Where are Dubya and Alex these days?

WITH TWO WEEKS to go until Election Day, things have gotten awfully quiet for two Republican compatriots who had no trouble grabbing headlines in past campaigns - George Bush and Alex Arshinkoff. Some observers say the former president has been pre-occupied with the fortunes of the Texas Rangers in the playoffs - a team in which he once held a handsome stake. But I suspect that Republicans find him much more valuable to their fortunes if he remains in the distant centerfield seats where his mere presence won't remind people of the debris he left behind.

Arshinkoff, the Summit County Republican Chairman, may be another matter. In the past he has bombastically shared the stage at rallies in the county for his GOP brethren to flag the party loyalists to the polls. Not so, this year. No big rallies hereabouts, no Arshinkoff. Last summer he even denied knowledge of a fundraiser for Tom Ganley, the Republican challenger to Rep. Betty Sutton, even though the 13 th district covers a lot of ground in the county.

I can only guess that his pal, gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, has told him to remain under wraps to avoid stirring up the kind of controversy that Arshinkoff is known to inspire at campaign time. You may recall that he once threatened to boycott United Way because an innocent scavenger hunt had a Democratic campaign office on its itinerary. He also tore up the GOP playbook by challenging the Republican Hudson City Council that ordered him to take down a big Bush sign from his front yard because it violated the village's zoning ordinance.

Will he still materialize before Election Day? Hard to know about anything he will do. Meantime, the silence is golden.