WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Sherrod Brown spent over a decade writing “Desk 88,” which was released Tuesday.
- Sen. Brown’s third book
- Part history lesson, part advice column
- Brown discusses decision to not run for president
In a book that’s part history lesson, part autobiography, and part advice column for Democrats, the Ohio Democrat writes about eight progressive senators who sat at his desk on the Senate floor before him.
Brown sat down with Spectrum Washington reporter Taylor Popielarz for an exclusive interview about his third book last week. Below, you can watch the full 28-minute interview or read the full transcript.
A lifelong Democrat who seriously considered running to lead it, Brown decided against a presidential campaign in March.
“I just didn’t want to do it in the end,” Brown told Spectrum. “I just didn’t feel like I really had that ambition. But the other was that I thought, over a long period of time, that I could really focus on the ‘Dignity of Work.’”
The ‘Dignity of Work’ is the theme of Brown’s political career and the thread that pulls you through his new book.
In “Desk 88,” Brown takes a deep look into the lives and legacies of eight progressive U.S. senators who sat at Desk 88 on the Senate floor before he did: Hugo Black of Alabama, Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island, Glen Taylor of Idaho, Herbert H. Lehman of New York, Al Gore, Sr. of Tennessee, William Proxmire of Wisconsin, Robert F. Kennedy of New York, and George McGovern of South Dakota.
Brown examines their highs and lows, applauds the moments their progressivism led to victory, and acknowledges their shortcomings.
Following each chapter, Brown provides some reflection on his own 40-year career in politics, discusses what he has learned from this group of eight senators, and offers some guidance for Democrats moving forward.
“The lessons [from the eight senators] are stand up for what you believe and go home and explain it,” Brown told Spectrum. "I live and run and have been mostly successful in a state which is pretty conservative, and I’m the only Democrat on the statewide level, except a couple of judges, and I think that’s because people know where I stand. And I get home a lot.”
Writing about McGovern of South Dakota, Brown says voters saw in him “a man-of-the-people sort of populism, a which-side-are-you-on brand of humanitarianism, a you-and-I-against-the-big-guys kind of progressive politics. It was a philosophy that worked in all times and in all regions of the country…and, dare I say, for me in the industrial Midwest in 2006, 2012 and 2018.”
Asked why more Democrats aren’t subscribing to that political philosophy, Brown said: “I don’t know. That’s a very good question. I mean, to me, politics is always which side are you on? They want people — the voters vote for you if they think you’re on their side…I don’t think voters think through, ‘I’m a progressive, I’m a conservative.’ Some do, but the ones you really need — the ones that tend to go back and forth, they’re not looking for the most moderate or centrist, they’re looking for a candidate that’s going to fight for them and be on their side. I’m a bit befuddled about why more people don’t see politics that way.”
Brown uses “Desk 88” to urge a form of populism that is about, as he says, “taking on the big guys,” instead of what he calls President Trump’s version of turning people against one another.
The book reads like a love letter to progressivism, crediting it with implementing workers’ rights, Medicare, Social Security and more.
“You just look at the broad sweep of history,” Brown told Spectrum. “You see the progress that progressives have made to move this country forward. So many of the institutions that are beloved in this country came because of ideas to make government work on the side of people. And I think you see that the best times in our history is when governments work for people. The less good times have been when government’s been in the pocket of special interests.”
“Desk 88” was released Tuesday, November 5.
You can read the full interview transcript, below (Follow this link to view the full interview)
Taylor Popielarz: Thanks for taking the time, Senator. Your first interview about the book.
Senator Sherrod Brown: Of course.
Popielarz: It was a good read. I finished it yesterday. I think it’s interesting how it’s part history, part autobiography, part kind of advice column for Democrats and for progressives moving forward. There were some parts that stood out to me that I want to ask you about. And the first one was in the middle of the book, it was in your section about Al Gore Sr., you wrote that when he lost his race in 1970, “He had lost touch with citizens of his state, a common illness that afflicts many an elected official. It is in some sense almost inevitable that the more important a senator’s experience and seniority become, the more time he spends in Washington using the experience and skills he has developed, and the committee positions that seniority has provided him.” A little later in the page you said, “Long-serving senators develop a certain maturity about what really matters, presidential ambition tends to fade, there is often greater political security after several electoral victories, and a simple ‘Why am I here?’ attitude begins to take over.” So, kind of a loaded question, but I wanted to ask you why you feel you’re here? And how did writing this book help shape your answer?
