Sen: Brown (D) Endorsed by Toledo Blade; DeWine (R) by Cleveland PD

Sunday's endorsement of Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Cedarville) by the Cleveland Plain Dealer came as a bitter disappointment, especially since the text of the piece praises Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Avon) and skewers DeWine on the points that should utterly disqualify him from re-election ("the go-along, play-along senator who recognized the downsides to war in Iraq, yet still voted to give President Bush carte blanche against a nation that had not attacked us ... fail[ed] to upbraid this administration publicly for its numerous omissions and mistakes ... [and] allowed the Bush administration to ride roughshod over congressional prerogatives in national security and intelligence matters"). How can anyone concede those devastating flaws and still support DeWine? Popular Plain Dealer columnist Dick Feagler could not. His column endorsing Brown appeared on the first page of the Forum section yesterday ("I'm going to vote for Sherrod because he is against this lousy war, and was from the beginning").

The ultra-conservative Cincinnati Enquirer also endorsed DeWine, but that is neither surprising nor particularly worthy of comment.

Nevertheless, the Toledo Blade saved the day for Brown by publishing a stirring, whole-hearted endorsement:

[DeWine] has been a loyal vote in Washington for President Bush and a host of failed and misguided foreign and domestic policies for the past six years. Getting the country back on the right track won't be easy, but change has to start in the halls of Congress ...

[Brown] has the experience, intelligence, and tenacity necessary to get things done in Washington [and] he has not succumbed to the insiderism that grips veteran officials who, like Mr. DeWine, forget they're supposed to be working for the people rather than advancing special interests. ...

[O]ne-party rule has been stultifying for both the state and nation, and voters have an opportunity on Nov. 7 to change that. ...

Mr. DeWine supported every one of Mr. Bush's tax cuts, even though they were tilted heavily in favor of the rich. Mr. Brown opposed the policy, not because tax cuts were involved but because he wanted to do more for the neglected middle class.

On Iraq, Mr. DeWine has supported the Bush Administration virtually chapter and verse. His membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee should have given him reason to doubt the President's claim of imminent danger, but even today he still clings to the political fiction that "everybody" believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. ... Brown would provide vital oversight and persistent questioning of Bush Administration policies that has been nonexistent under the Republican regime in Washington. ...

We have little confidence that Mr. DeWine would do anything to alter these and other misguided policies of an essentially rudderless administration.

Toledo is the nerve center of the Bureau of Workers Compensation/Coingate scandal that signalled the beginning of the end of Republican monopolization of Ohio government. The perspective of its leading paper on change vs. staying the course is very significant.