On a recent episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," former 10-term Ohio Democratic congressman Tim Ryan, who had recently lost a Senate race to best-selling author, financial executive and Trump acolyte J. D. Vance, expounded on what has become the toxicity of the Democratic brand.
To make his point, Ryan related the story of fellow Democrat Jennifer Brunner and her bid to be chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Brunner had been immensely popular, winning her seat on the court in 2020 by a half-million votes. In that year, however, judicial candidates ran with no party label printed on the ballot. After the election, the Republican-controlled state legislature decided not to let that happen again and passed a law requiring party affiliation. Although Brunner’s record was spotless and not at all radical, with the “D” next to her name, she lost in 2022 by a half-million votes. Being a Democrat had cost her 1 million votes.
While it would be easy to dismiss Ryan’s using the “D” next to his name as an excuse for being beaten by a better candidate who ran a better race, Vance was not and did not. In fact, Ryan should have been a dream candidate for Democrats, running in a working-class state that was once a toss-up but now tilted Republican. Born in blue-collar Niles, a depressed steel town, Ryan was a star high school quarterback, went to Bowling Green University, and became the sort of Tip O’Neill Democrat that was once the backbone of the party. He was only 29 years old when he was first elected to Congress.