Brown: I mean, there are always cross currents. In the case of Senator Gore — Senator Gore, Sr., this is the father of the vice president — was representing Tennessee as it was becoming more and more conservative, more and more Republican. And during the period of voting rights, when the splits became even greater — as African Americans flocked to the Democratic Party and white Tennesseans, white southerners, slowly moved the other way. But it’s a fine line, I mean, as I said in the book, when you have been in office for a period of time, you gain seniority. You end up being chair of the appropriations committee or the agriculture committee or a subcommittee or whatever, and the job does demand more time in Washington. So you’ve got to work that much harder at not losing touch with your state, or your congressional district if you’re a House member, and that’s always the challenge. Plus you’re getting older, you probably don’t like going back and forth as much. But I’ve gone back and forth pretty much every weekend, partly because my wife and my grandkids are in Ohio — most of my grandkids, some are around the country — so you balance that. But it works differently for different people. Most people, once they’re here a couple terms, have pretty safe states to win — and districts — but not always.
Popielarz: And as you’ve been in office, because you’ve been in DC for a long time, you’ve been in politics your entire adult life, I guess, have their been times where you have faced challenges to either stay motivated to stay connected with either your district or your state? And, I guess, when you were researching these eight senators, what lessons did you learn from them in order to keep yourself going?
Brown: The first thing is don’t be afraid to lose. Don’t look over your shoulder as you’re casting votes because if you do, I think your district and your state will sense a bit of inauthenticity. I love it when political consultants say to politicians, to candidates, ‘You’ve got to be authentic.’ Well, if they’ve got to tell you be authentic, you’ve kind of already lost, right? But the lessons are stand up for what you believe and go home and explain it. I live and run and have been mostly successful in a state which is pretty conservative, and I’m the only Democrat on the statewide level, except a couple of judges, and I think that’s because people know where I stand. And I get home a lot. One of the best parts of this job is what I did today. Earlier in the day, I met with a bunch of advocates for health care — at a hospital and social workers and all — and what Trump is trying to do to the Affordable Care Act — undermine it. What is that going to mean to their patients and their communities? And I learn things from these roundtables. I’ll sit with six, eight, ten, 15 people for an hour, hour and a half, and ask them questions. And you become a better legislator if you do that. It’s also good politics, obviously.
Popielarz: There was another part a little earlier in the book, when you were talking about Herbert Lehman, and you wrote about attending a dinner at Senator Kennedy’s Georgetown home back in [2006]. And you were sitting there, members of the HELP Committee — Barack Obama’s there, Hillary Clinton’s there, Bernie Sanders’ there. And you kind of started asking, ‘What am I doing here?’ But you realized, just, all the presidential aspirations that these people either had or were going to have. And I was reading that, thinking back to the Dignity of Work listening tour, and thinking why do you think you didn’t have those same aspirations? Because you clearly decided not to jump into the race.
Brown: Yeah, I remember it was actually right after the 2006 election — I’d just been put on Kennedy’s committee. And I was sitting at the table and there was Chris Dodd, who was about to run for president, Ted Kennedy who had run before, Tom Harkin who had run before, two relatively new senators — Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — that were just about to launch a campaign against each other (this was December 2006 and they both ran in ’08). And then sitting next to me was another freshman who had just been elected, who I never thought would run for president, named Bernie Sanders. But I think you’ve got to — there’s a quote that I find kind of interesting. A senator, many years ago, once said the only cure in the U.S. Senate for the presidential virus is embalming fluid. Once you get that virus, you get that urge to run for president and you actually get serious about doing it, you never get over it, kind of. And I just didn’t want to be that. I just didn’t have the ambition that a lot of my colleagues obviously have. I don’t look down on them or criticize them for that ambition, but you’ve got to want to be president more than anything to put yourself, your family, your friends, your office, your whatever through something like that for 18 months, and a number of my colleagues have been planning to do it for years.
Popielarz: You had written later on that Democrats need to step outside of their comfort zone, especially when trying to appeal to voters that they don’t already have. And you said, "Connie and I thought about how we could inform the Democratic narrative and influence the national debate” after your win last year. Was there a moment either during the listening tour, or even beforehand, where it kind of clicked with you that in order to influence the debate, I shouldn’t step into the race for president? Because that sounds like a great venue to do so.
