Do some political parties age better than others?

Former Gov. Ted Strickland's decision to challenge Sen. Rob Portman, Republican "commonsense conservative," as he sees it, has drawn mostly yawns from Ohio's media stallions who  argue it is a dramatic  sign of the Democratic Party's pathetic  lack of youth and energy. (Strickland is 73).

I would agree that the party needs a younger profile.  But for the articles and editorial pages to fret over the Democrats' creaking bones is a rare sign of  Ohio's Republican-leaning newspapers to fret over the general welfare  of the  "other party".

Young or old, it usually doesn't make that much difference who shows up on the state ballot as a Democrat.    Don't take my word for it.  If age is a factor, here are some engaging figures from the 2014 vote:

Of the five state offices on the ballot, only one posted a Republican younger than his opponent , Treasurer Josh Mandel, 37, big deal(!),  who was younger than his opponent Connie Pillich, a lively and competent 54.

In the other four, Republicans were the greybeards - none  more pronounced than the attorney  general contest that pitted Republican incumbent Mike DeWine, at 68  against Democrat David Pepper, 43!

As long as these many years that I've followed DeWine's career, I've never figured out how he maintains his Rasputin-like grip on editorial writers leading them to such contradictory endorsements.   The Plain Dealer produced not a single negative word about Pepper, a Cincinnati lawyer who had ably served as a county commissioner and city councilman.  The PD however, did go on distressfully about the lengthy downside of DeWine's tenure as the state's top lawyer, from questionable awards of state contracts to other matters that led him "astray'' by "insulting Ohio's voters for refusing"   to debate Pepper.

So what will it be?  Sayeth the lords of the Cleveland newspaper world:

"DeWine is a work in progress.  But his flaws and blind spots are more than outweighed by his energetic and effective advocacy on behalf of all Ohioans on a range of issue" thus earning him a approval for a second term.  

A work in progress at 68? Better hurry.

The PD lined up six of its opinion writers to record the  event.    Elizabeth Sullivan, the opinion director of the Northeast Ohio Media Group,  expressed her sorrow over the old folks party thusly:  Strickland's  return is "another sorry statement about the dearth of  viable Democratic candidates for a statewide run..."

Then, my old paper, the Beacon Journal, concluded that although DeWine "has stumbled at times"  the record also showed that he ''has been a much better attorney general than  Pepper allows" and deserves a second term.

Jarring, too, is DeWine's active  agenda that has been at odds with the paper's position on several major  issues dominating everyone's lives, from the Affordable Care Act to abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

With the yawners, I guess, it depends what party is creakily on the ballot.

So for the Dems,  would it improve their chances  if they sent in a teenage  candidate for an endorsement interview?   You might grow old waiting for a reply.

update: corrected version Pepper for Turner

Can we talk?
As some of you surely know, much of my professional career plunged me into the printed word - newspapers, magazines, books, some crabby letters to editors and now the digital offspring, blogs.  I say this only because some of you may be wondering why I' ve been picking on newspapers so much during this dreadful election year for which they must accept some of the responsibility for its odor.

I do want to say that the decline of newspapers, which is now  past the point of no return, gives me no joy. Still too much printer's ink in me.    Nor would I deny that newspapers have their rights to  endorsing  whatever candidate they find in their comfort zones.  But this year they seem intent on dwelling in conflicts of interest with themselves, thus costing them more  ounces of credibility. That hurts.

The most blatant recent example derives from a story in the Columbus Dispatch,  in which Republican endorsements  have been grandfathered  since Gutenberg. (Good grief!  Josh Mandel won the paper's approval?  )

Still the Dispatch published a piece reporting that during Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine's four years in office, Ohio has filed 53 amicus curae (friend of the court) briefs, at taxpayers expense,  with the  U.S. Supreme Court on out-of-state  cases.  Unsurprisingly, many of them satisfy his need to demonstrate his support of social conservative issues -  his long-held opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, gun control, ObamaCare.etc.

You might say, as others have pointed out, that he has converted his office into a chapel.
The defining paragraph in the Dispatch story confirms that.

He was asked about  his defense of Hobby Lobby 's denial to employes of health insurance coverage that  includes  birth control.

Did he base his decision on these matters  simply on his opinion or what's best for the state?

"It's both, really," DeWine replied. "Do my principles, do my beliefs in what is right, impact it?  Well, sure."

OK, he's made it clear on women's issues.  Not only in the Dispatch but whenever he has been asked about the access to hospitals  by abortion clinics.

But about the time that the Dispatch was parsing his positions, the BJ's editorial page, a pro-choice advocate, bore a column  by Michael Douglas, the editorial page editor, pointedly  complaining  about the anti-abortion obstructionists.

Douglas wrote: "Gov. John Kasich  and the Republican legislature have embarked on a mission to all but eliiminate abortion rights in the state" -   without mentioning DeWine as one of the perps.

 He  concludes by disapprovingly asserting:

"The fight over abortion in the courts and elsewhere won't end soon.  Yet, for now, one thing stands:  Abortion is a right, and those exercising that right deserves to be treated accordingly."

