio supporters say the politician has been able to “transcend” his liberal record and often liken him to longtime Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum.

He “was arguably one of the most liberal members of Congress, but he figured out a way to transcend that into populism,” said Dale Butland, a Democratic consultant in the state. “Sherrod has done the same thing, and that still sells in Ohio. He stands up for the little guy, and that really comes across to voters.”

President Barack Obama is up in the three latest Ohio polls, and Brown’s opponent has suffered a series of missteps. On the campaign trail, Mandel has refused to answer questions about basic policy positions, like whether he would have supported the auto bailout. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article detailed how Mandel hired inexperienced staff to help run Ohio’s Treasury Department. Still, the Ohio Republican Party says the state of play on the ground tells a different story than the polling shows.

“We are the center of the political universe come election time,” said Ohio state GOP Communications Director Matthew Henderson. “Everything on the ground tells us this race is still neck and neck.”

Henderson pointed to Gov. Mitt Romney’s recent bus tour through Ohio where “thousands of people showed up for rallies” as proof positive liberalism isn’t the ticket to winning the Senate race.

“Sen. Brown is in a lot of trouble,” Henderson said. “He’s rated one of the most liberal members in the entire Congress, and that’s bad news in a state where voters are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.”

Even if Brown doesn’t believe that voters see him as a liberal per se, Mandel’s supporters say the candidate has a good shot if he can make the race a referendum on the president’s big initiatives, like health care and the stimulus, that Brown supported.

“Ohio is a common-sense conservative state. Obama won the state, but so did George [W.] Bush. Twice,” said Sen. Rob Portman, Brown’s Republican counterpart in the Senate. “I think people are fiscally conservative, and Josh has got a terrific argument that it’s hard to say that this president, who Sherrod Brown supports so strongly, has been good for our state or good for our economy.”

Portman called Mandel “the hardest-working person in politics” who has “a great shot” at winning.

“The polls are all over the place,” Portman said. “[Mandel] has the right arguments and the right ammunition.”

Still, Mandel’s troubled candidacy and tough headlines have given Brown ammunition to hit hard right back.

“Josh Mandel has proven on the campaign trail [to be] a weak candidate with very little substance,” said David Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron. “If Republicans had a stronger candidate, I don’t know if you’d see Brown polling as well as he has. If Rob Portman was running in 2012 rather than 2010, it’d be different. “

Cohen believes Brown has some crossover appeal.

“Consistency is something Ohioans very much respect,” Cohen said. “Even if they disagree with him, they like the fact that Brown is very upfront on where he stands. He never shies away from a question.”