U.S. Senator Mike DeWine is catching up on some traditional values positions as the wake up call from conservatives seems to be getting louder. Just less than 48 hours after Phil Burress, President of Citizens for Community Values chastised both DeWine and U.S. Senator George Voinovich for their reluctance to support the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment, DeWine came out saying he will be a co-sponsor of the proposed Constitutional Amendment, to be brought up for a vote in the Senate in June.

   Burress gave DeWine and Voinovich the tongue lashing last month during CCV’s annual Spring Partnership Banquet at Xavier University to a room full of well-heeled conservative traditional values supporters. Speculation suggests that some DeWine supporters in that room may have given the long term Senator a heads up that core values folks are getting restless and there are other choices on the Primary ballot.

   In his hunt for conservative causes, the senator went seeking the support of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Grover Norquist, ATR president said that DeWine was one of nine senators who have not signed a pledge never to vote for a tax increase. Norquist said, “I expect he will take the pledge.” DeWine is still looking at the “language.” To his credit, Senator DeWine has never voted for a tax increase, and supports making President Bush’s tax cuts permanent.

   However, he did upset another major conservative group: the National Rifle Association. DeWine voted against a NRA priority: “a bill protecting gun manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits from unlawful use of their firearms.” Washington Times April 7.

   And there are many Ohio farmers who remember the Darby Creek attempted land grab that had DeWine’s fingerprints all over it. The Citizen USA reported extensively on the effort to take family farms and turn them back to their natural state of unproductive swamp and mosquito land.

   All this dissatisfaction with DeWine has insiders reporting that a recent National Republican Senatorial Committee poll conducted on behalf of DeWine has the incumbent senator dropping from previous polls to 41% with challengers David Smith gaining at 29% and William Pierce at 10%. The undecided are at 20%. Insiders say this shows that DeWine is beatable.

   Add to that, in February, Miami County Republican Party delegates cast 228 votes for DeWine, 118 for David Smith and 78 for William Pierce. And when the Preble County Republican Party voted for whom to endorse, after two ballots, the vote was tied between DeWine and Pierce.

   Worrisome indeed for party hardliners, in fact, an interesting telephone poll in Montgomery County is slated to happen in the coming weeks, asking some very telling questions: Do you identify yourself as closer to the Democratic Party, Republican Party or some other party? Did you support amending the Ohio Constitution to define marriage as between only one man and one woman? Do you support the second amendment right to keep and bear arms? Do you consider yourself pro-life, pro-choice or undecided? Do you support US Senator Mike DeWine?

   While Values Voters are looking around at their choices, the prevailing political posturing of some republicans is that we have to support DeWine in the Primary, because if he does not come out with the strong republican nomination, then Democrat Sherrod Brown may win the general election, and a moderate to sometimes left-of-moderate republican is better than an extreme liberal democrat.

   Well meaning folks who love to get their fingers into the political process are working behind closed doors to try and sway DeWine and other moderate to left-of-moderate candidates toward conservative traditional values. But unless there is a heart change, those politicians will swing back to their core belief (or lack thereof).

   Christian conservatives in Ohio have been feeling the disconnect since shortly after the 2004 republican victory when Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman informed us that Jo Ann Davidson was being picked as the co-chair of the RNC because she “helped direct a historic grassroots effort that enabled President Bush to win Ohio by a decisive margin.” We thought it was the Values Voters who helped get the over 500,000 signatures that enabled Issue One, Ohio’s marriage amendment to get on the ballot, which brought out the voters that voted for President Bush. That was the largest single voter turn out in the history of Ohio and more people voted for the marriage amendment than voted for the office of President.

   Conservatives, particularly social conservatives who tend to be faithful to traditional Judeo-Christian values, are starting to feel empowered as we get closer to election day. Remember, we got out of the pews, we got to the polls and we will vote our values May 2.