But shouldn't the treatment be applied accordingly to DeWine, too?  The paper has maintained a cozy attitude with the AG and even endorsed him despite his closed-fist activism against abortion.  In so doing,  it rejected DeWine's opponent,
David Pepper,  a pro-choice Democrat and aggressive campaigner.

Don't spend too much time trying to follow the bouncing ball, folks.

Ohio newspapers launch their creative endorsements

re-posted from Plunderbund



It's been a dreary election season, folks.  No  debates that invited the public to see the contestants going at it eye-to-eye. No gubernatorial contest.   Gov. Kasich shoveling soil in his confident high definition mode as though he were needlessly digging up more campaign cash.   The  media  in Cleveland, Akron and Columbus tacking, as always,  to Republican candidates.  Inventive endorsements that  pardon their choices for glaring flaws.  Not a good election season all around.

A prime exhibit  was the odd word salad in which  the Beacon Journal endorsed  Republican Ohio House member Anthony DeVitis over his Democratic opponent, Paula Prentice, a  veteran Summit County Council member.

The paper opined that although the "editorial page agrees more often on policy matters"  with Prentice,  it  believed that DeVitis was a moderate (which he isn't) who might be able to influence the nutty Republican hoof-beaters in the legislature on key issues.  Fat chance.  The R's are mired so deeply under water that one could not reach them in a bathysphere. You'd think that people who write editorials would know that by now.

Then there is the bewitching  stuff  that both the Beacon Journal and Plain Dealer conjured up to make nice for Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, a deeply entrenched social conservative on all counts.  Not that they agree with him on such matters as  women's issues, same-sex marriage, abortion, charter schools and such.  Nor spending taxpayer money charging off to other states to join those who share his gospel.

I've written several times that when you think of Mike DeWine, you think of his version of warm and fuzzy goodness. But it does work in editorial offices and on the stump even when he's scandalizing the idea of the Affordable Care Act with promises to get rid of it.

The disconnect between the attorney general's active policies and the papers' own year-round gospel  does make the friendly editorialists  uncomfortable and forces them to concede that Mike is a million-dollar pay-to-play artist.  A recent example is the word that he replaced a veteran debt collection agency with one that literally  walked into his office with the seal of approval of Summit County GOP boss Alex Arshinkoff, a former DeWine payroller,  and walked out with a lucrative contract.

And what did the  BJ say  about Mike's widely reported cookie jar  schemes?

 "No question, DeWine has stumbled at times," the editorial noted.  "He talked about a system for bringing transparency and accountability to awarding contracts, only to find himself struggling to explain a local episode that carried the odor of pay to  play."

Odor?  That alone would have qualified DeWine's Democratic   opponent, David Pepper,whom the paper credited with running a "pointed, vigorous and worthy [!]  campaign.

 The PD pattered over the same problem

These papers have a lot of transparency after  they sit down to make endorsements.   You have to have  quite a problem  as a Republican to lose their support.  Sadly, creative writing is one of their few remaining claims to relevance.

Re DeWine: Shall we not pass the collection plate?

Re-posted from Plunderbund


When I am trying to absorb a monotonal speech by Ohio Atty. Gen.  Mike DeWine why do I feel I should  be sitting in a pew?  As I've noted in the past, DeWine comes across as bottled goodness. He's the people's lawyer, the righteous guy to defend the law, the go-to family man to protect all that is wholesome in American life.  Still,  Biblical scholars will tell you that there is nothing specific in the Book about modern pay-to-play.

There is nothing in his words to lead you to believe that this 67-year-old  social conservative is  the same wheeler-dealer who handed out a lucrative contract for debt collection to a close friend and contributor of   the Summit County Republican Party chairman who once worked for him. The contrast in his public profile is stunning.

So there he was at  the podium as a Akron Press Club/Bliss speaker explaining why he is sworn to uphold the sanctity of traditional marriage, his refusal to debate his opponent,  Democrat David Pepper,  and his objection to Federal court rulings that declared Ohio's newly minted voter restrictions  unconstitutional.

About the debt collection contract:  He's asking prospective clients to sign a written form. Problem solved.

About the voting system  placed in abeyance by the U.S. Supreme Court:  He doesn't think the law is unconstitutional.  Problem solved.

About same-sex marriage: Ohio law bans it, regardless of the court decisions, and he dutifuilly must support it.  That says nothng about the taxpayers' money his office has spent skipping around the country filing amicus  briefs to uphold of such bans in their states.  Look, his opposition to gay marriage is in his genes, not the law.

About his refusal to debate:  "My  opponent is not qualified to be attorney general."  The cheapest of shots.    Pepper is a Yale law school graduate with a string of student honors - Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, managing editor of Yale Daily News, etc. etc. etc. (Should I also mention that when DeWine was in the Senate he could not practice law for 10 year because his license was inactive?)

More on the non-debates:  DeWine argued that he's already crossed paths in an unofficial "debate" with Pepper in a room interacting with Gannett Ohio editors.  In contrast, Sen. Sherrod Brown, then a congressman, debated then Sen.DeWine four times and creamed him by winning a 56 pct. majority vote as a liberal Democrat.

