Ohio Republicans Racing Storm Clouds

In a campaign year that could say much about Ohio's political identity, the November ballot features a governor's race and the largest concentration of competitive House races of any state. Daniel Hoffheimer, a Cincinnati lawyer and a Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign legal adviser, described DeWine as honest but vulnerable in a state where Democrats are eager for an upset.

"I've long believed Ohio is a Democratic state that's been asleep," Hoffheimer said. "If anything's going to wake up the people, it's to look at what the Republicans have done when they've had the opportunity to be in power in Columbus and Washington."

Both Senate candidates face minor opponents in a May 2 primary. Brown avoided a challenge when Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett dropped out. Jennifer Duffy, who studies Senate races for the Washington-based Cook Political Report, considers the Senate race a tossup. She said DeWine's biggest problem is the growing unpopularity of Republican-led governments in Columbus and Washington.

But with DeWine's campaign working to portray Brown as too liberal, she believes that some of Brown's votes can be exploited by the GOP. He voted against the USA Patriot Act and opposed bans on same-sex marriage and late-term abortion; he voted before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to cut intelligence spending.

She also thinks Brown may have a difficult time defining DeWine as a Republican worthy of alarm. DeWine is a moderate Republican who has worked well with Democrats, sometimes to the dismay of conservatives in his own party. He is also a strong campaigner who won his last election with 60 percent of the vote.

"When you look at DeWine's record, I don't see a lot of vulnerabilities there," Duffy said. "He's an incumbent with accomplishments. He focuses on some very consumer-friendly things. He's very big on child safety. His contribution to the highway bill was a requirement that manufacturers put their safety test ratings on the sticker."

DeWine, 59, has portrayed himself as a problem-solver able to work with Democrats, pointing out that he worked with liberal Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to regulate children's medicine. He was also among a bipartisan group of 14 senators who crafted a compromise on judicial nominations procedures. "I've spent 11 years getting things done. We are a state that's a pragmatic state," DeWine said in a telephone interview, avoiding any mention of Brown.

Brown's take on DeWine, elected to the House in 1982 and the Senate in 1994, was more direct.

"He voted for the Iraq war. I voted against the Iraq war," Brown told more than 200 cheering Democrats in the town of Solon on Wednesday. Brown said he opposed Medicare privatization and the energy bill, in contrast to DeWine. Then he noted DeWine's more recent votes favoring a minimum wage bill and opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"He's almost become a Massachusetts Democrat!" Brown said. "He's gotten religion. He's also got a tough race on his hands."

Bush flew to Ohio for a fundraiser that added $1 million to DeWine's growing treasury, but DeWine did not hurry to Cleveland last week to share the spotlight when the president delivered a speech on Iraq. DeWine said Bush was right to topple Saddam Hussein but asserted that the administration has since made "major mistakes," including sending too few troops to secure the country.

Since the war began, 105 service members from Ohio have died in Iraq. The state has lost more than 175,000 manufacturing jobs this decade. At a time when anger about government corruption is growing, Taft -- whose approval rating stands at 15 percent -- pleaded no contest to accepting 52 secret gifts from friends and associates, including local Republican Party leader Tom Noe.