Foundation

You may have heard that there was an election in Ohio last year. Popular Governor Ted Strickland (D) was defeated in his re-election campaign by John Kasich (R), and Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher (D) was crushed in the Senate race by former Bush advisor Rob Portman (R).

Senator Sherrod Brown (D) has sure noticed. He’s also noticed that gas prices are going up, and up, and up since Barack Obama took office, skyrocketing from under $2/gal to over $3.50/gal, an increase of about 75%.

So what does a Democrat (and Daily Kos darling) who has built a career by crusading against international trade do, when his career is on the line in 2012? Why, become a champion of trade, of course.

Yes, hidden in this piece in The Hill is an admission from Sherrod Brown that one key component of our economic recovery must be trade, nay, globalization in oil:

Another comes from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has urged the State Department to press oil-producing nations to increase their production while the U.S. economy continues to recover from the 2008 financial collapse.

This is pure hypocrisy on Brown’s part. He’ll prescribe trade restrictions all day and all night; Bush’s bilateral trade juggernaut was slowed up only by Democrat stonewalling in the Senate. But as soon as Brown looks at Kasich, looks at Portman, and realizes he’s the odd man out in 2012, he starts screaming for trade.

He’s making a crass flip on the issue simply to save his hide. When the pressure’s on, he caves and admits our way is better. I hope come next year Ohio remembers that Brown has admitted the failure of Democrat mercantilism, and so vote in somebody who will not only support free trade, but also support drilling for our own oil. Brown, in his desperate flailing to get re-elected, wants to increase our dependence on the Middle east and Venezuela, when we have perfectly good oil at home to use as well.