As a personal note, if I may:  I once interviewed DeWine for a half-hour TV program.    It was painful.  People who watched it said he froze on me.   And I didn't even  try to debate him!

DeWine:a few fake cops will do for anti-Pepper flier

What have we here? Another DeWine Comedy?

Plunderbund is reporting a good cop/bad cop scam in Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine's staged response to his Democratic opponent's endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police.  But there's a problem:  The "good" cops appearing in a DeWine flier are fakes.

The piece is a paste-up mess.   First, in a hasty attempt to discredit the FOP endorsement of David Pepper,  it pictured uniformed cops, ostensibly subliminally supporting DeWine,  and accused Pepper of firing "85+ FOP members"  as a Hamilton County Commissioner.

But as Plunderbund discovered, the "cops" in the campaign flier were actors drawn from    an online stock photo company batch  and not  from the real  cops in the FOP!

As for the "firing" thing, Plunderbund reported that as a commissioner in 2007, Pepper tried to soften the blow of state budgetary cuts by supporting a small tax increase to cover the effects on security forces.  But it noted  DeWine's son Pat actively opposed the tax,  forcing layoffs.

I would think the flier  would at least merit a tsk or two from those editorial writers who cling to the notion that DeWine is a Goody Two-Shoes.

Santorum: Middle class talk is basic Marxism.

Rick Santorum is on the stump. Or in the pulpit.

The experts say the former GOP senator, the lodestar of Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine and Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff in last year's presidential campaign, is firing his wisdom at audiences across the land for another go at the Oval Office.

But if we must bear the burden of Santorum's well-voiced piety,  how can we take him seriously? We can't. Or shouldn't.  This, after all, is the fellow who once condemned food stamps as the toxic source of all obesity.   And of late, he has been coming down hard on references to the "middle class". That's Marxist talk, he insists, by the "other side". Let him explain.

"Who does Barack Obama talk about all the time? The middle class," he spins off rhetorically to his audiences.  "Since when in America  do we have classes? Since when in America are people stuck in areas or defined places called a class. That's Marxism talk."

Not even Joe McCarthy came up with that notion. Still, for a wild-eyed dead-end politician,  the idea is in a class all by itself.

From today's news heap, Kasich pleads ignorance

Today's latest news, Hot off the Mess:

Leave it to our governor to produce another Kasich Kerfuffle in response to a question following his speech to the Cleveland City Club on Wednesday.  It occurred when a woman in the audience asked him whether he agreed with fellow-Republican Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike Dewine's fellowship with some other Republican AG's in a lawsuit involving employers and contraceptives insurance.

Dewine has never let anybody forget since the day he ran for the office that he wants to slay the Obamacare dragon and has channeled it with religious fervor into an assault on the legality of whether employers should include contraceptives in their employes' insurance coverage.

It's been in all  of the papers.  The governor, however, batted away the issue by saying he had not heard of the Dewine gambit and ducked the question.  Besides, as the governor has boasted, he never reads newspapers because sometimes they leave him unhappy.

* * * * *

Is it just me,  or do you find it a bit odd that two obstinate anti-gun control congressmen will be the featured guests at a dinner celebrating an  historic Republican icon?

Yep, that's a reference, folks,  to the annual Summit County Republican Lincoln Day dinner. L-I-N-C-O-L-N.  The anointed guests are Ohio Reps. Jim Renacci and  Dave Joyce,   sworn opponents of restrictions on guns.

Is this Lincolnian crowd, who will be dining quite well the night of the repast, April 27, aware of how Lincoln's life was abruptly ended?   Was it from the gun of John Wilkes Boothe, the Confederacy sympathizer?

Oh, to be fair, maybe they missed the movie.

* * * * *

We close with  this bit of gloomy insight into the American Century:

According to the respected Public Policy Polling (PPP), 20 pct. of registered Republicans believe President Obama is the Antichrist. ( 6 pct. of Democrats agree!)  37 pct. of Republicans believe global warming is a hoax; 7 pct. says the moon landing was a hoax.

In my poll of today's Plain Dealer op-ed page, one right-wing columnist (Kevin O'Brien), wrote that the Connecticut gun-control law was"ridiculously restrictive"  because nothing could have prevented the Newtown massacre.    He also threw in the notion  that "teaching children is a side job for public schools".

On the other hand, the Beacon Journal reported that charter schools - the answer by the governor  and his ilk to creating an enlightened nation - can expect a dismal report card from the Ohio Department of Education's new grading standards next year.   Get this: 89 pct. of tax-supported charter schools will get an"F" for their graduation rate; public schools, 7 pct. would receive an "F".  Who knew?  








.

More leftovers - and those diehard Republicans

 

How well this banner describes the Republicans' preoccupation with women's personal choices instead of unemployment and other economic matters.  These women were engaged in a protest in Columbus where a legislative committee was considering a bill to ban public money from  going to Planned Parenthood.  Being  Republicans-tilted, the committee ignored  the protest and voted 11-9 along strict party lines to send the bill to the House floor for further consideration and a vote.  News of President Obama's election that gave him the edge on social issues had apparently not found its way into the GOP cave in Columbus.

