By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown said he expects a decision within days about whether President Joe Biden will continue his re-election campaign.
Brown was at Owens Community College Friday morning to visit a manufacturing camp that his office sponsors for middle- school students. He was not there, he said, to play pundit, Brown told the press at the end of his visit.
But the senior senator from Ohio said Biden has to decide soon whether to stay in the race. The situation now is a distraction from the business at hand — mass transit policy judicial appointments, housing affordability, protecting Lake Erie, and, yes, getting young people interested in pursuing careers in advanced manufacturing.
But Biden’s future hangs over the scene. “People have legitimate concerns,” Brown said. “I’m listening to those. We’ve got to resolve them. I hope in the next few days.”
He offered no opinion on what the president should do nor who may replace him on the ticket. “I’m a Democrat and I will vote for the Democrat.”
However at 6:16 p.m. Brown issued the following statement calling for Biden to end his campaign.
“Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban. These are the issues Ohioans care about and it is my job to keep fighting for them.
“I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign.”
In response to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, he said there needs to be an investigation. He’s talked to a number of law enforcement officials, and there’s agreement that there was a failure to allow the shooter to get so close and have such a good angle to fire at the former president.
While Trump narrowly escaped with minor injuries, one man in the crowd, Corey Comperatore, was killed, and two more were critically wounded. “I want to see an independent investigation,” he said, not one where people are trying to score political points.
Nor did he express an opinion on his Ohio Senate colleague J.D. Vance’s new role as Trump’s running mate. Brown works with Vance on issues of concern to the state just as he did in the past with Republicans George Voinovich and Rob Portman. He said they are collaborating on how the make sure an event like the train wreck in East Palestine never occurs again and that the residents of the town are able to recover.
Brown was at Owens in Perrysburg Township to advocate for an issue close to his heart, making sure that Ohio remains the leading manufacturing state in the union.
The point of the camps is to show students the future opportunities in advanced manufacturing. His office spearheaded the creation of the camps that are held around the state because, he told the students, “We want kids to be able to work with their brains and their hands and make things. Ohio is a place that makes things.”
The initiative started in 2013, and there are 50 camps occurring this summer.
The students at Owens visited First Solar, a plant that supplies its glass, the Center for Innovative Food Technology, and Penta Career Center. On Friday morning in the Dana Center for Advanced Manufacturing, students were fabricating marshmallow blow guns.
“Owens has been immensely helpful. There’s been no community college that has stepped up quite like they have,” Brown said.
While his office initiated the camps, he said, they depend on local partners — educational institutions and businesses to pull the camps together.
Owens President Dione Somerville said the support from the senator’s office is “hugely important” to help pull together the partners.
Owens’ is seeing increased interest in students studying for advanced manufacturing.
The opportunities are growing, Somerville said, pointing to the Intel plant outside Columbus, the Mobis North America plant proposed for Toledo, and the recently launched Northwest Ohio Glass Innovation Hub, a collaboration between industry and higher education.
Providing that education and training is at the core of what Owens does. “That’s literally what we’re built for,” she said.
The collaboration between higher education and industry is “how we grow as region, state, and country.”