Brown: Well, I think you — most people would argue you influence a debate more by being in it and being in the race. I thought that I could have a more — understanding that nobody’s chances of winning two years ahead of time are better than about 10 percent, because you’ve got to get through the primary, you’ve got to win the general, and so I just thought in a longer sustained — one, I just didn’t want to do it in the end. I just didn’t feel like I really had that ambition. But the other was that I thought, over a long period of time, that I could really focus on the Dignity of Work. I just spoke at a rally across from the Department of Labor. This Department of Labor has, frankly, far too — the new secretary of labor is a corporate lawyer that’s worked against employees, representing corporations in workplace illnesses and workplace accidents, represented corporations against unions. And so, I just think this: the Dignity of Work is so important that whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, or caring for aging parents or raising children, or whether you work for tips, we don’t celebrate work enough in this country. And if you love your country, you fight for the people that make it work, and frankly, not enough elected officials do that. And with this president you see a real betrayal of workers on pretty much everything he’s done — has undermined workers’ wages, workers’ benefits, workers’ ability to join a union, all those things.
Popielarz: I want to dive a bit more into your political philosophy, how you crafted it, especially based off of these eight senators that you wrote about, and just your message for other Democrats as they’re trying to win and grow and become popular. There was a section toward the end of the book, when you were writing about George McGovern, where you said, “The voters saw [in McGovern] a man-of-the-people sort of populism, a which-side-are-you-on brand of humanitarianism, a you-and-I-against-the-big-guys kind of progressive politics. It was a philosophy that worked in all times and in all regions of the country: for Hugo Black in the 1920s and 1930s in the South; for George McGovern in the 1960s and 1970s in the Great Plains states; and, dare I say, for me in the industrial Midwest in 2006, 2012 and 2018.” Why aren’t more Democrats subscribing to that political philosophy right now?
Brown: I don’t know. That’s a very good question. I mean, to me, politics is always which side are you on? They want people — the voters vote for you if they think you’re on their side. I don’t think voters see this kind of left or right, liberal-conservative. I mean, people call me progressive or liberal, I don’t really care. I think that it is whose side are you on. And I think most of my colleagues kind of buy into the liberal/conservative “you’ve got to move to the middle” because there’s a bunch of voters on the left and a bunch of voters on the right and then the ones in the middle — if you’re a Democrat, you get the ones on the left and then you’ve got to move to the middle. I mean, that whole construct, I just don’t buy it. I don’t think voters think through, “I’m a progressive, I’m a conservative.” Some do, but the ones you really need — the ones that tend to go back and forth, they’re not looking for the most moderate or centrist, they’re looking for a candidate that’s going to fight for them and be on their side. I’m a bit befuddled about why more people don’t see politics that way, but you know, the people in the Senate, they’ve all gotten there in their own way and who am I to say that you and your state don’t do it the right way because I know better in the end?
Popielarz: You’ve obviously won a bunch of elections in Ohio. I was intrigued in the last section of the book, about “Further Thoughts,” where you wrote about your 2018 race and you highlighted things that I think the typical politician wouldn’t want to highlight, but you said, "we won only sixteen of Ohio’s eighty-eight counties. These included all of the state’s metropolitan areas,” “smaller counties with large state universities” and “all the counties that border Ohio’s Great Lake. That’s it. We lost medium-sized industrial city after medium-sized industrial city, small town after small town, rural community after rural community. Pretty much all of them.” And I’m wondering how does a Democrat, in your mind, convince people who are from those types of places to support them if you can’t after your career?
Brown: Well, I support them, they just don’t support me [laughs].