                                                                 * * * * *

Speaking of issues, how did Paul Ryan arrive at the conclusion that during the campaign his side was talking about the "popular" issues (i.e., the ones supported by the voters, I guess)?  Ryan also scoffs that Obama won a mandate from the voters because the House of Representatives remains in Republican hands.   That overlooks the math that told us a majority of America's voters supported Democratic congressional candidates, but gerrymandering  remained the decisive factor in electing Republicans. Case in point:  Although the president carried Ohio, Republicans won 12 of the 16 congressional districts.  Go figure.

                                                                 * * * * *

Let's stop talking about "mandates" - fuzzy references to the width of a winner's margin to carry out his or her plans.   A wise old politician once told me he didn't have much interest in mandates.  Rather, he said, a true leader looks at a situation and simply says to himself, "I gotta do what I gotta do".  Makes sense to me.

                                                               * * * * *

In case you felt overwhelmed by all of those TV political ads, there was a reason:  The New York Times reported 1.4 million ads were aired, estimated cost: $952 million.

                                                              * * * * *
Biggest  losers in Ohio were Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted and Atty Gen. Mike DeWine, both of whom traveled down dark paths by mistakenly ignoring  the potency of  those voters who had been  profiled  to lose .   DeWine  worked with Husted in trying to shrink the vote.  And U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbus assailed Husted's late-campaign directive   to further alter the vote , declaring  it was "surreptitious" and a"flagrant violation of a state election law." Clear enough?

* * * * *
My column on Jon Husted's lashing by a federal judge and the GOP attacks on Planned Parenthood has been posted on Plunderbund
  

With Husted-Dewine: Is Blackwell still with us?

Who would have ever guessed that a case could be made for returning Republican Ken Blackwell to the Ohio Secretary of State's office  considering the mess he made of the voting system back in 2004  and later?  From a controversy over provisional ballots, to challenging  the paper used for ballots to adding Diebold voting machines (in which he held some company stock) that were faulty - seldom  a day passed without having to endure more screwups in his office.

On two occasions, the office accidentally exposed Social Security numbers and names of registered voters.  It first released computer discs bearing  such goody information listing  1.2 million individuals.  Second time around, it gave out the names, addresses and social security numbers  of 5.6 million  registered voters.  Blackwell apologetically called the goofs "accidental". Problem solved.

Well, now we have a secretary of state , Jon Husted,  and attorney general, Mike Dewine,  creating greater confusion.  Earlier reports said Husted, acting under a federal court order,  had rescinded his own order shutting down week end voting just prior to Election Day.   That much he did and cheers went up that possibly we could count on a normal election.  You know, like the 2008 election that had caused so few systemic problems.

But we later learned from published reports all the way up to the national media  that Husted, joined by Dewine, had something more in mind, seeking a stay of the court's decision until the state's appeal could complete its course through the courts; i.e., don't do anything until we get back to you, whenever that may be.  Husted's Special Counsel, William S. Consovoy, said the delay was intended to avoid  confusion. 

Plunderbund reported yesterday that this was the same William S. Consovoy who sought an unsuccessful constitutional challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the South.  Husted obviously didn't pull Consovoy's name out of the hat to advance his  opposition to early week-end voting.

In his appeal, Dewine is now talking state's rights instead of voter fraud, a myth that never went anywhere.  I can't imagine the cost of all of these delaying tactics.  Worse yet, it is increasingly clear that Husted and Dewine are still hoping to prepare a table for a Romney victory in Ohio, candor and  the public interest be damned.

Are you listening, Public?

GOP-style absentee ballots: 'Righting' the system

Well, Nancy and I each received a feel-good absentee  ballot notice  from Secretary of State Jon Husted today.  It was patriotically red, white and blue, with a prominently displayed checkmark that did double duty by serving as the stylized "V" in the My Vote logo.  Underneath it boldly  declared "My Right - My Responsibility".

How good of Mr. Husted to remind me of my right.  How timely, too, so soon after after he and his cohort,  Atty.  Gen. Mike Dewine  decided to drag out their response to a federal court order to restore week-end early voting.  Oh, they will argue, week-end voting hours are not a right, which is like asking you not to count the change from  a suspicious sidewalk vendor.

It's at least interesting to me how quickly guys like Husted and Dewine move in to blur their tracks on suppressing the vote.   Rights and responsiblity?  Make me laugh, guys.  And as conservative Republicans who preach personal freedom from Big Brother,  shouldn't you be practicing what you are preaching by getting off the backs of certain voters?

UPDATE:  THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH JUST REPORTED THAT HUSTED RESCINDED HIS ORDER  AGAINST EARLY VOTING HOURS FOR THE THE LAST 3 DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTION.  (Shucks.  Mike Dewine, the Ohio AG, had threatened  to be so bold as to appeal the order to the U.S. Supreme Court.    That was STRIKE THREE for Mike, who belatedly switched to the losing candidate in the Republican presidential primary, was on the losing side in the appeal to the Supreme court on Obamacare and now this.  If you think of it, send him a cheerful card as the loser. 

