by on 07.22.2009
U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner will be participating in President Barack Obama's town hall meeting on health care reform in Shaker Heights on Thursday. Brunner has been waging a month-long effort to urge congressional members on both sides of the aisle to stay focused, cooperate and pass health care reform legislation that includes a public option as soon as possible. Today she continued her campaign in the Huffington Post, where her blog on the issue is being featured.
"President Obama pragmatically recognizes that people should have a choice of a public option or private insurance for health care. There are 50 million people without any health insurance, many of whom are ready to accept and embrace a public option for health insurance. Health care is a basic human right. Giving them a choice and making the federal government directly accountable for that choice is what the public option means," Brunner said.
House and Senate Democrats have been working with the President to pass health care reform by August. Those waging war against reform have turned the attack on President Obama, even going so far as calling it his "Waterloo." They have used public advertising and private lobbying at near unprecedented levels to stall the legislation's passage.
Brunner urged everyday Americans to get involved. "This is a time for Americans from all walks of life to come together and insist that change happen now," said Brunner.
Source: Read more
by on 07.21.2009
The campaign that hasn't taken orders is apparently effective at delivering them. Team Brunner announced on Monday that they've formed a grassroots network to help deliver Ohio for their candidate in the May 2010 Primary. The "Brunner Brigade (click to sign up)" is a grassroots network of county and precinct leaders across the state charged with mobilizing support right where they live.
To date, Team Brunner announces they've secured county captains in 50 of the state's 88 counties. That's an impressive start. I had a similar organizing responsibility on the 2004 U.S. Senate campaign and don't think I ever got above 50. Sure, it's easy to land organizers in the big cities and Democratic strongholds but when you start trying to tap into the organizers in Clermont, Darke, and Auglaize Counties, the job becomes even tougher.
I realize with today's organizing tools and internet access vastly improved from the dark ages of 2004, it's easier to identify and recruit help, but the Brunner camp seems to be in mid-season form already. I'm anxious to see what they do with the network they are building. They've said from the beginning they'd be a different campaign focused on the long term, not the quarterly term. So far, with the polls in a dead heat, it's hard to say it can't happen that way.
Source: Ohio Daily (blog)
by on 07.20.2009
Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner today called on Lt. Governor Lee Fisher to explain why he left the critical post as Director of the Ohio Department of Development in the midst of Ohio’s most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In a March 16, 2009, weblog entry at Buckeye State Blog, Fisher wrote: “I’ve looked into the faces of Ohioans whose dreams have been shattered. Much of what they counted on in life has been torn from their grasp. They don’t want sympathy, and they don’t want promises. They just want to know that their elected officials are working hard for solutions. And they want the government they’ve supported with their tax dollars to give them the tools to get back on their feet through their own hard work and initiative.
“At a time when Governor Strickland can use the help of every elected official in this state, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, who should be his closest ally, has abandoned him at this critical juncture,’’ Brunner said. The state’s unemployment rate is 11.1 percent, according to June calculations from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, up from 10.8 percent in May. This is the first time in nearly 26 years that the rate has exceeded 11 percent. The number of unemployed workers in June totaled 662,000, up from 647,000 in May. Ohio’s unemployment rate far exceeds the national rate of 9.5% for June, and represents a huge increase over the past year. Ohio’s unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in December 2008, while the national rate was a reported 7.2 percent.
Ohio still lacks a permanent development director and has seen one interim director come and go amid tax troubles and another interim director brought on at a steeply reduced salary. . . .
Brunner pointed out, “More than four months ago, Lee Fisher gave up his responsibilities running a job stimulus agency with a billion dollar budget and over 450 staff members while the Ohio jobless rate has hit levels not seen in decades. Instead of trying to gin up dim hopes that he can be ‘firm’ with GM leaders to change their minds, he could be rolling up his sleeves, calling in the building trades for factory retooling and preparing the plant’s workers for training and new types of jobs with the help of the agency he abandoned.” In addition to giving him more time to campaign, Fisher’s decision to jump ship gives him more freedom to seek campaign dollars for a U.S. Senate race from individuals connected to organizations eligible for state development and stimulus dollars that he could not have otherwise pursued.
