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Dayton
Daily News...
Commentary: Brown had
no help from Obama aides on shuttle effort
By Jack Torry
Monday, April 18, 2011
WASHINGTON — It seemed a no-brainer: The White House could have given a
boost to Sen. Sherrod Brown’s re-election next year and helped
President Barack Obama in a state he must win to earn a second term.
All the White House had to do was say the magic words: Send a shuttle
to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base.
Instead, NASA officials last week said that when the four space
shuttles are retired this year, they will be donated to California, New
York, Florida and Washington, D.C. Three on the East Coast, one on the
West Coast.
And for Sherrod Brown and Ohio? Nothing.
The decision, according to one insider, left Brown incredulous. Not
only did the Obama administration pass up a chance to help Brown, but
it flubbed a great photo opportunity — Obama, Brown, House Speaker John
Boehner and former astronaut John Glenn — greeting the arrival of the
shuttle at Wright-Patterson.
It would have been one thing had Wright-Patterson not been a viable
choice. But NASA officials acknowledged the museum had been among the
top five contenders for the four shuttles. Add in the Wright brothers,
and Dayton was a natural.
There are only two explanations. Either the White House gave NASA a
free hand in picking the four sites. Or the White House was involved
and concluded it made more sense politically to send shuttles to
California and New York rather than Texas and Ohio.
But one thing is clear: Obama’s aides made no effort to help Brown.
Why is puzzling. Brown backed the administration on the 2009 economic
stimulus package, last year’s health care law, and this year’s budget.
He tirelessly worked to bring the shuttle to Ohio, talking by telephone
with Vice President Joe Biden and White House chief of staff William
Daley, and writing letters to NASA. He spoke to the Obama political
staff. He removed language from a NASA bill that would have prevented
Wright-Patterson from being eligible.
Sending a shuttle to Dayton was not going to guarantee re-election for
Brown and Obama. It may not have changed many votes. But it would have
been a visible sign that Obama wanted to help the Democratic Party in a
state that is key to his re-election.
Imagine how former President Bill Clinton would have handled this one.
Not only would the shuttle have gone to Ohio, but Clinton would have
insisted that as a boy growing up in Arkansas he had always dreamed of
visiting the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
As one Democrat joked, “Clinton would have flown in on the shuttle.’’
Read it at the Dayton Daily News
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