Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown says he closed the door on running for the presidency in 2020 but did not seem to shut it completely if tapped by the eventual Democratic nominee to be a running mate.
“I don’t have any idea. I don’t have great interest in that. We’ll see,” Brown told the Washington Examiner Monday in the Capitol, half laughing.
Brown was previously considered to be a serious potential Democratic primary candidate in the race for the White House. Democrats saw him as a candidate who could combine Midwest values, labor support, and a progressive platform.
Some Democrats told the New York Times on Tuesday that Brown should have thrown his hat in the ring for the presidency to provide an alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden. Others thought that Brown decided not to run because of Biden’s entry into the race. But Brown and his wife Connie Schultz disputed that to the New York Times and Brown added he “never thought [Biden] would be the nominee.”
“He didn’t keep us out, that’s for sure,” Schultz said.
Brown told the Washington Examiner Monday night, “I didn’t want to be president. You have to want to be president more than anything in your life for 18 months, and I didn’t.”
Brown, though, did seem to have regrets. In the interview with the New York Times, both he and his wife watched the last Democratic debates together via text messages.
“You can’t help but think, ‘I could have done that better,'” Brown remembered he told his wife from Washington while the Senate was still in session.
“This is the first time I really thought, ‘I wish you were up there,’ ” Schultz told her husband from their home in Cleveland.
“A number of colleagues came up to me and said that ‘I wish you would have been up there,’” Brown responded. The Ohio Democrat says he is “wistful from time to time” when it comes to matters relating to his decision to not enter the race. Although he stepped aside, he still did some campaigning as a non-presidential candidate this past month.
He gave two separate speeches to the bases of his party. One was for the activist progressives in Philadelphia at Netroots Nation and the other was for labor workers in Pittsburgh. Brown also took a trip to the southern border.
There is one potential wrinkle for Brown as a vice presidential candidate. If he were chosen and the ticket won, his Senate replacement would appointed by Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, depleting Democratic ranks in the chamber.
