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Hes an unabashed progressive with just enough blue-collar appeal to win a swing state such as Ohio.

Hes the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, with a megaphone to go after Wall Street and four decades of public service under his belt.

Hes an affable guy, appealing but not too slick, with smiling eyes and a good head of hair and a media-friendly feminist wife.

And he was preaching economic mobility years before it became the central tenet of the nascent 2016 campaign.

By almost any standard, Sen. Sherrod Brown, 62, a former Eagle Scout with a voice like Tom Waits, is the kind of pol who should at this very moment be making the rounds of the Sunday shows, growling to packed audiences in Iowa and all the while insisting to major media outlets that he is not considering running for president at this time. Or at least youd expect a bunch of liberal activists to be mounting a Draft Sherrod campaign. No?

Huh, I really had not thought about it until this phone call, said Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

That, of course, is because all the attention has been heaped onto another, fresher-faced member of the Senate: the progressive rock star from Massachusetts, Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Just last week, Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo hosted a party at the house of Al Pacinos daughter, urging New York artists to urge Warren to run. Brown may have been Elizabeth Warren before Elizabeth Warren was cool, but theres scant evidence that the Ruffalos of this world even know who he is.

I dont see it as a competition, Brown said in an interview at his Senate office. Im always looking for allies, so was thrilled when she ran and am thrilled to have her in the Senate.

But why, Senator, why do you think people are so into Warren when you have been around saying the same stuff for years? Does it not sting a little?

I dont play games about it, he said. I dont say, Im not running now. I dont know what it is. I know you dont believe this, but I dont really think about it all that much.

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Sherrod Brown: Why arent progressives begging him to run for president?