Sherrod Brown: “I grew up in Mansfield, OH, a small, blue- collar city in the middle of America, a town of famous names--junior highs…”

“I grew up in Mansfield, OH, a small, blue- collar city in the middle of America, a town of famous names--junior highs named after U.S. Secretary of State John Sherman and the legendary Johnny Appleseed; factories called Westinghouse and Tappan Stove and Fisher Body. Like many of our country's greatest cities and our Nation's most comfortable small towns, Mansfield has a Park Avenue and a Main Street, a Central Park and a town square, a Carnegie Library and a corner drugstore. In those days, people who worked hard, who paid their taxes, who played by the rules just about always had something to show for it. Almost everyone--virtually almost everyone--in my hometown believed that their children would enjoy a better life than they did. The more productive they were--insurance salesmen and factory worker, clerk and farmer--the better off they would be. The harder they worked, the more opportunity for their children. The middle class and all that it meant was much closer to them and for them than a distant aspiration. One-third of this body, 32 of my colleagues, came off the campaign trail victorious last November. Ten of us joined the Senate earlier this month. We are here for a reason. We are here because for too long Government betrayed the middle class. In recent years, Ohioans have watched the drug companies write the Medicare law, the oil industry dictate our Nation's energy policy, the insurance companies shape our health care.”