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Sherrod Brown would have some work to do

Shortly after winning re-election to the U.S. Senate from Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown said he may consider running for president in 2020.

Brown could be appealing to some Democrats, for two reasons. One is obvious: He isn’t Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden or anyone else with a national reputation as perhaps-divisive members of the party establishment.

Another appeal, and part of the reason Brown won earlier this month, is his record of opposing trade agreements that hurt manufacturing workers in Ohio.

Brown is part of the establishment, however. The Washington Post ranked likely Democrat candidates for president earlier this month. On a list of 15, Brown was No. 7. He has the earned reputation of being among the most liberal of senators.

Much will happen during the next two years. Some potential candidates for president, both Democrat and Republican, will stumble and drop out of the race.

Ohioans — and the rest of the nation — will be watching to see how Brown develops his campaign. Perhaps he will decide it is not such a bad thing to understand what it takes to be part of the political establishment. Should he seek the presidency, he must be careful though to learn the lessons from the multitude of mistakes his predecessors made on the campaign trail. Doing so will put him ahead of the rest — most of whom seem to stubbornly avoid learning those lessons; but the fight he faces will be no less intense.

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