Joining other GOP state chairmen in Washington for a meeting sponsored by the Republican National Committee, DeWine will vote no on a scheduled resolution calling on Democrats to rename their party the "Democrat Socialist Party."

"That sort of noise is unproductive; it is not helpful," DeWine said.

To Democrats, the re-branding resolution symbolizes the plight of a party stuck in the past and searching for a leader, its rebirth stunted by divisive voices filling the void, namely former Vice President Dick Cheney and talk radio's Rush Limbaugh.

"They've got to start offering real solutions," said Sherrod Brown, Ohio's Democratic senator. "Name-calling, telling the Democrats to change their name, it just hurts them. This whole fight with Limbaugh and Cheney over who is the spokesman for the party, it's just trivial."

At its lowest point in a generation, the Republican Party is groping to find its way back. After dismal election performances in 2006 and 2008, the party faces daunting disadvantages: A Gallup Poll released this week shows that, nationally, the number of self-identified Republicans fell to 21 percent last month, the lowest since fall 1983.

And in Ohio, Democrats had a nearly 1 million voter-registration advantage over Republicans going into last November's presidential election. Trends showing growing numbers of young and minority Americans rejecting the GOP are especially ominous.

"The diversity of the United States has changed, and if the Republicans are going to take advantage of that nationally, they're going to have to change," said John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron.

Green said the Ohio GOP is better positioned than the national party because it has a tradition of promoting candidates who are more centrist.

In comments yesterday to the state party leaders, national Republican Chairman Michael Steele said the GOP is "beginning to rally" at the grass roots, declaring: "The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over."

Interviews with Ohio Republican activists revealed a surprisingly upbeat view about next year's statewide elections and a gathering excitement about a prospective ticket led by former U.S. Reps. John R. Kasich of Westerville for governor and Rob Portman of Cincinnati for the U.S. Senate.

"I've been a volunteer for our party for about 28 years, but I haven't been this excited about what's coming for 2010 for our party since I first got involved when Ronald Reagan brought me into the party," said Kent Moore, chairman of the Belmont County GOP.

Ohio party leaders say attendance and enthusiasm at county Lincoln Day dinners is high and the party is poised for a comeback.

DeWine characterized the party's current low tide as "a blip" but acknowledged "systematic problems." The GOP has "a responsibility to present to the people of Ohio and across America an agenda that solves problems."

To that end, DeWine and other GOP leaders agree that the party must return to principles of lower taxes, less spending and smaller government -- issues on which the party lost credibility as the Bush administration spent big and built record deficits.

President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus and $3.5 trillion budget have emboldened Republicans to reassert their fiscal conservativeness and warn voters about government-expansionist tendencies of Democrats in Washington and Columbus.

"The numbers speak for themselves, and while we do have a credibility problem as a party, at the end of Obama's four years or even in two years, more and more Americans and more and more editorial boards are going to say, 'Wow, this is not the kind of change that most Americans thought they would get,'  " said U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township.

Democrats counter that the GOP misread the results of last year's presidential election, contending that voters signaled a desire for more effective and innovative government, not necessarily a smaller or more passive government.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Youngstown Democrat, said the GOP's social-conservative base presents an intolerant front that has hurt the party's appeal and chased away its pragmatists in Congress.

"There's maybe a handful of moderate Republicans left," Ryan said.

jhallett@dispatch.com