Stressing Pork, Not The Party

In the ad, Kyle Miller, an assistant fire chief in Cedarville, Ohio, offers this testimonial: "Senator DeWine saw how stretched our local fire departments have become, and he went to work. He delivered badly needed equipment, training and resources to firefighters and emergency services across Ohio. He saw a problem and he fixed it. He's not flashy, but Senator DeWine gets things done."

If you wonder how attractive the Republican Party label is this year, consider that the tagline on DeWine's ad is "Independent Fighter for Ohio Families." The word independent is underlined, so you can't miss it. For the record, the Democrats insist that DeWine's ad exaggerates his accomplishments. More revealing -- if unsurprising -- is that the role of taxpayers (or deficits) in delivering all those goodies goes without mention in his spot.

The campaign Web site of Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, one of this year's most endangered Republicans, offers a wondrous combination of old-fashioned bring-home-the-bacon politics with the best in voter-friendly technology.

The site features a section headlined: "What Conrad Burns Means to You!" (It's their exclamation point.) It brags about "Over $2 Billion Brought Back for Montana Families." What's nifty is that Montanans can click on their city, town or region -- Billings, eastern Montana, Kalispell, Bozeman, Great Falls, Missoula, Butte or Helena -- and find out their share of the take.

The "Key Accomplishments for the Billings Area" included the Montana Avenue Restoration, the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, Pompey's Pillar, the Armed Forces Reserve Center, and the Airport Road and Zimmerman Trail.

Pompey's Pillar? According to Burns's site, it's "an interpretive monument dedicated to the only signature and physical evidence of their passage through the Lewis and Clark Trail." Further checking revealed that the "signature" in question is Capt. William Clark's, carved into the monument on July 25, 1806. Very cool.

Okay, all incumbents brag. But from Craney Island, Va., to Cedarville, Ohio, to Pompey's Pillar in Montana, most Republican senators in tight races want to get your mind off that irrelevant stuff -- you know, President Bush, Iraq, the deficit, oil prices -- and on to those nice little things they've gotten that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad big government to do for you.

And if you can forget just this once that they're Republicans and instead see them as, say independent fighters, that would be nice, too.

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