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CEDARVILLE — Mike DeWine used to make laws, but now he makes history come alive with first-person accounts of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial and Monica Lewinsky.

DeWine's political science class at Cedarville University, a Baptist school, doesn't have to be X-rated to get the students' attention.

"It's not so much what he said, just the fact that I was hearing a first-hand account of what took place. ... He had to film a deposition of Monica. He talked about personal interaction with Monica Lewinsky. All of us in the class were just sitting there with our mouths wide open," said Drew Brown, 22, a senior from Washington Court House.

DeWine, 60, seems to enjoy himself as much as the students, but there's no doubt the former Republican senator would prefer to have won a third term in November.

A day after Democrat Sherrod Brown beat him, however, DeWine was on the phone to officials here and at Miami University in Oxford, his alma mater, asking if they'd like a former U.S. senator for a professor. Both schools accepted and he started in January.

"You've got to move on," DeWine said. "I didn't want to be sitting around and saying, 'Well, what am I going to be doing in January?' "

Besides teaching, DeWine raises money and makes calls for the presidential campaign of his friend John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona.

He also has more time for lunch with his wife, Fran.

Out of political office for the first time in 30 years, DeWine hasn't ruled out a comeback.

"It's no secret that I've always, for a long time, been interested in running for governor," he said.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or

whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.