The Husted-Dewine axis challenging Federal court order

Man, these Republican guys aren't kidding in their mad-dash campaign to block early voting on the pre-Election Day week end despite a federal court ordering them to play nice and keep the doors open.  Secretary of State Jon Husted (top photo) has boasted of his leadership in ending the 2008 benefit for pre-election voters, and Attorney General Mike Dewine says he will take the issue onward and upward, to the U.S.Supreme Court, if necessary. Some people define leadership in other ways.

Both men, of course, have their eyes on a Romney election that holds a little promise for their own political future.   Dewine began his term with a promise to join others in appealing Obamacare. You have to wonder whether he has nothing better to deal with his time than to  obstruct  anything that might be favorable for the other party.

As for Husted, well, he's got a tiger by the tail with this one and it's too late to run his office for everyone in Ohio rather just those who vote Republican.

Some Ohio newspapers have already called on the Husted/Dewine twins to obey the court order. But Husted has said he will do nothing until the higher court rules on the appeal. Early voting begins Oct.3, fellows.

I continue to ask:  why have these two state GOP officials given the issue top priority in the workaday world?  I have a hunch that they are looking out solely for their political future.  Dewine, after all, has never seen a possible self-serving opportunity that didn't send him up into the the ether.  He's the fellow, you might remember, who abruptly switched his allegiance from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum in the final weeks of the Ohio campaign when he was downright sure Santorum would carry the state.  You know the rest of the story.

NOTE: My column  on Josh Mandel's bad habits has been posted on Plunderbund.com

Roberts: The Republicans unmentionable justice

 

Although the Republican leadership (?) has had very little to say about Chief Justice John Roberts, who was considered one of the good ol' boys in the conservatives' family, the party's raucous  Noise Wing is having a nervous breakdown over  Roberts' "betrayal".  Very shortly you will see IMPEACH ROBERTS  bumperstickers and torturered versions of it on Tea Party placards wherever three or more anarchists assemble.  (Or possibly on the door to Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart's office, now that he has lovingly cast himself in the cradle of the Tea Partiers' arms.)

Such  hostility toward a Republican chief justice has happened before.  That was back in the 1950s when racists and anti-communists joined  their attacks on Chief Justice Earl Warren, calling for his impeachment on billboards and other public places. Their grievance: Warren's progressive positions on desegregation as well as  the rights of criminals.  As we know, their virulent  campaign didn't work.  Nor will today's assault  on Roberts.

Still, for the other side, Roberts is a double windfall.  He not only  shocked the pundits and the right-wing panderers in sustaining the health care mandate.  He offered the Democrats a rare opportunity to praise a Bush appointee to the Supreme Court.  Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if a liberal chief justice had saved the health plan?  I don't want to think about it.

It was often said that only Richard Nixon's  own  fixation against the Red World  could have steeled him against charges of treason as he headed to China  - the first president ever to do do - to open relations between the U.S. and Chairman Mao. Considering the state of anti-Communist fervor in this country at that time , inflamed by the late Sen.  Joe McCarthy, a Democratic president who would have dared to go to China  on a diplomatic mission would have been barred from returning to these shores.

In Ohio, the current response from the GOP mandarins was hardly surprising:   Now that the milk has been spilled, there was only one solution:  Throw out President Obama in November and repeal the law.  With what?  They don't say. But what else can a senseless party of hollow suits, from Romney on down, say?

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who also serves as the director of the Ohio Department of Insurance, has already rejected an insurance exchange under the law, arguing that she doesn't have enough information from the Feds.  A woman in her lofty position could ask, don't you think?

Meantime, Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, who has staked his  reputation  as a minor legal scholar on his belief that the mandate is unconstitutional, was among the AGs who joined the lawsuit  that drove  the issue to the Supreme Court.  He told  the Associated Press that the health care reform law will be the "preeminent issue of the presidential campaign". He  said he will continue  to fight the law because it compels people to "violate their religious principles".  He's been wrong before.  He was the Romney supporter during the GOP primaries who jumped ship and endorsed Rick Santorum when he erringly  concluded that Santorum would be the party  nominee.

Religious principles? Oh, now we're getting to the bottom of this, which leads me to wonder whether the AG wants to serve as the state's top lawyer or as a robed bishop or preacher.

The coming months will be pretty  ugly.  If totally senseless, too.


P.S. The A.P.'s long wrapup of the comments of Ohio Republicans did not contain a single mention of  Justice R-----s.    

Mike DeWine: Attorney general - and big investor

IT'S NOT UNCOMMON for wealthy politicians to pile up more than enough investments to reach the top shelf of a well-stocked pantry. Still, when the the pol is Mike DeWine, the mega-rich Ohio attorney general who campaigned to look after the little guy by working to rid all of us of the new health care law, it would be fair to wonder where his next meal might be coming from. That's especially the case in questioning his holdings in companies that could be subjected to the scrutiny of the AG's office.