Popielarz: But how does a Democrat —
Brown: It’s more — I mean, I think I support them. We’re seeing this nationally. We’re seeing Democrats — the Democratic Party has been more and more attractive to people with college educations, especially women, I mean especially people of color, start with that. Especially women with college educations are just more progressive, liberal than they used to be. And they tend to flock to this — they go to college, they tend to flock to the cities and the big metropolitan areas. The Republican Party’s growth has been more small town, more small city, more people less educated. And that kind of breaks my heart because, to me, I joined the Democratic Party when it was the party of workers and the party of moderate and low income people — it still is, in many ways, but working class white voters don’t see the Democratic Party as their friend. But educated people don’t see the Republican Party as their friend. It’s a bit upside down from what it used to be, but Democrats have to go to those communities. I mean, you don’t have to win everywhere to win. You have to win some places and lose by less, and I think I’ve done that in those communities, but it still — it does bother me that we’ve not been able to connect well as a party with people in small cities in Ohio — in Mansfield, in Springfield, in Zanesville, in Portsmouth, in Chillicothe, in Lima and all those communities that we ought to do better than. And I mentioned earlier in the interview that I was at a hospital today talking to people about the Affordable Care Act and one of the things that came up is — not the hospital where I was — but many hospitals in rural America will close if the president gets his way and undermines the Affordable Care Act. And those are his voters mostly, in these small towns, in these rural hospitals serving these people in small towns, so we’ve got to just get that message better that Republicans have not been your friends in these small communities. These communities have higher levels — in Ohio, Republicans have run the state for most of the last 20 years, and smaller communities have higher levels of opioid addiction, have higher unemployment rates, lower wages, more trouble funding their schools, and that’s with a Republican government. And we don’t explain that well enough, frankly, to the voters, that why should you choose them when they’ve really undercut what your values are and what you want your life experiences to be?
Popielarz: And with that idea of messaging, this line really caught my attention where you said, “Rural and small-town voters don’t think either party is going to do anything for them, but they vote Republican because they think Democrats will do something to them: take their guns, or raise their taxes, or enact an environmental law that will put them out of work.” So, with that idea, you acknowledge that there’s a messaging problem. Do you have advice, especially as you were researching these eight senators who were living in very different times, but in their own right tried to get through, is there advice for Democrats of today of how to kind of course correct that?
Brown: Well I think you need a strong populist economic message. That’s exactly a place where moving to the center gets you nothing — and shouldn’t get you anything. You’ve got to come up with some bold ideas. You grow up in Zanesville or Mansfield, you’re raising children there, you want them to be able to go to Zane State Community College or go to OU. And Democrats fight for Pell Grants and fight for higher education and fight for giving people that chance. You want your daughter to be able to stay on your health insurance plan if she’s 24 years old and has a job that doesn’t pay health insurance or if she’s in school. We’ve done that, we fight for that, we’ve got to explain that better to them. It means turning up the volume on issues that matter to them. You know, I’m pro-choice. If they’re virulently anti-choice, they’ll never vote for me. I’ve supported marriage equality for 20 years. If they are, frankly, bigoted about gay rights, they’ll never vote for me. I get that. I’ve had an ‘F’ from the NRA my whole career. So all of those things hurt me in rural America, rural Ohio, but it doesn’t mean I can’t get 40 or 45 percent in a lot of these communities if I have a strong, compelling message about opportunity, message about getting ahead, message about giving your kids a chance.”
Popielarz: You talk about populism a lot. I’ve heard you talk about it on the trail a lot. There were two lines that I thought kind of contradicted each other and I want to ask you about them. It was on page 318, you wrote that, “Real populism is not these people versus those people, but all people.” But then six pages before that, you were writing about the differences between Democrats and Republicans, and you said, “As America prepares for another presidential election, we must show who we are and show who they are.” So how can those two messages coexist without contradicting themselves?
Brown: Well, the Donald Trump populism is about race, it’s about class, it’s about turning people against one another and fundamentally keeping people down. It’s about playing to race, it’s about playing to prejudice. Populism, to me, is taking on the big guys. It’s not turning the white worker against the black worker. It’s not turning a moderate income person against another moderate income person. It’s not about turning people against a religion. It’s about taking on the big guys and fighting for the broad slice of America that doesn’t have the advantages that the top one or two or five or ten percent do. And that’s really the basis of my politics and the way I approach government.
Popielarz: What would you say, because these eight senators that you write about were so different and were living in such different times, was there a common theme or a common lesson — kind of a one-liner or something — that sticks in your mind after diving into their lives so much that sticks with you now that you think is a good lesson?