Source: Read more
by on 07.20.2009
NOW PAC is pleased to endorse Jennifer Brunner for the U.S. Senate. Brunner is a staunch supporter of women's rights and will be a leader in the Senate. Brunner's experience includes owning a small business, serving as a judge and currently, and currently working as Ohio's Secretary of State.
. . . [I]n 2000, Brunner defeated a governor's appointee in a largely conservative county for an unexpired term on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. After her 2002 reelection, Judge Brunner created and managed a drug court to reduce crime and save taxpayer dollars. In 2006, in the wake of Ohio's troubled 2004 election process, Jennifer was elected Secretary of State, pledging elections that were free, fair, open and honest.
Brunner supports a woman's right to choose and to make her own health care decisions and believes right to safe, legal abortion must be protected. Her solid support of Marriage Equality as a matter of civil rights includes marriage, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. In the Senate, she will continue to push for "single payer" (government insured) health care and if not already passed, she will support the "Employee Free Choice Act".
Source: NOWPACS.org
by on 07.19.2009
The Renegade
Of the four major candidates for the U.S. Senate, only Jennifer Brunner can stake a genetic claim to the seat.
After all, her family tree includes a link to Sen. Marcus Hanna, a Republican from Ohio who served from 1897 until his death in 1904.
The title, however, appears the only link the two would share, presuming Brunner is elected. Hanna was, according to Ohio History Central, one of the most powerful Republicans in Ohio. A man who helped usher William McKinley to the presidency in part by warning businesses that Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan opposed business.
It’s a bit of a stretch from Brunner’s politics, which tend to lean more toward the left.
That Republican predisposition ran through Brunner’s family tree. “When I was growing up my mom was Republican, my dad was more independent,” she said.
Family influence would seem to push young Jennifer Junk of South Charleston toward sharing her parents’ philosophy. Then her father took her to a poor neighborhood in Columbus and it changed her point of view forever.
“He wanted to show me how people’s values were mixed up,” she said. “How they had dilapidated houses and nice cars and nice TVs,” she said. “But I looked around and said, ‘someone needs to do something there.’”
Years later, she’d go to law school and ended up being certified to teach a course on poverty.
Now, with endorsements and cash streaming in for her Democratic competitor, Brunner is showing the same streak of independence as her father, staying in the race even though she says congressmen and political insiders have urged her to drop out.
Despite the political rebellious streak, family was big for Brunner. After moving to Columbus during the middle of her childhood, the family drove to South Charleston for Sunday dinner. Later, Brunner went to law school at night, and had her first baby four weeks before finals.
It’s not what you’d expect from a woman whose bloodline includes Degory Priest, an original signer of the Mayflower Compact and pilgrim to land at Plymouth Rock.
Or maybe it is.
“I really value family,” she said, “and I can relate to a lot of people from all kinds of backgrounds.”
Source: Dayton Daily News
by on 07.17.2009
By Howard Wilkinson.
This spring, when it became apparent that two high-profile Ohio Democrats - Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner - would run for the open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, Barbara Gould of Indian Hill was among legions of Ohio Democrats having pangs of angst over which one to support.
It
mattered considerably more in the case of Gould, because she is in the
top tier of Democratic fundraisers in the Ohio. She raised boatloads of
money for Barack Obama last year; and, in 2006, she did the same for the tandem of Ted Strickland and Fisher. She helped Brunner, too, in her 2006 fundraising for the secretary of state's race.
After
months of steering clear of both Democratic Senate candidates, Gould
recently decided she would join the Brunner camp. Not the result
Strickland, who put Gould, a longtime arts patron, on the Ohio Arts
Council, would have hoped for. But Gould said she decided that Brunner
would be the better candidate and got on board.
by on 07.15.2009
Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner
today announced that she has raised more than $435,000 thus far for her U.S.
