From the Columbus Dispatch:

A lawyer who made a name for himself in the 1990s prosecuting drug dealers and baseball legend Pete Rose will be the Republican candidate for Ohio attorney general in November.

D. Michael Crites, whose election experience is limited to one term on the Olentangy Local School District board, rose to the top of a small pool of Republicans willing to take on Democratic state Treasurer Richard Cordray for the job.

Republicans think that Crites’ legal acumen — he has a stellar rating in a lawyers’ peer-review system — and extensive military background will compensate for his relative lack of name recognition and fundraising experience.

As reported first on Dispatch.com, Crites confirmed Monday afternoon that he’d been approached by Ohio Republican Party officials about running in November, and a source said yesterday that the 60-year-old Powell resident is the party’s choice.

Crites did not return a call yesterday, and party officials declined to confirm the selection until a planned Statehouse news conference today.

Crites, Cordray and independent candidate Robert M. Owens are expected to be on the ballot for the November special election to replace Democrat Marc Dann, who resigned as Ohio’s top lawyer in May. Dann was less than midway through his term when allegations of sexual harassment in the office and mismanagement, as well as his own admission of an affair with an employee, created pressure on him to step down.

Although Crites has been in the public eye rarely since leaving the Olentangy school board in 1997, he frequently made news as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio from 1986 to 1993.

His term coincided with the influx of crack cocaine into many Midwestern cities, including Cincinnati and Columbus, and Crites got national attention as an aggressive prosecutor of the drug trade.

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