Brown: No, because they’re — it would be this — but not so much about them, as about the last hundred years. It’s really — Emerson wrote that history’s a battle between the conservators and innovators. The conservators are modern day conservatives, innovators are modern day progressives. And conservators, there aren’t nearly as many of them because they’re — well, back up. The conservators are those who want to hold onto their wealth and privilege. They’re on top, they’re doing well, many of them have inherited money or at least they’ve gotten a lot of advantages because of how they’ve grown up. They want to hold onto their wealth and privilege. The innovators want to move the country ahead. The conservators, while they are smaller in number than the progressives, they have much more power, they have more money, they have more lobbyists, they have more radio stations and TV stations and newspapers, like the Wall Street Journal. And so, they play to fear. The conservators have always played to fear. Fear of other, fear of the McCarthy days of communism, fear of somebody who looks different, fear of Muslims, fear of people because of race. And you play to fear — you end up winning elections too often, frankly, in my view. But that’s what I saw — when I saw some of these eight senators win or lose, it often was because they were victimized, they were on the wrong side of that issue.
Popielarz: In present day times, you particularly pointed out two people who you admire greatly. You called Stacey Abrams “one of the smartest people I know in American politics” and you said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “will go down as the best legislative leader since LBJ...or beyond.” Those are obviously very big statements. Can you explain why you feel that way about those two women?
Brown: Well, I’ve watched them both up close. I know Nancy really well. When I was in the House, I knew Nancy really well. We did a lot of things together. Stacey I don’t know as well. I watched my wife interview Stacey on stage at the Toledo Public Library, I’ve talked to her a few times and I’ve seen her more as a public figure. And I think that she is — both of them are — Stacey, growing up in Georgia politics as an African American woman with all the mountains she had to climb, and Nancy Pelosi in this man’s world of Washington politics, when she joined. It’s beginning to look very different and she’s a big reason for it. And just watching her during all this Trump stuff is just remarkable. The figure she cuts, the brain she shows, the patience she has, the strategy she follows, that she formulates all that.
Popielarz: Early in the book, when you were writing about Glen Taylor, you said, “In the heady days of a first congressional or Senate term, a family often looks to an unknown future with restrained optimism.” I guess, both when you started in the House and then when you moved over to the Senate, what were you optimistic about and how did it pan out?
Brown: Glen Taylor was an interesting figure. Almost nobody’s heard of him. He was the running mate for Henry Wallace, that ran for president as a progressive in 1948 — got about two or three percent of the vote. He ran for office, I believe, seven times. He won once. He thought he had a long career as a U.S. Senator, and he had six years. He had all kinds of jobs. He was a toupee maker and a sheet metal worker and a singer with his wife — his name was Glen and his wife’s name was Dora, the “Glen Dora singers,” is how he made his living for much of his time. But I think, I mean when you come to this, I guess my message there was we all — with any new job, you think “I’ve made it now; I’ve got to do more; I’m going to have a bright future.” And you’ve just got to keep your eye on it because lots of things can happen to detour that progress you think you’ve made. But I remember that feeling when I came to the House and I remember when I came to the Senate, that you kind of get to start again and I think I was a lot smarter when I came to the Senate. It was 14 years later and I had that experience, and I recognize that that experience really matters.”
Popielarz: I was wondering if you still had Senate Bill1 that you wrote across the top, “I can’t believe —“
Brown: I do, I do. The freshmen in the majority party do most of the presiding over the Senate. We each take two or three or four hours a week. And I remember my wife was in the gallery the first time and I had the first Senate Bill 1 when I was presiding, and I wrote across the top, “I can’t believe I’m presiding over the Senate.” Of course I saved it.
Popielarz: One of my last questions — a bit of a simpler one. When you were writing again about George McGovern, you highlighted some of his writing and there was a quote, because he was talking about his love of history, and he said, “How could anybody read history and not be a liberal?” And I want you to answer that question for me.
Brown: Well it’s about this canary pin I wear. It’s a depiction of a canary in a birdcage. The mineworkers took the canary down in the mines. The canary died, and the mineworker, he had no union in those days strong enough, or a government that cared enough to protect him. And he was on his own. And I look what’s happened since then, that progressives have brought to this country the 40 hour work week, the minimum wage, worker’s compensation, safe drinking water laws, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all the victories that were, as that book shows, very, very hard to win. I mean those things — Medicare just didn’t pass like that because everybody thought Medicare is a good idea — because it was called socialism, it was called big government, it’s “why would we want to do this?” The doctors opposed it. The hospitals mostly opposed it. So, these victories, you just look at the broad sweep of history. You see the progress that progressives have made to move this country forward. So many of the institutions that are beloved in this country came because of ideas to make government work on the side of people. And I think you see that the best times in our history is when governments work for people. The less good times have been when government’s been in the pocket of special interests.
