From a congressman who sent inappropriate e-mails to House pages and was forced to resign, to a representative running for governor of Nevada embroiled in a scandal involving a woman not his wife, to a TV commercial with sexual and racial undertones, to innuendos about a gubernatorial candidate's sexual preference, Republicans are preoccupied with sex in this year's election.

While political observers contend that such acts are a sign of desperation, a psychologist has another explanation: Republicans are sexually repressed, thus their preoccupation with sex.

The psychologist is none other than Congressman Ted Strickland of Lisbon, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, who has been the target of a sleazy campaign by the Republicans suggesting that he's either a homosexual or is a defender of pedophiles.

While Strickland, whose 6th Congressional District encompasses a portion of Mahoning County, all of Columbiana and several counties along the Ohio River, did not offer a cure for what ails the Republicans, here's a suggestion to the GOPers: Go out and have sex for fun, rather than only for procreation. You'll be in a much better mood.

By the way, the mood change won't have an effect on the outcome of the Ohio governor's race. Barring a political collapse of historic proportions, Strickland should easily defeat Republian J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state.