The Plain Dealer's Sheryl Harris explored DeWine's pantry in detail in a revealing Sunday piece that raised red flags about DeWine's public job and his private stocks. She wrote:

"Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine will find it tough to do his job without tripping over his stock portfolio. DeWine invests in hundreds of companies - including major retailers, energy companies, drug makers and wireless providers - whose business practices could come under scrutiny from the attorney general's office."

Hundreds? Hundreds.

Harris reported that some of the companies have already had problems with the AG's office in the pre-DeWine days. That group includes Novartis, the drug maker that paid Ohio and other states $422 million after being accused of "improperly marketing drugs and paying kickbacks to doctors."

The consequence of a lawsuit against a big company is that it could lower the value of the stock.

"By holding stock in the very types of companies his office investigates," Harris wrote, "DeWine creates a stiuation in which he stands to make or lose money, depending on the actions of his office."

The situation sounded serious enough until DeWine shrugged it off by insisting that he saw no appearance of conflict of interest and had no mind to sell the stocks. Problem solved. Still, I hope his lawyers can make a better case of persuading a judge or jury than his airy dismissal of critics of his own behavior in his new job. For him, it obviously wasn't too hot in the pantry.

And while we're at it: The PD also reports that Rocky River, which showered John Kasich with 56 pct. of the vote in the November election, is unhappily faced with a whopping 79 pct. cut in public school funding in the governor's proposed budget. Once again we are reminded that the voters often get the kind of government that they deserve.

It's time for DeWine to show us the money

AKRON'S DAVID BRENNAN, the for-profit charter schools baron, once invited me (many years ago) to a private breakfast to hear his special guest who had cutting-edge ideas on remedying the ills of formal education. "I think you'll find it very interesting," he confidently told me.

Brennan is a fellow who has never had an idea that wouldn't impress a listener. Or so he believed. The speaker at his breakfast offered the small group a single thesis: Within a few years - five, I seem to remember - universities would be out of business. No kidding. Indeed, nobody believed that more than our man in the audacious white cowboy hat. It was all part of his overarching plan to privatize education as a profitable business.

Part blustery showman and part political insider, Brennan has commanded attention for his schemes to save society from itself. Of late, his handiwork is surfacing again in the papers. An earlier charge of money-laundering through All Children Matter, a school choice operation in Washington, has tracked Brennan money back to the Ohio chapter of the national group's PAC. From here it went in large quantities to Ohio's Republican politicians who could grease the skids for the growth of charter schools.

So convinced of foul play, the Ohio Elections Commission in 2008 fined All Children Matter $5.2 million for the illegal conduit. So far, the fine has never been paid, and chances are that it never will be. All of the guardians of the public trust in this matter have received generous political contributions from Brennan. Among them are Gov Kasich, whose proposed budget includes an item doubling the state's school choice voucher support and lifting the lid on charter schools in Ohio; Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted.

It would be DeWine's task to pursue those millions that have been in limbo since the fine was levied. It was DeWine, after all, who righteously campaigned last year on clean government under the aggressive protection of the AG's office. The only word so far on this quick-change operation is from DeWine's spokeswoman, Lisa Hackley. She would only tell the Associated Press that the office was, um... working on it.

The odds are against any quick resolution of the problem. There was saying back in my old neighborhood in the Pennsylvania hills that went,

"Them that has is them that get."

I haven't seen any evidence that it's not still true today.

Another GOP win in gamesmanship

Admit it, Democrats, those Republicans have found the perfect solution to having their own unapologetic way to game any issue with which they disagree. They file their grievance with a judge who is guaranteed to rule in their favor. That seems to be the case with Federal Judge Henry E. Hudson of Virginia, shown at left, who has decided that the new health care law is (I'll whisper it) unconstitutional. The challenge was entered by Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli, and although it won't change anything for the moment, it will satisfy all of the Ken Cuccinellis of the world, including Ohio attorney general-elect Mike DeWine, who has promised to file his own suit against Obamacare.

Meantime, Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee, is reported to have been a contributor to Campaign Solutions, a tank which has been a staunch opponent of health care reform and has a number of Republican clients. Is that a problem for Hudson? Not at all. His office said the judge has no idea what Campaign Solutions does for a living because he is a "passive investor." But apparently the thrill is already spreading around GOP circles. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Idaho couldn't contain himself. "It's a great day for liberty," he exclaimed. If this involved Democrats, they would find dozens of ways to apologize for the negative image projected to the public. What did I tell you?

Kasich, DeWine create jobs- for themselves!

IF EVER AN election was preordained - or God's will, as some of the victors will call it - Tuesday's results will do nicely for a class in Politics 101. For some time, the national pundits had been convinced that life, as the Democrats once knew it, was over. The economy, a bottomless supply of campaign money, Tea Party hysterics and a determined assault on President Obama's policies from the board rooms of powerful corporate interests were a deadly brew for the party in temporary power. It was even worse in Ohio, where Cuyahoga County woke up each morning to more evidence of Democratic corruption, Gov. Strickland was burdened with a serious recession not of his own making in a state where manufacturing jobs had already been vanishing back in the years when Republicans had long controlled everything in Columbus but the course of the Scioto River..