Popielarz: Has there been a point, whether you’ve been in office or beforehand, where you looked at progressivism or something that was driven by it and you said that didn’t work or that fell short, versus this grandiose version of progressivism?
Brown: Yeah, plenty of times we’ve failed. I think with the Affordable Care Act, we could’ve done it differently. I mean, I think all of these — one of the things that progressives have done — and what we haven’t been able to do with the Affordable Care Act — when Medicare passed in 1965 — when you start something so big and so new, two years later — things don’t always work exactly as you think, of course — so two years later Congress came back and started to fix Medicare. So, every two, three, four, five years you reexamine how it’s worked. We’ve not been able to do that with the Affordable Care Act because Republicans have continued to want to repeal it. First they couldn’t do it through the House and Senate, so they’re now trying to do it through the courts, and that’s really what happened. And so we’ve not been able to make the minor adjustments that would make it work better. I think if you look at these advancements over time, generally, if we can get a chance to make them better, we do.
Popielarz: Did you have a favorite senator out of these eight, afterward?
Brown: Going in, McGovern’s the only one I ever met. I never met any of the others. I think I saw Proxmire once, but never met him. Glen Taylor was the most interesting. Probably McGovern, McGovern or Kennedy, maybe they’re the most recent. They’re the ones I felt like I kind of understood the best perhaps.
Popielarz: There was one thing with Proxmire —
Brown: I might answer that differently tomorrow, I don’t know.
Popielarz: That’s fair. I’m sure there’s a lot swirling in your mind with it. Proxmire, the way he campaigned was pretty incredible, spending no money on campaigning — less than $200. And when you wrote in the book about how, I think it was 2018 you spent $28 million or something like that, and there was $40 million spent against you, just knowing that people like Proxmire made that work, what does it make you think just about money in politics? Because everyone says we want less of it — a lot of people say, some people don’t — but I guess, do you ever sit there and say it’s crazy that I’m generating this much money and spending it on this when there are people in need?
Brown: Yeah, of course, you say that to yourself every day. Proxmire couldn’t have done that today. I mean, Proxmire, just to fill people in, was senator from Wisconsin. He had the good luck of running in years that were real Democratic years — ’58, ’64, ’70, ’76, ’82 — those were his years and each of those just happened to be, nationally, a good Democratic year. But he would spend all his time, all his time, when the Senate wasn’t in session, shaking hands, going to the Milwaukee — Braves in those days — Milwaukee Braves games, shaking hands outside the stadium. His successor, a Jewish senator named Herbert Kohl — Senator Kohl is a Jew and was at a restaurant on Easter Sunday one day, on an Easter in whatever year, and Proxmire walked up and was walking table to table shaking hands, I think, in Racine, Wisconsin. So, I mean Proxmire never stopped doing that, to the point that I think he looked back with some regret on doing all that. It made his races a lot easier, but it made his life a little different.
Popielarz: Well, yeah, you said his marriages fell apart and all that. It was pretty incredible. Lastly, it was interesting to read about how your whole family was with you as you carved your name into the desk, and your signature in it is quite impressive and it stands out when you look at it. I guess, because you’ve spent so much time thinking about not only these physical desks, but the legacies that accompany them, I’m not sure, in your mind, how much longer you see yourself in Washington and what voters will allow, but what are you hoping, I guess as you begin to craft your legacy, what are you hoping one or two things that stand out for people for you, if somebody chooses to write about you in their book years from now?
Brown: Well, the most important thing I’ve done is working with then-Democratic Leader, not speaker, Pelosi — they were in the minority — is expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, and it made a difference for millions of families — will have several thousand dollars more in their pockets. People making 20 and 30 and $40,000 a year. They will never know my name. They will never know I did it, and that Nancy Pelosi did it, but that doesn’t really matter. And if that’s — that’s sort of my standard for myself and I’m always trying to do more things like that. But that stands out to me as important as anything I’ll ever do.
Popielarz: Thanks a lot, Senator.
Brown: Sure, enjoyed it. Thanks, Taylor.
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