Twelve years ago, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat, took the stage at his election night party in Columbus to celebrate winning a second term. Barack Obama had just carried Ohio for the second time, after emphasizing his administration’s rescue of the auto industry. Brown wanted to proclaim that success onstage, but he was losing his voice, so his wife, the writer Connie Schultz, took over for him. As she got to Jeep expanding its Toledo operations and General Motors building the Chevy Cruze at its rejuvenated plant near Youngstown, Brown started interjecting croaks to make sure she got t…