Sherrod Brown: “I am here at desk 88, honored to address my family and friends and Ohioans of the Nation. I remember well my first…”

“I am here at desk 88, honored to address my family and friends and Ohioans of the Nation. I remember well my first speech 18 years ago. Illinois Senator Barack Obama was presiding over the Senate. Following parliamentary norms--and perhaps a bit presciently--I addressed him as ``Mr. President.'' A few desks away sat the senior Senator from Massachusetts, whose brother's desk I have now occupied for my entire three terms. Senator Kennedy, the chair of the Labor Committee, spoke after my remarks about his commitment and my commitment to workers. My speech, no surprise to anyone, was about workers and their dignity, raising the minimum wage, creating more opportunity for people who build this country with their brains and with their hands. By some measure, my life began less than 3 miles from here. My dad, a family doctor from Mansfield, OH, and my mother a teacher from Mansfield, GA, met at a soldiers' dance in 1945 at the Mayflower Hotel. My father had returned from serving in the Army in the Middle East; my mother had moved to Washington to assist in the war effort to work at OSS. Their first date a few days later was at the Willard Hotel. When they married the next year, my father moved to Mansfield, OH, then a prosperous industrial city where Ohioans made steel and manufactured cars and tires and appliances for young families returning from World War II.…”