I'm Jeff Coryell, editor of the Ohio Daily Blog until just after the 2008 election. Now I'm volunteering my time and donating what I can to support Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in the Democratic primary for the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring incumbent Senator George Voinovich (R-OH). I'm publishing this diary to explain why I'm dedicating myself to this cause, and why I believe that netroots progressives around the country should join me in supporting Jennifer Brunner.

We're seeing in dramatic fashion the consequences of having a Democratic majority in the Senate that is stocked with "moderates" who are overly anxious to kowtow to the GOP and careers pols who are too concerned with their political fortunes to make tough votes in support of progressive positions. I'm backing Jennifer Brunner because she is an unabashed progressive and she's not afraid to put her progressive principles into action. At an event at the City Club of Cleveland today she said flat-out that if she were in Congress today she'd push the Democrats to move ahead unilaterally on health care reform with a strong public option, and that she will never hesitate to do what is right out of concern about her own re-election. This is someone in the mold of our other Senator, Sherrod Brown, for whom Jennifer worked when he was Secretary of State. Imagine how great it would be to have two real progressive leaders in the Senate from the formerly purple state of Ohio, and two who already have a great working relationship at that.

To put it plainly, progressives across the country should support Jennifer Brunner in this critical primary because she is a progressive champion with a record of success in public service, and because she is clearly the best choice to defeat the likely Republican candidate in the general election. Details after the break.

Jennifer Brunner will be the U.S. Senate's Next Progressive Champion. Jennifer Brunner is not running to be just another Democrat, but to be an outspoken leader upon whom progressives can rely for courage, vision, and conscience. "Washington doesn't need another Senator who just shows up to vote," Jennifer wrote when entering the race.  'Ohio deserves a public servant in Washington who will generate ideas, show bold leadership and work with her colleagues to advance solutions."

Jennifer will not only join Sherrod Brown as a progressive leader in the Senate, she will become the first-ever woman Senator from Ohio and will join only 17 women currently in that chamber, advancing the cause of gender equality and the fight for women’s rights. The Women's Campaign Forum and The Feminist Majority have endorsed her, as has the political action committee of NOW, calling her "a staunch supporter of women's rights." Emily's List is providing assistance to her campaign.

Malcolm X said, "A man who stands for nothing, will fall for anything." One of things that Jennifer Brunner frequently says is, "Sometimes you just have to take a stand." She is an outspoken proponent of marriage equality, and suggested it as an alternative to domestic partnership status when she was being vetted for a city council appointment in 1989. This is not something you can say about many candidates, and certainly not about her primary opponent Lee Fisher, who only this summer altered his stance against gay marriage. She has been a consistent opponent of capital punishment, while her primary opponent switched from opposing the death penalty to supporting it when he ran for Ohio Attorney General, a turnabout so drastic that he subsequently worked to reverse the decisions of outgoing Governor Richard Celeste on commuting the sentences of Ohio’s death row inmates.

During this Senate campaign, Jennifer Brunner has taken strong public stands on issues of pressing concern to progressives, while her primary opponent has been largely silent. She has called for repeal of the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, announced
support for ground-breaking state legislation to ban discrimination in the workplace and in housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity, spoken out decisively in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, and has called on the President and Democratic members of Congress to retain a strong public option in federal health care reform. She has called for the re-examination of "free trade" agreements and replacing them where warranted with intelligent trade pacts that prevent foreign predatory practices. She has spoken out against a GM plan to use bailout money to build cars overseas, called for upholding credit card rate caps to prevent issuers from attempting to continue to increase fees and rates until legislation to curb them becomes effective early next year, and endorsed federal legislation to reform student loans. She has called for transparency and accountability in federal bailout spending, and she wants to end U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan. For these unflinchingly progressive positions Jennifer Brunner has earned the endorsement of 21st
Century Democrats, and her commitment to fight for working families has earned her important labor endorsements including the 75,000 member-strong United Food and Commercial Workers in Ohio.

Bottom line, Jennifer Brunner has demonstrated intelligence, foresight, decency, and a commitment to a core set of progressive values. This is what has guided her to take the kind of courageous stances rarely seen in public office, and why she will be a terrific addition to the real progressive leaders among the Democrats now in the Senate.

Record of success. Jennifer Brunner also has a powerful record of accomplishment upon which to run. She was Deputy Director and Legislative Counsel for the Office of the Secretary of State during the administration of Sherrod Brown, working with the Ohio General Assembly to improve fairness, openness and accountability in campaign finance and election law. She started her own law firm with a niche practice in election law and campaign finance, including work as a special prosecutor of election fraud. This prepared her well for elected public service.

In 2000 she defeated a governor's appointee in a largely conservative county for an unexpired term as a county trial court
judge, and won re-election two years later. During her time on the bench her practice of allowing jurors to take notes and ask questions during trials was affirmed and adopted by the state’s highest court for use by other trial courts. One of her major decisions on the court involved exposing what mainstream media later called corrupt practices in 2 billion dollars of state school construction contracts.

She helped organize key members of the criminal justice and treatment communities to establish the county's first adult felony drug court and municipal mental health court, and oversaw the operation of the drug court until she resigned to run for Secretary of State. She said that this experience was what led her to "get" public service. She saw that a progressive champion could empower people in such a way that amazing things could be done that none of the individuals could imagine doing alone. She understands that the collective effort led by someone in public service, who allows all stakeholders a place at the table, listens to their concerns and suggestions, researches best practices, promotes respect among members, and approaches the task with exceptional planning skills for realistic outcomes can effectively help make people's lives better—a core progressive value.