As a so-called swing state, Ohio also finds a way to eat its young, as it did in the defeat of Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray, one of its most promising younger voices, to a bland Republican

retread, Mike DeWine, who came along for ride because as a once-defeated U.S. senator, he needed a job. (And so much for the unanimous scintillating major newpaper endorsements of Cordray!)

At the national level, it does discourage optimism for the nation's future when John Boehner says, yeah, we'll work with Obama but only if we don't compromise any Republican principles. It sounds like the comment that has often been attributed to Nikita Khrushchev that "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."

Or how about Mitch McConnell's pledge that the GOP's top priority was to make Obama a one-term president - this from the Senate minority leader who couldn't even get his own man nominated in Kentucky's Republican primary.

Well, it's now up to the Republicans in Ohio and across the land to see what they can do to turn the economy around by reducing the budget deficit and cutting taxes at the same time. If they seriously believe it can be done that will qualify them for the White Queen's boast to Alice in Through the Looking- Glass that she could believe six impossible things before breakfast.

FOOTNOTES: There was one bright spot in Ohio on Tuesday: Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton's convincing defeat of Tom Ganley, the conservative auto dealer who once had boasted that he would put up $6 million of his own money for his campaign. The moral: Even successful businessmen make bad investments ....

Some talk around town centers on Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's future now that he will claim to be a preeminent force ($$$ ) in Kasich's election. Some say that Arshinkoff will have less of a chance getting a job in the new administration than getting appointed to the University of Akron Board of Trustees, a position he once held. If so, it will be fun to watch how that plays out.

Scary signs of the times: Tea Party Republican Carl Paladino's snarling appearance before his crowd with a baseball bat after he was thrashed in the New York gubernatorial race by Democrat Andrew Cuomo. Paladino , a wealthy real estate developer, vowed he would return, and waved the bat that would serve as his weapon.

DeWine: Bland speech, tiny audience: Recipe for disaster

WELL, IT has to be called a train wreck for the candidate and for his host. I refer to Mike DeWine's solo (in nearly more ways than one!) appearance at the Akron Press Club luncheon Tuesday. DeWine, as you may know, is the former Republican senator who is trying to unseat Ohio Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray in November. Speaking almost inaudibly, head down, into his prepared text, DeWine wanted to leave us with the the notion that as attorney general, he would provide "leadership" and would "do better." At least, that's what I think he said. He also opined that the Tea Party had brought into the system "a lot of people passionate about politics." Right.

He reminded the sparse audience (fewer than 35!) which included a few Cordray aides, (one of whom filmed what there was of the speech) and DeWine's wife Fran, that being an unyielding defender of the law and the Constitution, he would file suit against ObamaCare because he considers it unconstitutional. He also attacked Cordray for a sloth-like work of BCI, the state crime lab - delays that have since been dismissed by such independent sources as the Plain Dealer's PolitiFact/Ohio.

DeWine had turned down a Press Club invitation to debate. If he had been the futurist that he claims to be, he would have also rejected the later Press Club offer to let him speak alone. It was an embarrassingly inertial moment for some of the folks. and it could be felt hovering in the dead air. (Cordray, accepted the Press Club's debate invitation, and had to settle for his own solo appearance on Oct. 7.)

He did score a first, however. The skimpy crowd was the smallest audience for a statewide candidate since the Club started sponsoring debates at least a decade ago. Even his former part-time employe, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff didn't show up for his ex-paymaster. Nor was there a table reserved for Republicans, which was the chairman's call in the past. Tsk. Tsk.

Ok, the event wasn't a total loss. Dewine passed out his wife' s recipe booklet - "Fran DeWine's Family Favorites" - before heading to the lecturn. Besides recipes, that booklet prominently showed his wide-ranging belief in God, Mother and Country. The back of the booklet featured a photo of Mike and his wife, an American flag and what might be mistaken for a religious leaded window. Actually it depicted blind justice.

It couldn't have been more unsettling for the candidate, what with the rain outside and chill in the room.

FOOTNOTE: It was a troubling day of setbacks for the DeWine campaign. The Ohio Tea Party PAC had just announced its endorsement of one of its own, AG candidate Robert Owens of the Constitution Party; the Dayton Daily News, the newspaper in DeWine's Southern Ohio neighborhood, endorsed Cordray, saying the case for him was "overwhelming"' and the Toledo Blade hardly mentioned DeWine in editorially supporting Democrat Cordray for his "honesty and dedication."

DeWine, Ganley: Candidates on cruise control

IT'S NOW official that there will be NO debates at the Akron Press Club involving two Republican candidates who appear to have put their campaigns on cruise control. Both Tom Ganley, the GOP challenger to U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, nor Mike DeWine, who is trying to unseat Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray, have unequivocally turned down invitations to debate their Democratic opponents.

As one who moderated many of the previous Press Club debates before stepping aside a couple of years ago, I'm not inclined to salute this wary twosome for their political wisdom and courage. For better or worse, debates come with the territory, particularly for these guys whose yearnings tell them they ought to be in political office for awhile until something better comes along.

