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DeWine brings D.C. to Miami University
Monday, April 09, 2007
CEDARVILLE — Mike DeWine didn't hang around Washington or take a government-related job after the U.S. Senate finished its business in December. He headed home to Cedarville and to his alma mater, Miami University.
"I haven't been back in Washington," DeWine said recently. "I'm not saying I won't. (But) this is my home."
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DeWine liked serving in the Senate and didn't enjoy for a minute the beating he took last November from Democrat Sherrod Brown, who won 56 percent of the vote. But there was a drawback to being a member of the exclusive club of 100 members.
"The only thing I didn't like about the job in the Senate was we were not home as much as we wanted to be home," said DeWine, 60.
The DeWines and their 14-year-old daughter Anna, the youngest of their eight children, live in a restored farmhouse near Cedarville.
DeWine teaches a political science class twice a week at Cedarville University. He also teaches once a week at Miami University in Oxford, where DeWine majored in education as an undergraduate. He went to law school at Ohio Northern University after graduating and never taught full-time.
So far, he's enjoying the challenge. "I've always liked interaction with young people," he said.
His classroom approach matches his legislative style: understated but deliberate. He doesn't lecture so much as explain, while quietly pacing in a dark suit and red striped tie, the same uniform he wore in the Senate.
During a recent class, DeWine discussed Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign that unseated Democrat Jimmy Carter as president. Reagan famously asked Carter: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" The question came at a time of high unemployment, increasing inflation and high energy prices.
"That's a pretty strong question," DeWine told the class. "It's a great question to ask if you know the answer."
Matthew Pollard, 21, a senior, liked the former senator's discussion on "earmarks," the provisions members of Congress add to legislation to provide money for specific projects in their states or districts. Critics blast earmarks as a major reason for out-of-control federal spending. DeWine made Pollard see another side.
"He just brought out the idea. 'Everybody complains about earmarks. You vote us into the Senate. Someone has got to spend the money. You ... elected us to do that ... We decide how to do that'," Pollard recalled.
DeWine clearly misses some of those decisions.
"I miss the ability to see a problem and try to fix it," he said. He recalled the last deal he put together before Congress adjourned in December, a bill giving trade preferences to Haiti, the impoverished nation whose cause DeWine championed in the Senate.
He won't discuss Brown's performance in the Senate nor talk much about political plans of his own, other than to acknowledge he has long harbored a desire to be governor.
"You know, it's too early," he said. "I think we need to let our current governor settle into his job."
Besides teaching, DeWine raises money and makes calls for the presidential campaign of his friend Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
C
ontact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.