In 2006 Jennifer Brunner was elected Ohio Secretary of State and has achieved impressive results. She improved Ohio's job-creation climate by improving business services (returning outsourced customer service jobs to the office, creating a customer task force, and streamlining online business filings) and creating a web-based life-quality index to attract new and better jobs to Ohio. She reduced the risk of criminal identity theft by preventing public disclosure of private information in online business filings and voter registration records.

Jennifer Brunner's greatest achievement as Secretary of State was to fulfill her campaign promise for free, fair, open, and honest elections in Ohio by working to ensure a smooth presidential election in 2008. This was in sharp contrast the ignominious failures of the 2004 Ohio presidential election under predecessor Bush-state-campaign-co-chair Ken Blackwell. Jennifer's task required extraordinary resolve in the face of a political onslaught by the GOP. She overhauled the operations of the troubled Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland, including obtaining the resignations of all four board members.

As part of her overall effort to restore trust to elections, she spearheaded a massive voting machine study that revealed major flaws in security, reliability, and local election procedures. Working with a bipartisan team of election officials, Jennifer helped strengthen security and local procedures while emphasizing that the priority of election administration should be the interests of voters over administrative efficiency. She required local boards of elections to make paper ballots available as an alternative voting method to voters in the counties still using touch-screen voting machines, all in time for the March 2008 primary election.

As the 2008 general election approached, Jennifer defended Ohioans' voting rights in numerous GOP-initiated lawsuits in state and federal court, eventually winning in the United States Supreme Court to protect voters and their ballots from being targeted for election challenges by partisan operatives. After the election, she convened an Ohio Elections Summit and Conference and through a months-long bipartisan process generated a comprehensive report and legislation that is being considered by the Ohio General Assembly that sets an agenda for the future to cut costs and enhance Ohio elections.

For her dramatic success in improving Ohio’s elections and protecting voters’ rights, Jennifer Brunner was honored in 2008 with the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Award, the nation's most prestigious honor for elected public servants. More recently she was selected unanimously by the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy for the first-ever Stephanie Tubbs Jones Public Service Award, given to the person who best reflects the late congresswoman's commitment to justice and her passion for the equal rights of all people.

Best General Election Candidate.Jennifer Brunner is the better candidate in a general election against likely opponent Rob Portman, a conservative former Congressman and Bush administration official.

Jennifer has signed up thousands of volunteers and supporters by asking one simple question, "Who has the best chance of beating Rob Portman?" Her exemplary experience as Secretary of State has made her a top contender and a favorite among many who seek positive, fresh leadership. In July her campaign formed a grassroots organization called The Brunner Brigade, composed of county and precinct organizers charged with mobilizing support across the state. Already county captains have been named in 74 of Ohio's 88 counties.

Unlike her primary opponent, and unlike a string of recent unsuccessful Democratic statewide candidates, Jennifer Brunner does not come from the Democratic stronghold of northeast Ohio. Jennifer was born in Springfield, Ohio, with family roots in rural southeastern Ohio, and now lives in Columbus. This is a critical value-added factor for a statewide Democratic candidate in Ohio, as demonstrated by the huge success of Gov. Ted Strickland with his roots in rural southeastern Ohio. Jennifer displayed this advantage in her 2006 statewide election by defeating her GOP opponent (a Republican with close ties to Bush—his father was VP Cheney's attorney) in his southwestern base of relatively conservative Hamilton County (Cincinnati and nearby suburbs). In the important and ideologically mixed northwestern part of Ohio, a Quinnipiac poll in May showed Brunner defeating Portman by 21 points while primary opponent Fisher trailed Portman in that region by one point.

Jennifer has demonstrated the ability to appeal to independent voters as well. A recent study of polling in sixteen 2010 Senate and gubernatorial races showed Jennifer leading her likely GOP opponent among independent voters by nine points, the largest lead of any Democratic candidate in any of those races, and better than her primary opponent by eight points. She also led Portman among
voters classified as moderate by 23 points, three points better than her primary opponent.

It is also very much to Jennifer Brunner's advantage in the general election that she is a woman. Women have historically turned out at a higher rate than men in Ohio elections, and in this race will be energized by the fact that Jennifer Brunner will be the first woman to represent Ohio as a U.S. Senator.

A look at past election results confirms that Jennifer Brunner has greater statewide appeal and is likely to run a stronger general election race than her primary opponent. Jennifer has won every election she's been in, two for county judgeships and one for Ohio Secretary of State. Her primary opponent Lee Fisher won state legislative races in the 1980s and a statewide race for Ohio Attorney General in 1990, and more recently he appeared on a winning ticket as a running mate with Gov. Ted Strickland in 2006, but in his only solo statewide win in 1990 he squeaked out a victory by only 1,234 votes (0.04% of the votes cast). He lost his attorney general re-election bid against Republican Betty Montgomery in 1994 and his gubernatorial bid against Republican Governor Bob Taft in 1998, who was later convicted of four ethics-related misdemeanors as a sitting governor, despite outspending both opponents by more than a million dollars in each race. In contrast, Jennifer Brunner won her statewide race for Secretary of State in 2006 by over 500,000 votes (15% of the votes cast) in a four-way race, having raised $1.86 million in a down ticket race.

Accordingly, considering Jennifer Brunner's unwavering progressive positions, her record of achievement in public service, and her bright prospects in the general election netroots progressives across the county should take a stand in her favor in the Ohio primary for the U.S. Senate.

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