Item: Ganley, the mega-auto dealer who is relying heavily on TV ads, did make a solo appearance at the Press Club last fall when he was running for the U.S. Senate. But he has flinched at the thought of facing an incumbent now that he is running for Congress. (He didn't even show up for Alex Arshinkoff's big finance dinner.) DeWine finally agreed to speak alone on Sept. 28 without the bother of an opponent staring him in the face. So Cordray has had to settle for an appearance sans DeWine on Oct. 7.

There has been a long tradition at the Press Club that when both candidates are invited, there would be an empty chair for either candidate who didn't show up. The Cleveland City Club has played by those rules, too. In this instance, however, Press Club board members tell me that club president Bruce Winges, the Beacon Journal editor, is skittish about having Sutton speak alone without offering Ganley another date for his solo even though he's already been there in a campaign mode. Inexplicably, Winges, in a conciliatory mood, is said to feel that unless he gave Ganley a similar opportunity now it would look too "political" by the Press Club. Good grief! Will there next be an agreement to have Ganley address the club's audience from his patio?

Time out for a little history here: Over the years Democrats have always agreed to debate their opponents. The late Rep John Seiberling never turned down a challenge from his opponent. When the Press Club series began a decade ago, neither Mayor Don Plusquellic nor former County Executive Jim McCarthy failed to show up at the Martin Center on time to face their rivals.

The rules of combat have now changed and the Press Club's front office is riding the fence when there shouldn't be the slightest question about what it should do. Why now?

Is Arshinkoff counting on a rainbow?

IT WOULD BE fair to assume that no one is enjoying the ride to the November elections in Ohio more than Alex Arshinkoff, a.k.a. the oft-eruptive chairman of the Summit County Republican Party. Two of his favorite people, John Kasich and Mike DeWine are, at this stage, running ahead of their Democratic opponents. Should they win, Alex is hoping to find the opportunity to rise above his current status as the head of a party with 10 pct. registration in Summit County. Any higher title would be welcome, whether in the Kasich administration or, less likely since he is not a lawyer, somewhere in the ranks of the DeWine's attorney general's office.

How do we know this? You need only to look at the history of a mercurial man who has been futilely seaching for a statewide playing field for years - or at least his name on a building at the University of Akron and a paying job at the U - none of which materialized such fantasies about his importance in the broader scheme of things political.

Exaggeration? Hardly. As a young man, he was turned down for a job at City Hall by ex-Mayor John Ballard. Hoping to impress then-Gov. George Voinovich, he spent a year raising a handsome treasury for another Voinovich campaign in hopes of winning an endorsement from the guv for state GOP chairman. When the time came, Voinovich, who has always played his cards close to the vest, cast his support for the establishment incumbent, Robert Bennett, at state headquarters.

With the arrival of both George Bushes in the White House, Arshinkoff was a 24/7 soldier for them, even got invited to the White House and Kennebunkport. To show his gratitude for their attention, he took out a second mortgage on his house in Hudson for $25,000 and sent it all to the Bush II folks campaign - which had the same impact as an offer to take Donald Trump to lunch at McDonald's. Still he was gratified by conversations with Karl Rove who told him "We're keeping you in mind, Alex." Fat chance!

In the last Ohio gubernatoriallRepublican primary campaign, he lashed then-State Auditor Jim Petro in reprisal for Petro's failure to find fault in an audit of Summit County Executive Jim McCarthy. a Democrat. Arshinkoff threw his support to Betty Montgomery. When she dropped out of the race, he endorsed Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, whose rhetoric glibly skimmed over the emptiness of his vision. Blackwell, as we all know , was soundly defeated by the current Democratic Governor, Ted Strickland, the guy that Arshinkoff now wants to depose.

All of this occurred while he was in constant battles with the Democrats at home as a member of the Board of Elections, from which Secretary of State Brunner ejected him. He's also withstood two local challenges by a Republican faction that came after him with a largely incoherent game plan.

It has been, at best, a rocky ride for his decades of party chairmanship. If he doesn't squeeze out a job this time, it might be time to consider craigslist.

Ganley, DeWine in a political game of dodge-em

WITH TWO MONTHS to go to the November Election, Republican Tom Ganley seems to have decided to become the stealth candidate against 13th District U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton. His team has flatly refused an invitation to debate Sutton at a luncheon co-sponsored by the Bliss Institute and the Akron Press Club. The refusal comes from a man who would have you believe that as a bold rookie congressman lacking seniority he would still be forceful enough to make significant changes in how they do business on Capitol Hill.

So if you want to know what he thinks and are bored by the TV political commercials, you can get a copy of the right-wing Human Events in which he was recently quoted as seeking to "reopen" all entitlements. There was a bit of a backlash at his automobile agency in Akron yesterday as a group of senior citizens picketed in the fear that he would try to slash Social Security and Medicare, non-discretionary programs .

Ganley is the second Republican to dodge a Press Club debate with the same sponsors. Earlier, former Sen. Mike DeWine rejected a shared dais with Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray. I'm told that he would agree to a solo performance , but not a debate. How will we ever survive all of this forthright action from Mssrs. Ganley and DeWine?