toledoblade.com --

So reluctant or so unable to locate, recruit, and elect statewide candidates of substance, the Ohio Democratic Party has basically abdicated its responsibility to the two-party system in this state.

The result: The Republican stranglehold on Ohio's six constitutional offices seems as tight as ever heading into the 2002 election and time is drawing short for the Democrats to put up or shut up for another four years.

Gov. Bob Taft certainly is vulnerable, or should be, if a vigorous two-party system prevailed in this state, but at this point his only declared challenger is a relatively obscure former Cuyahoga County commissioner who would seem to have two chances to beat the incumbent: slim and none.

The late Grove Patterson, known nationally decades ago as the editor of The Blade, once observed that "Ohio is a Republican state with a Democratic governor half the time." Not any more, it would appear.

When Governor Taft succeeded George Voinovich three years ago, it was the first time a Republican governor had not succeeded a Democrat in nearly a century, if one discounts the 11-day interregnum of John W. Brown in 1957.

Since Democratic Gov. Richard Celeste relinquished the job in 1990, the Republicans have held the governor's office for 11 years and may very well hold it for another five.

Look around the Statehouse, and it's the same story. The lieutenant governor, elected in tandem with the governor, is a Republican. The secretary of state's a Republican. So's the attorney general. Same for the auditor and treasurer. Both houses of the General Assembly are under Republican control. Reapportionment of legislative districts will be determined by the Republicans, for the second decade in a row.

So complete is the GOP's domination that the constitutional officers have this game of musical chairs, moving from one office to the other and waiting their turn for the top prize, the governorship.

And the Democrats, cursed with ineffective leadership at the top in state chairman David Leland, make it easy for the Republicans by sitting out or offering feckless opposition that would have to go some to be called token. Remember Rob Burch against George Voinovich in 1994? Didn't think so.

Instead of staying true to Democratic principles, the Ohio Democratic Party seems more intent on courting big business - in other words they sound just like the other guys, the Republicans. But nobody cozies up to business better than the Republicans - the Democrats are going to lose that battle every time. Even organized labor is no longer automatically in the Democrats' column.

The Democrats also have been hurt in recent times by their liberal embrace of public unionism, which drives up the cost of government and ultimately produces higher taxes, and by the party's failure to stop or rein in former Speaker of the House Vern Riffe when he was running the legislature like some Banana Republic dictator.

Underscoring the Democrats' statewide futility is the fact that the mayors of Ohio's eight largest cities are all Democrats, yet the best the party can do, at least so far, is Tim Hagan for governor. The Democrats have names like Lee Fisher, Mary Boyle, and Sherrod Brown, but they won't come forward.

If the Ohio Democratic Party can't serve the public in this hour of public need, if it can't come back from its sickbed now, why should it ever come back?

In the absence of any clear alternative, the status quo usually prevails, even if the entrenched leadership is anemic and uninspiring. The quality of the Republicans' governance has declined along with their humility while their weak Democratic opposition has forfeited the swing voters who decide statewide elections.

It is a shameful performance on both sides and a corruption of the process. The Republicans show signs of running out of steam, but the Ohio Democratic Party has run out of ideas. Less than six weeks from the Feb. 21 filing deadline for this year's statewide candidates, the Democrats are still scouring the state for somebody - anybody - to fill out their slate.

Could the Democrats win with credible candidates? Of course. We hold to the theory that the public does not like long-term leadership that fails to excite or which seems arrogant and uncaring.

Many Ohioans believe in the British philosophy, we suspect, that one side rules for a period of time, then the other side gets its chance. Generally speaking, the voting public tends to stay in the middle. It allows one party to govern, then it reclaims the center by giving the other party an opportunity.

But no change at the top seems likely in the bleak election cycle that is taking shape. The Democrats are acting like losers already. If that attitude prevails, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Ohio's two-party system will become even more of a joke.

Gerald Austin, a veteran Democratic Party campaign consultant in Ohio, took note of his party's plight when he told the Columbus Dispatch: "For years we had no issues but we had candidates, and now we have issues but no candidates."

Question is: Is his party ready to do the soul-searching that can fix it?

Or is the party over?

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