COLUMBUS – The COVID-19 pandemic is keeping the Indians and Reds on the sidelines. No Major League balls and strikes, home runs or double plays in Cleveland and Cincinnati, at least for now.
Here in Columbus, the plague even forced the cancellation of Ohio State football’s spring game, a near sacred ritual that provides an annual forecast of what to expect in the fall when the Buckeye Battle Cry fills the air.
But if you’re desperate for action-packed entertainment, don’t despair.
Just tune in your TV most any weekday afternoon for High Wire Mike, Ohio’s Republican governor on a political tightrope.
The unity that followed the early and largely successful efforts by Gov. DeWine and health director Dr. Amy Acton to contain the virus has faded away.
DeWine is trying to maintain his balance while being pulled one way by critics who want to open up the state quicker and pushed the other way by those who believe the governor is going too far too quickly.
For the time being, the governor is keeping his balance, thanks largely to Senate President Larry Obhof, the Medina Republican.
House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and his Republican House caucus gave DeWine a hard shove the other day by approving legislation that would limit orders issued by Acton to 14 days and require approval by a joint legislative panel to extend them. Householder and his pals also gave the OK to legislation reducing penalties for violating those orders. DeWine threatened a veto.
It doesn’t look like that will be necessary. Obhof, according to the Columbus Dispatch, promised to consider anything the House passes but seemed in no hurry to clip DeWine’s and Acton’s wings. He lauded DeWine’s reaction to the pandemic and praised him for not closing gun stores and churches, one way to measure restraint.
It’s mainly the Democrats in the legislature and elsewhere who think DeWine’s moving too quickly. You could almost feel them twitch when DeWine flip-flopped on an order that would have required Ohioans to wear masks while shopping. That order was a “bridge-too-far,” said the governor, while still urging Ohioans to keep their faces covered.
There are too few Democrats in either the House or Senate to cause much trouble for DeWine, but he could need their help if Obhof and Householder make peace and DeWine is forced to veto legislation that he and Acton believe would endanger Ohioans.
DeWine is not the first Ohio governor to walk a high wire. Most successful ones have. The best I ever watched was Republican James A. Rhodes, the only governor elected to consecutive four-year terms twice (1963-1971 and 1975-1983).
Rhodes was said to be hiding “in the weeds” when it came to making tough choices. Still, he successfully pursued his “jobs and progress” agenda with policies that somehow made him popular in corporate board rooms, union halls and enough other places to keep from being pushed off the high wire.
A close second when it came to balancing acts was Democrat Richard F. Celeste, the Yale-educated political charmer from suburban Cleveland. Celeste was both a Rhodes Scholar and, as he liked to say, a “Rhodes’ scholar,” who learned enough from his defeat by James A. Rhodes in 1978 to return the favor in 1986 when he clobbered Rhodes, stymying his effort to win a fifth term and ending the Republican’s political career.
Celeste is the only Democratic governor to win consecutive four-year terms, in 1982 and then against Rhodes four years later.
In Celeste’s day, there was enough variety among Democrats — liberal, moderate and the occasional conservative — to force a successful statewide candidate to do an intra-party balancing act.
In his first successful campaign in 1982 Celeste managed to appeal to big city liberals and more moderate Democrats in southern Ohio and elsewhere by picking Myrl Shoemaker of Bourneville in rural Ross County, south of Columbus, as his lieutenant governor running mate.
Shoemaker was a top ally of then Ohio House Speaker Vern Rife, a moderate Democrat from Scioto County in southern Ohio. Rife was unofficially the most powerful Democrat in the state until Celeste’s election, and even after that they may have been tied.
His balancing act helped Celeste stabilize state spending, modernize Ohio’s economy and pay attention to needy Ohioans too often ignored in the past.
Both Rhodes and Celeste used their balancing acts for worthy goals.
For DeWine, however, staying on the high wire is even more important — a matter of life or death for more than 11 million Ohioans.
William Hershey is a former Washington correspondent and Columbus bureau chief for the Beacon Journal. He can be reached at hershey_william@hotmail.com.
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