Senate campaign, including over $228,000 raised in the second quarter of this
year. That figure reflects an increase from the previous quarter for the
Brunner campaign.
Brunner also announced that she has just added some big-name fundraisers to her Finance Committee, including Barbara Gould, Lana Moresky and Christopher Celeste. Taken together, the three augur for a strong fundraising quarter for the upcoming third quarter.
Source: Read more
by on 07.10.2009
[The overabundance of Lee Fisher stickers and absence of Brunner stickers at the annual Democratic state dinner was attributed Brunner's statement that it was inappropriate to campaign at the dinner. Brunner responded "sharply" on her website to "rumblings" about her campaign:]
"Ever since I decided to give up the security of what is widely regarded as a "safe" re-election for Secretary of State and instead run for the U.S. Senate, the political insiders in Columbus and Washington began actively discouraging my candidacy. "She can’t raise the money," said many. "You shouldn’t run for the Senate if the Governor supports Lieutenant Governor Fisher," warned some Washington insiders in January. "You need to take one for the team, even though I don’t think the Lt. Gov. can win in the general election," one Congressman cautioned. "I think you have the political skills to win this election, but you need the money,” said a political mentor...
"I am in this race to stay."
For the second time today, I'll say it: Snap when you say that girl. Despite expected disparities in fundraising (word of mouth, no actual source, but I think I read it somewhere) in the previous quarter of FEC reports, polls are showing a dead heat in a Fisher-Brunner matchup.
Source: Queer Cincinnati (blog)
by on 07.09.2009
Brunner, speaking with reporters after an event this morning to launch her office's "Better Lives, Better Ohio" initiative, said her fundraising totals from the quarter ended June 30 still are being compiled but will be more than the $207,000 she reported in the first quarter.
That won't match the $900,000 Fisher reportedly will say he raised during the quarter, but Brunner insisted it will show that her fundraising is competitive.
"I anticipate that it will not rise to the level of what he raises, but I also anticipate he won’t raise to the level of what he raised last time (about $1 million)," Brunner said. "So I will have done better, he will have done worse, and as I said before, I raise money gradually, steadily, and the data will prove that.” . . .
Source: The Daily Briefing (Columbus Dispatch politics blog)
by on 07.09.2009
U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner today called
on her opponent, Lee Fisher, to do more than talk about getting support from
women voters. “Fisher should fight for equal pay for women, starting with the woman
who has taken his place as director of the Ohio Department of Development,”
Brunner said.
Earlier this year, Fisher left his post as director of the development department
at a salary of $142,500 so he could campaign for the Senate. The Department of
Development is responsible for the creation, retention and expansion of jobs in
Ohio.
When Fisher resigned, Mark Barbash was made interim director at an annual
salary of $128,356. After tax and home foreclosure problems plagued Barbash, he
was replaced by a second interim director, Lisa Patt-McDaniel, at a salary of
$88,379. Her salary remains unchanged even though Barbash returned to the department
June 29 to a position subordinate to Patt-McDaniel at a salary that exceeds
hers.
Source: Read more
by on 07.09.2009
By Jill Miller Zimon
. . . Since February, more and more situations have transpired around the country, in other states and on the national political landscape that bolster a candidate like [Jennifer Brunner]: experienced yet not a truly all-political all-the-time career; has wins to show for her efforts and a history in serving the voters; has been recognized multiple times for taking on the SOS office in 2007; and last but not least - gender. There's just no escaping that. To wit, as many may recall, Ohio was ground-zero for the groundswell of support for Hillary Clinton when she did not become the nominee and voters organized to confront perceived wrongs done by the political parties to women candidates. That simply can't be ignored in a state-wide race when a primary candidate is a woman. You don't have to like it, support it or do anything else with it - but it's in there even if no one were to ever mention it. You can also write and say, "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!" but you know what? That just is not the defining factor, 10 months from the primary date itself. Not in Ohio, not in 2010, not between these two Democratic candidates.
Source: Writes Like She Talks (blog)
by on 07.08.2009
By Anthony Fossaceca.
