Howard M. Metzenbaum, the populist Democratic multimillionaire who represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate for 19 years, died yesterday at his home in Florida.

He was 90.

Metzenbaum was a poster-child for liberals, siding with senators such as Ted Kennedy on issues protecting the environment, consumers and workers.

But he managed to get elected in Ohio by destroying Republican opponents in the urban areas and holding his own in rural counties where the oil companies, utilities and corporate moguls he disparaged were persona non grata.

The son of a businessman who went bankrupt and a mother who earned $13 a week in a department store, Metzenbaum grew up on Cleveland's East Side.

He worked his way through Ohio State University by peddling chrysanthemums outside Ohio Stadium and selling magazines, razor blades and toothpaste in the summer.

Metzenbaum was only 25 when, after graduating from Ohio State and its College of Law, he was elected to the first of four terms in the state legislature.

He served two terms in the House and two in the Senate, authoring one of the nation's first laws to protect consumers making credit purchases. He retired in 1950 but got back into politics later as a campaign manager.

In the early 1950s, he started an airport parking lot franchise that developed into the Airport Parking Co. of America, sold for $6 million in 1966. "Not bad for a Jewish boy who started off without two nickels to rub together," he was fond of saying.

Metzenbaum also received income from his Cleveland labor law practice and from a chain of weekly newspapers in the Cleveland suburbs.

Metzenbaum was the campaign manager for Stephen M. Young, the acid-tongued Clevelander who defeated Republican Sen. John W. Bricker in 1958 in one of the biggest upsets in Ohio political history.

Young then, under Metzenbaum's direction, edged Republican challenger Robert Taft Jr., father of former Gov. Bob Taft.

In 1970, when Young retired, Metzenbaum squared off against John Glenn and narrowly defeated him in the Democratic primary for the Senate before losing to the elder Taft.

Metzenbaum was appointed to an interim Senate term in 1974 to fill the vacancy left by Republican William B. Saxbe, who resigned to become President Richard Nixon’s attorney general.

But Metzenbaum served only a year, losing a rematch with a more-seasoned and aggressive Glenn in the Democratic primary. A political miscalculation helped lead to his defeat.

Metzenbaum had been contrasting his business background with Glenn's military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had "never worked for a living."

Glenn's reply came to be known as the "Gold Star Mothers" speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans' hospital and "look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn't hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job."

Two years later, Metzenbaum returned to the Senate, winning Ohio's other seat over the incumbent Taft in 1976 in the post-Watergate atmosphere that swept Democrat Jimmy Carter into the White House.

He was easily re-elected in 1982, and in 1988 he walloped Republican George V. Voinovich, who made the mistake of branding the liberal senator soft on child pornography. Metzenbaum retired at the end of that term in 1994.

A tireless supporter of consumers and workers, Metzenbaum sponsored laws on nutrition labeling and safe infant formula, restricting assault weapons, a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and 60 days' advance notice for employees at factories about to close.

As proud as he was of the bills he passed, the senator seemed equally satisified with his role in blocking others: for school prayer and abortion limits; to stop flag burning; and to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Metzenbaum artfully used the filibuster to delay confirmation of Republican presidential appointments, including Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

A master of the Senate rules, he figured out that he could continue a filibuster by amendment even after the Senate had voted to close debate. On one occasion he kept the Senate in session for two weeks, combining with Sen. James Abouresk of South Dakota to offer 400 amendments on a bill.

One of the best stump speakers in the Ohio political realm, Metzenbaum had his last opportunity during the Democratic National Convention in 2000.

At the Ohio delegation breakfast one day at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, the silver-haired orator ignited his sleepy audience by coming off the dais, strolling from table to table and exhorting the loyal Democrats to support presidential nominee Al Gore.

"You've got to get off your butts and go out there and vote!" he shouted at them.

He is survived by his widow, Shirley, and four daughters.