P.G. Sittenfeld, a Cincinnati city councilman, is running for the United States Senate. But an awful lot of people are trying to keep that fact a secret. I think they ill serve themselves and the people of Ohio.

The Democratic Party of Ohio, which has an abysmal record of electing people in recent years — that is, at engaging in political competition — doesn’t want Mr. Sittenfeld to compete either.

Mr. Sittenfeld is running in the Democratic primary, which will be held next March, against former Gov. Ted Strickland. The winner of that primary will face incumbent Sen. Rob Portman, a popular and well financed Republican who casts himself as a moderate in a sea of right-wing zealots and yahoos.

Mr. Portman IS a man of moderate and modest temperament, but his reasonableness seldom seems to manifest itself in significant legislation or as an influence on his party. He is forever forging bipartisan alliances that go precisely nowhere and he seems often irrelevant to D.C. and Ohio.

It’s good to talk softly, but in politics, you have to carry that big stick as well.

Would Mr. Strickland or Mr. Sittenfeld have more impact?

I’m not convinced.

Mr. Strickland, so far, is a Senate candidate without a platform. He has largely been silent on guns, on terrorism, on immigration. He does occasionally articulate a vague populism, but, thus far, he seems to be concentrating on fund-raising.

So the two front-runners are two heads of fund-raising juggernauts, with no real grounding or depth in issues. One gets the impression that a race without ideas, or the competition of ideas, is precisely what both men would prefer: Politics reduced to big money and 30-second ads.

Pretty uninspiring.

Enter Mr. Sittenfeld. His party, which has endorsed Mr. Strickland, ignores him and even attempts to silence him. Much of the state’s media ignores him too (TV) or puts stories about him on the obit page.

I was skeptical of Mr. Sittenfeld also. Mr. Strickland and Mr. Portman are both vastly more experienced in government. But then I met and interviewed him a few weeks ago. Congress is broken. While his two elders fund-raise and keep silent, Mr. Sittenfeld is like a brisk autumn wind. He tells people where he stands. He has been particularly eloquent on the issues of gun violence and gun control.

Last week he said: “Every time [a mass shooting happens] our reaction is the same. We weep. We mourn. And we say never again. But then nothing changes. Nothing happens. Nothing ever gets done.”

He’s for universal background checks, without loopholes, including time limits on the checks. He’s for reinstating the federal ban on military-style assault weapons. He’s for banning gun sales to the severely mentally ill and those with a criminal record of domestic violence. And something else: microstamping ammunition so the police can trace bullets fired. I know I will hear from NRA friends, but to me, and I think to most Americans, these are hardly radical proposals. They are reasonable; they simply make sense.

Finally, P.G. Sittenfeld just might have a better chance of beating Rob Portman than Ted Strickland does. That’s what Toledoan and former Democratic state party chair Jim Ruvolo believes. He thinks if Mr. Strickland is the nominee the election will be about him and his term as governor, when Ohio was in recession. And Mr. Strickland will have a very hard time winning. But if Mr. Sittenfeld is the nominee, the election will be about the obstructionist and extremist majority in Congress. And Mr. Portman will have a hard time winning.

So, the Democrats may be locking out the guy who is actually their best bet.

Well, dumber things have happened.

“Stand for something,” John Kasich once wrote.

That is the mood of many Americans today: Stand for SOMETHING.

Mr. Sittenfeld should be dealt into the game just because he’s standing for something, especially on guns.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade. Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published November 24, 2015, 5:00 a.m.