This Jennifer Brunner chick is starting to become a problem. A fly in the ointment. A real pain in the ass.
Don't get me wrong. She's classy, smart and a real go-getter, but she apparently doesn't like to read. Or doesn't know how. You see, for months political writers in Ohio and Washington have been writing the same thing: "...if fundraising doesn't pick up, Brunner will be pressured to step aside to clear the way for Lee Fisher..."
Brunner apparently hasn't received the memo that this isn't the way things work around here. . . .
Yesterday, the Brunner campaign decided to reassert their position that Ohio's Secretary of State is in this race and not getting out. Ever. Not later, not after breakfast, never. Ever. And this is where the Fisher campaign starts losing its collective mind.
Source: Ohio Daily (blog)
by on 07.08.2009
By Jack Palmer.
Jennifer Brunner hopes to break up the "boys club" by becoming the first female U.S. senator in Ohio history. "I am running for the senate because I love my state and the people in my state," Brunner said during a stop in Defiance on Monday. "We've been better and we can be back. We have the ingenuity and work ethic to make it happen."
"Campaigns are fun and I actually like to campaign," said Brunner. "As I travel around the state I enjoy meeting people, seeing their families and hearing their points of view." Brunner served as keynote speaker at the Defiance County Democratic Party's picnic at the UAW Hall. She received two standing ovations from the audience, which included Democratic leaders in area counties.
She called herself a "progressive," noting that progressive does not necessarily mean liberal. "Progressive means thinking about the future," she said. "It's someone who believes we can have good government, reflect change and make tough decisions."
Source: Defiance Crescent News
by on 07.07.2009
By Jessica Wehrmann.
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who faces Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in the Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wants the world to know she has no plans to get out of the race.
In a blog post on her website, Brunner writes that she has been frequently prodded to give up her race for the U.S. Senate and instead run for re-election for Secretary of State.
One of the frequent topics is her fundraising - she has lagged far behind Fisher and further behind former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, R-Terrace Park. Portman has raised more than $1.5 million in the fundraising quarter that ended June 30. Neither Fisher nor Brunner has released their most recent numbers.
But she said she’s in it to stay.
“Public service for me has never been about the money. I know I must raise it. I always have, deliberately, steadily and having enough in the end to get the votes I need to win,” she wrote in a blog post on her site. “Because I grew up here, went to public school and state university here, lived much of this state’s history through my extended family’s stories and heritage, and because I believe in the future of Ohio, I am in this race, and I will not get out.”
Brunner also writes that she “vigorously” opposes “draconian cuts in state or federal funding that deprive the middle class of tools to achievement such as libraries.”
Source: Politics Blog, Dayton Daily News
by on 07.07.2009
Four months into the hotly contested Democratic primary race against Ohio Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher, U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner has issued an update on her campaign’s status, efforts to discourage her candidacy and commitment to remain in the contest.
"Ever since I decided to give up the security of what is widely regarded as a "safe" re-election for Secretary of State and instead run for the U.S. Senate, the political insiders in Columbus and Washington began actively discouraging my candidacy. 'She can’t raise the money,' said many. 'You shouldn’t run for the Senate if the Governor supports Lieutenant Governor Fisher,' warned some Washington insiders in January,” Brunner tells supporters in a new blog post, available at www.jenniferbrunner.com.
Despite pressure from political insiders, Brunner has valiantly withstood the opposition and perpetual scrutiny of her campaign fund-raising efforts. Recent polls place her neck and neck with her primary opponent in the race and she remains convinced that voters will reward her persistence and leadership.
“Leadership is not bound by gender, just as it is not bought with chits and money. Leadership is bought with courage and principle that go hand in hand to move us forward. The struggle of this election is likely to reflect the struggle of everyday Ohioans to do what’s right, to achieve for themselves and their loved ones and to be good citizens in the larger community. As we move ahead in this race, I will do what Democrats do best—see things for what they are, work to bring the best people together to tackle the problems and seize upon what can be done to bring hope to Ohioans for a better day. I am in this race to stay.”
Source: Read more