Wednesday, August 02, 2000Reds the only worry for DeWine
PHILADELPHIA — So, how can we tell whether Ohio's senator, Mike DeWine, believes that life is good?
After all, he is the only Ohio elected official and one of only a handful of Republican sachems nationally to support John McCain for the GOP nomination over George W. Bush.
At the time, pundits and politicos alike were whispering gravely that the plucky little senior senator had risked his standing among the GOP power elite. Some speculated that he might have gone a bit daft. Taken a fall in the bathtub, hit his head. Gone cuckoo.
Mr. DeWine endorsed his colleague from Arizona back when Mr. McCain was barely making a dent in the polls and long before he had become a media darling with his marathon bull sessions on “The Straight Talk Express.”
He was with him when the McCain campaign crashed and burned in his own home state's primary, flattened like Wile E. Coyote on a desert highway by the heavyweight Ohio GOP organization and the Bush juggernaut.
And this in a re-election year for the first-term senator from Ohio.
But if Mr. DeWine is worried, he hides it well.
Tuesday morning, the senator and his wife, Fran, bounded up the escalator to the mezzanine ballroom in the Philadelphia Marriott, where the Ohio delegation was gathering for its daily breakfast meeting.
Mr. DeWine had just arrived in town, fresh from two days of campaigning through Ohio with the aforementioned nominee, who apparently harbors no ill feelings toward the Ohio senator.
And what were the first words out of the mouth of the senator when we started asking questions?
“So, did the Reds make any trades?”
A man who is worried about risking his political career over a failed presidential primary does not have his thoughts turn to baseball on the second morning of a national political convention.
Mr. DeWine loves his Reds; he has had season tickets at Cinergy Field for about 30 years now.
“Republicans came together after the primary,” Mr. Dewine said, after being assured the Reds were standing pat. "We fought the battle, it's over, and now we are going to get Governor Bush elected.”
Yes, he has his own re-election to tend to.
A year ago, there was much hand-wringing about Mr. DeWine's vulnerability because of his vote to impeach President Clinton. That issue seems as remote as the Andrew Johnson Senate trial now.
Now he is riding high in the polls with a massive lead over his Democratic opponent — Columbus businessman Ted Celeste, the brother of the former governor and a first-time candidate.
And he is spending his off hours hanging with Dubya in places like Blue Ash and Dayton and walking around smiling because the Reds won four straight.
Life is good.
Howard Wilkinson covers politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
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Howard Wilkinson covers politics for the Enquirer.