Debates: Mike DeWine,the people's lawyer who isn't there

Re-posted from Plunderbund 

Ever since Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine put on his reelection campaign game face, he's been drifting across the masses like a UFO with the best wishes of a forgiving  press  and a looming Republican year at  the polls.

Now you see him, now you don't.  He prefers to cast his attention to his other interests that gives him a Deep South spiritual coating as a social conservative - nay, as a blessed Medievalist opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage, defending  Hobby Lobby, opposing gun control  and above all, the Affordable Care Act.  On that point, he has long made his rounds outside the state to wherever he could pitch in to help defeat ObamaCare.

Of late, he has taken up the cause of restricting Ohio's new voter system, the one that a right-wing Supreme Court just delayed after two lower federal courts had ruled it unconstitutional. The Supremes would have overruled tfhe lower courts 5-4 anyway  if DeWine had gone fishing.  Or spent a little more time facing his opponent, David Pepper, a Cincinnati Democrat, in at least a debate or two.

Pepper put the debate issue in the right context when he spoke  at the Akron Press Club this week.    As a lawyer himself, Pepper gamely questioned DeWine's  rejection of any debate, including the invitation  from the Cleveland City Club. Some newspapers gently  questioned the UFO's decision, too, but for too many voters,  debates are best left to molecular physicists.

Pepper,  however,  squarely defined DeWine's posture as unbecoming of a guy who must serve  as the people's lawyer and be  never fearful of airing differences with opponents in courts or anywhere else.      "If you're afraid to debate as the attorney general,"  Pepper declared, "something must be  wrong."

Indeed,  it is.  And that should include the many reports of how DeWine has converted his office into a pay-to-play cash cow, hauling in campaign cash from those who stand to sweeten their own pots in return.   In one recent exposed case, DeWine replaced a company that had ably served several  different governors in debt collections, giving the lucrative contract to a pal of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, despite the recipient's admission that he had little experience in that line of work. (Over the years, Alex has smelled money like a shark  attracted to blood. He was once on DeWine's payroll as the AG's liaison in northern Ohio. )

Still there is strong feeling that Mike DeWine towers so high in ballot strength that he is unbeatable.  That hasn't always been true.  Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat,  no less,  thumped DeWine out of the. U.S. Senate in 2006 with room to spare. (56 pct. landslide.)   On that occasion DeWine had no more than an approval rating in the 30s, putting him just above Rick Santorum as the most unpopular  senator on Capitol Hill.

But DeWine has the ability to hover in politics.  In 2012 he was a Santorum supporter in the presidential.  He then startled the experts with a  mid-campaign switch to Mitt Romney when  it became increasingly clear that Ol' Rick wouldn't win the Ohio Republican  primary. Call his retreat from Santorum as a "course correction".

Four more years for this mercurial UFO?    You decide.

P.S. Pepper did speak to the Cleveland City Club luncheon this week, sans DeWine.

Post- election stuff from the other side of the universe

 POST-ELECTION DEBRIS:

In an interview with WKSU's M.L. Schultze,  Republican Don Robart, who was defeated as Cuyahoga Falls mayor in  Tuesday's election,  seemed quite puzzled why some of us placed him in  the Tea Party's grasp, saying:

"I think they're (sic)  calling me the darling of the Tea Party was quite an exaggeration.  For the most part I don't even hardly know those people..."

For someone who doesn't hardly know ''those people", it does seem fair to ask how he could have excitedly praised the Tea Party throng  at their rally in his city as  the "moral, fiscal and social conscience of America?"  Who knew?

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Are we witnessing the end of days?  I sensed that the human race may be preparing to cash it all in after reading Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's learned explanation in the Beacon Journal of why voters were in a mood to throw out a lot of incumbents.  "I think they're (voters) fed up with politicians," the combative Republican county boss opined. "They don't see an end to the bickering and the fighting."  Based on local experiences, I think I might know how we can begin to turn that around,  Alex.  But why bicker?

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Throughout election night, NBC's Chuck Todd continued to remind the viewers that President Obama's approval ratings had fallen to a new low without once noting that  Obama is barred by law from seeking a third term.  So for any  non-candidate, such ratings are little more than table talk.  Iconic Ronald Reagan's disapproval rating (Gallup)  rose to 56 pct.  in January 1983 - one point higher than Obama's 55 pct. in August 2011.   We won't even mention that George W.Bush's highest  disapproval rating led all other presidents with 71 pct. in October, 2008. So to Chuck Todd, I ask:  What's the point?

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Finally, the Ohio Republican Party was out the morning-after with stunningly breaking (and overcooked) news.  Blared State GOP chairman Matt Borges:  Obamacare was a disaster and Democrats "will be held accountable in 2014."  Ummmmm....Careful, Matt,  that you don't peak too soon under that barn-and-silo logo  on your party's official media releases.