After deciding not to throw his hat in the already-crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field, Sen. Sherrod Brown said Sunday morning that he thinks he can do more from his position in the Senate.
“You can run three different ways,” Brown (D-Ohio) told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.“ “You can run as Eeyore, where you get up every day, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do this.’ I didn’t want to do that. You can run as the angry candidate. I didn’t want to be that.
“Or you can run as the sort of optimist, joyful candidate — the way I try to do my job in the Senate. I think I can do that better in the Senate and continue to inform this presidential race.”
Brown announced March 7 that he had decided against a 2020 bid, despite many early indicators that he would launch a campaign.
After the announcement, many of Brown’s allies said the decision had nothing to do with the possibility of former Vice President Joe Biden entering the race.
Instead, as Brown said last week, it had to do with the fact that the senator is happy in his current role and had never coveted the idea of running for president, unlike many of his congressional colleagues.
Brown was not the only possible candidate to announce in recent days he or she would join the Democratic field. Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Attorney General Eric Holder also bowed out. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 nominee, also told a TV interviewer she was not interested in trying again.