Gov. DeWine's critics will keep grumbling — and voting Republican

A half-dozen GOP county organizations in western and southwestern Ohio are unhappy with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. In a way, that would be a bigger deal if those same Republicans said they were happy with how DeWine, of Greene County's Cedarville, does his job. Draw a north-south line through Columbus. Except for Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo and (depending on the year) Dayton, western Ohio is reliably Republican. Columbus, too, was once reliably Republican. But Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan wrecked Northeast Ohio, and scads of its younger natives moved to Columbus. The state income tax, enacted in 1971 by a Republican-run General Assembly, funded more state services – hence, more state jobs. Earlier, though, President John F. Kennedy, speaking at a 1962 Ohio Democratic dinner, wryly said, "There is no city in the United States in which I get a warmer welcome and less votes than Columbus, Ohio!" Statewide, there are Republicans and "Republicans." It's "socialism" if the federal and state governments provide health care to low-income Ohioans via Medicaid expansion – one of then-Gov. John Kasich's lasting accomplishments. But the ocean of federal tax money that subsidizes Ohio agribusiness and factory farming? Hey! That's The American Way. And at least since the 1960s, GOP voters in the suburban crescent around Cincinnati (Butler, Clermont and Warren counties) seem to live in a permanent state of discontent. That region's General Assembly delegation is among the most newsworthy in the Statehouse because of the sometimes edgy (the nice word) bills those legislators propose, especially pertaining to guns and abortion. One thing southwest Ohio's not is wine-and-cheese country. In 1968, when Hubert H. Humphrey, Richard M. Nixon and Alabama segregationist George C. Wallace ran for president, race-baiter Wallace drew just under 12 percent of Ohio's statewide vote. But Wallace drew 25 percent of the presidential vote in Warren County (Lebanon), the biggest share that Wallace drew in any Ohio county, and 19 percent in Butler County (Hamilton). Moreover, western Ohio Republicans have sent to Congress such robustly conservative Republicans as the Marion super-isolationist, Dr. Frederick C. Smith; Middletown's Donald E. (Buz) Lukens, once president of the Young Republican National Federation; and Urbana's Jim Jordan. Things didn't end well for Lukens, born in Warren County's Harveysburg; he eventually landed in prison. But fans of Jim Jordan think he could reach the White House, not as a visitor, but as its tenant.. In separate developments last month, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, five Republican county parties in western Ohio approved a letter criticizing DeWine for his stewardship of the state during the coronavirus pandemic: Darke; Mercer; Shelby; Van Wert; and Williams. (Williams is where Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, DeWine's running mate, grew up.) Warren County's ever-simmering GOP later chimed in. It's hard to figure why Republicans in heavily Catholic Mercer, one of just two Ohio counties that supported Catholic Democrat Al Smith for president in 1928, have a big problem with Mike DeWine. Without demagoguing the issue, he's sincerely, consistently, opposed abortion. In any case, none of those counties is likely to support any Democrat who might challenge Republican DeWine for re-election as Ohio's governor in 2022. Yes, then-Gov. Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat from Lakewood, was able to peel some of western Ohio's usually Republican voters from the GOP in 1986, when four-term Republican ex-Gov. James A. Rhodes challenged Celeste's re-election. But in 2016, pro-Donald Trump margins in the six counties whose GOP organizations groused about DeWine ranged from 69 percent (Williams) to 80 percent (Mercer). Voters in those counties aren't going to prefer a Democrat for governor over Mike DeWine. The grumbling, of course, will continue; it's a regional tradition. Last week, to fight the pandemic, DeWine ordered people to wear anti-coronavirus masks in a number of counties. Among them: Cuyahoga, Summit, Lorain and Trumbull – and Hamilton County (Cincinnati) plus two simmering Cincinnati suburbs, Butler and Clermont counties. (The village of Bethel, where Black Lives Matter protesters and counterprotesters clashed in June, is in Clermont.) DeWine's order won't win him fans among Republican voters predisposed to complain. But it will save lives – including the lives of Ohioans who will survive to gripe another day. Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens. ——— ©2020 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Visit The Plain Dealer, Cleveland at www.cleveland.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.