Received this e-mail today from the great U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D. MA) in support of former Governor Ted Strickland’s (D. OH) campaign:
A couple days ago, former Governor Ted Strickland met with 75 steelworkers in Lorain, Ohio.
Steelworkers are some of the toughest, hardest-working people that you’ll ever meet. But the guys that Ted Strickland met that day were scared. Scared for their jobs, scared for their families, and scared for their future.
One of the steel mills in Lorain closed indefinitely this year. Two hundred workers are being laid off. A plant that employed 1200 workers a year ago now has 75 employees. And if the Senate passes the new TPP trade deal, those workers are terrified that their good, middle-class jobs are never coming back.
Ted Strickland gets it. His father and brother were both Ohio steelworkers, and he understands the fears of hard-working people whose jobs can be sent overseas. He voted against NAFTA in Congress, and he’s strongly opposed to TPP because he’s worried that a trade deal will once again devastate Ohio workers.
Ted Strickland’s opponent, Senator Rob Portman, isn’t a bad guy. But if you want to know whose side he stands on, remember this: Rob Portman served as the US Trade Representative for President George W. Bush –that’s the guy who leads the charge on trade deals. In fact, President Bush thought he did such a good job negotiating trade deals around the world that he gave Portman a promotion –putting him in charge of the Bush Administration’s budget.
On votes that really matter – votes like deals that would ship jobs overseas – Rob Portman sides with Mitch McConnell, the GOP and their corporate buddies. There's a reason that Rob Portman, Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers have already spent up to $11 million attacking Ted Strickland – and it's only January.
Ted Strickland can’t rely on the millionaires and billionaires and giant corporations to fund his campaign. He’s counting on all of us. And we need to be there for Ted Strickland, because the steelworkers in Lorain, the autoworkers in Toledo, and families all across Ohio are counting on Ted.
