DaytonDailyNews.com

Wilmington has made it to the center of the presidential campaign. We should have expected this.

It is happening not only because that town stands to lose its overwhelmingly dominant employer — in an election year in a crucial swing state — because of the actions of a foreign company, thus raising all manner of issues about jobs and trade.

It's happening because Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain turns out to have played a role in securing for that foreign company the opportunity to move into this country in 2003.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign finds that set of facts irresistible. Said a spokesman, "By Nov. 4, in the Cincinnati and Dayton media markets, this will be something known by every voter."

Accordingly, there are radio and television ads and more.

It so happens, however, that what Sen. McCain did on DHL in 2003 was right.

And it would have been welcomed by the people of Wilmington if it had been widely known — because it resulted in jobs coming to the community.

However, the episode shines a light on Sen. McCain's long, close relationship with the lobbying world of Washington. What the light reveals is, at bottom, not comforting.

The facts: In 2003, the German company DHL wanted to make a splash in the American parcel delivery business. Specifically, it wanted to buy Airborne Express, which operated out of Wilmington. FedEx and United Parcel Service, which dominated the industry, freaked out at facing more competition.

They went to work in Washington. They got a friend — wheeler-dealer Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska — to insert a passage in pending legislation to ban foreign-owned companies from delivering certain U.S. military cargo. That would have been a blow to DHL's plan.

Sen. McCain stepped in, arguing that the limitation would put a crimp in the work of the U.S. military, which should be free to pick its own contractors. The provision was killed. And the DHL deal went forward.

Sen. McCain was not trying to move jobs to Wilmington. He was just taking a principled position. So far so good.

However, the reason he got involved in the issue might have been that his longtime friend and top political adviser, Richard A. (Rick) Davis, was lobbying for DHL.

Moreover, the possibility has to be faced that the reason Mr. Davis had the DHL contract was that he was known to be thick with Sen. McCain.

A June Washington Post story deals with Mr. Davis as a lobbyist. It quotes a developer who was involved in hiring him on another issue.

"We were like, 'OK, who's closest to Sen. McCain?' ... Rick (Davis) was one of them. We knew he was tight with the senator."

Ironically, Mr. Davis is the McCain campaign's ethics guy. He promulgated the rule that current lobbyists could not work for the senator's presidential campaign for pay and that volunteers must disclose their lobbying ties. This resulted in a spate of headline-grabbing resignations from the campaign team.

The rules he put down do nothing about a system in which lobbyists make money because they are close to politicians, by, in effect, selling their connections.

All of that having been said, the bottom line on the Obama attack is this: When the Obama people suggest that somehow Sen. McCain bears responsibility for the sad turn of events in Wilmington five years later, they can't be taken seriously.