False Dilemma

Why vote against them all? National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru suggests that the right's discontents "figure out which Republicans are part of the solution and which part of the problem." Those who most highly value "immigration, for example...might vote for Sens. [Rick] Santorum or [Jim] Talent but not for [Mike] DeWine."

Keeping a vote from Mike DeWine will only benefit Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown, who is no wiser an investment for voters; in this case voters particularly concerned about illegal aliens. The time to disavow DeWine was in May, when the senator faced a primary challenge from two Republicans. DeWine won with nearly three-quarters of the vote, so any protest from Republicans in November would be tergiversation — one might ask where the intransigents had been six months prior.

Any punitive objective is, in Ohio, inapt. Correlation between the electorate's assigned importance to economic rejuvenation, and its distinct preference for the equivocal statism of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland (over Republican Kenneth Blackwell's luculent free-market prescription) is strong. With what Ohio gives the Grand Old Party, Reaganites are not included.

Who, among those looking to make Mike DeWine and the party sorry, will, in 2012, furnish a Republican candidate to precisely their — and somehow the state's — liking?

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