News Summary

Ask U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown or U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine to summarize his pitch, and neither is at a loss.

Rep. Brown says that if you are fed up with Republicans, he's your man.

Sen. DeWine says that if you are fed up with partisanship, he's your man.

Both arguments strike a chord in this particular year.

Rep. Brown is the Democrat challenging Sen. DeWine in next month's election. Both are qualified by decades of experience in state and national affairs. Both are honest and decent. Both are capable and serious. Neither is a star. Both have important flaws.

Rep. Brown calls his party to the left, though that's not how he would put it. He thinks Democrats have been too meek in standing up to Republicans, that they need to be "more populist."

Sen. DeWine does not push his party to the right. On the contrary, when he has broken from it — on guns, on oil drilling in Alaska, on judicial appointments (sort of), on increasing the minimum wage, on last year's anti-gay-marriage ballot measure (which he opposed, though only on technical grounds) — he has tilted toward the political center.

He's hardly a maverick, having generally stuck with President George W. Bush on the hottest controversies. But, in these hyper-partisan times, he's shown more independence than all but a few other Senate Republicans.

Meanwhile, his signature causes have been good ones: job training, reforming foster care, AIDS funding, humanitarian support for Haiti, toughening drunken-driving laws. He has partnered with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., more than once, including in the push to get the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. A central theme has been his concern for children. He has won some battles.

These aren't the biggest, most vexing issues Congress or the nation faces, but Sen. DeWine's work is serious and affects real people.

A native of Greene County, he has also been a friend to the Dayton community on projects such as redeveloping Dayton's Wright-Dunbar neighborhood and bringing the National Park Service to the community and then increasing its presence.

He's the best choice in this election.

Rep. Brown's signature issue has been trade. He has written a book about how American workers are victimized by the government's support for free trade. He has voted against the big trade treaties, insisting they should be renegotiated to put more pressure on foreign countries to increase wages, improve working conditions and protect the environment.

He believes that these reforms and commitments — which cost money — would reduce the advantage that foreign companies have over U.S. companies and would help slow the movement of jobs overseas.

In truth, however, renegotiation would be more likely to result in no treaties or in cosmetic changes. Trying to change things dramatically in Mexico or China from Washington would be like trying to change Iraq from Washington — without troops. So he is wrong on his biggest issue.

The best case for Rep. Brown is that the country is being run by Republicans at a time when people have a right to be angry. Republicans in Washington have misled the country into a dubious war and handled it badly. They've cut taxes, including on people who didn't need the breaks, while sharply increasing overall spending, thus accumulating huge governmental debt.

Republican leaders in the White House and Congress have fostered polarization in the country by playing to a narrow conservative base, to people constantly being egged on to paranoia by right-wingers in the media and in the pulpit.

Republican governments in Washington and Columbus are under clouds of corruption.

Meanwhile, the achievements that the national Republicans lately claim for the economy have bypassed most people.

For all this, some Republicans will be rightly punished at the polls. But there's a right way and a wrong way to deprive the party of its Senate majority.

Ohioans should not punish Mike DeWine, who is not eager to kow-tow to the extreme elements of his party, who hasn't been touched by scandal, and who has accomplishments that Democratic voters must respect. Ugly, mindless, relentless partisanship is destructive to Congress and to the country — and too few are trying to stop the spread.

Sen. DeWine's record shows more respect for the political center than Rep. Brown's.

Judging by the polls, Ohioans are giving Sen. De-

Wine a good scare. He needs to get the message. With his substantial seniority, and with the new respect he will have if he survives this difficult year, he should play a bigger role. He needs to go beyond casting an occasional dissent and doing good work below the radar screen of public attention. He needs to help find a new course for his party and the government.

It's doable. Democrats changed course after a catastrophic election in 1994.

The good people in both parties have to be encouraged — and re-elected. Ohio has invested in Mike DeWine, and, more so than Sherrod Brown, he understands that Congress needs to find common ground.