Sen: Bush Again Plays Sugar Daddy to DeWine (R)

Unpopular President George Bush (R) visits Ohio this week to campaign and raise money for Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Cedarville) for the third time, the most such visits for any Congressional candidate this cycle. While DeWine's new TV commercial attempts to portray him as "independent," his record and Bush's stalwart support prove that he is nothing more then a rubberstamping sycophant for Bush. Late last week DeWine even admitted as much.

A Toledo Blade story on Friday reported that DeWine is the "only statewide candidate not to offer Ohioans a major policy proposal this year":

"If you want to see what we're going to do in the next term, I think people need to look at the long list of things I've done in the past," Mr. DeWine, from Cedarville, said. "I think that's a pretty good indication of what I'll do in the future."

If I were Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Avon), I think I'd repeat that quote at every campaign stop from now to November 7, within a few seconds of arrival.

Just what is this long list of things DeWine has done in the past? He has supported the Bush agenda over 90% of the time. Here's a list of things DeWine has done in the past:

*** Supported the 2005 GOP energy bill, based on the recommendations of Vice President Dick Cheney's oil executive-led energy task force. The legislation provided billions in subsidies to oil and gas companies, leading to record profits for the industry, but failed to provide relief to consumers. (DeWine has taken more than $400,000 in campaign contributions from the energy industry.)

*** Supported the Bush-supported Medicare bill that gave $100 billion in subsides to the drug industry but left seniors with gaps in coverage of more than $2,000 and prohibited the agency from negotiating for lower prices like the VA does. (DeWine has taken more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from the drug industry.)

*** Voted for every job-killing trade agreement that the Bush administration negotiated. (Ohio has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush and DeWine took office in 2001. DeWine has taken more than $1 million in campaign contributions from companies that outsource U.S. jobs.)

*** Voted against raising the minimum wage nine times.

*** Supported the Bush tax cuts, which provide more than $1 trillion to the richest Americans and are largely targeted towards the top one percent, while largely abandoning middle class families already struggling with rising tuition, health care, and energy costs.

*** Voted for the Iraq War (having rubberstamped the false intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that never materialized), failed to investigate pre-war intelligence failures (just two weeks ago, he refused to sign onto a bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report which accounted for some of the administration's intelligence failures); and continues to support the administration's stay-the-course strategy in Iraq. (123 Ohioans have been killed in Iraq since the war began. More U.S. troops have now been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than Americans died on 9/11, and the government's own national intelligence agencies report that the Iraq War has made the threat of terrorism worse.)

So, it's no surprise at all to see Bush dropping into Ohio over and over to try to salvage DeWine's campaign with more millions from Republican contributors. If re-elected, DeWine will continue the same slavish pattern of Bush-supporting votes that marked his last six years in the Senate.