Talk Elections

Consensus opinion among political analysts is that Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio not even a year and a half into his first term in the senate, will be Romney's running mate this fall.

Let's just say for a second that he is the VP nominee and Romney is the presidential. How does Portman impact the race? How much does he affect Ohio?

Just speculating, but I'll start by saying he'd make more of a difference nationally than in Ohio. He's definitely conservative but I just don't see the Portman following here in Ohio the way I do other senators or prominent politicians(longer term I suppose) in other states. Voinovich, for example, was a very popular senator/governor here in Ohio and I think he would have had an impact if he were chosen for this role in his hayday.

I agree. Most people don't know who Portman is so won't have much if any local effect in Ohio. He is a good candidate still because he comes across as sensible and competent.

If Romney wants to lose by an even bigger margin than he's already going to, he should pick Portman.

I think Portman is great. He's like everything good about Romney without the bad.

Portman is a safe pick. He'd beat Biden in the VP debate, he's very experienced, and he'd help carry Ohio. I personally would like him as a VP or President one day, but I don't think he is what the GOP needs to energize its own party, which is crucial if Romney wants to win this. He's going to be crushed in money, he has to raise a volunteer army to compete.

The money balance won't be that unbalanced.  Romney could use a volunteer army, but he's shown no inclination to organize one, so even if had a running mate who could raise one for him, it would likely be a rudderless mob, not achieving very much.

Meh. Nominal benefit in ohio.most swing voters outside his old district care much about him. Safe white bread--in every sense of the term--choice.

One thing to bear in mind, is that Veep candidates have far more potential to hurt you then help you. They have all been essentially useless to negative except for:

1. LBJ - he probably carried TX for Kennedy (lots and lots of votes were stolen, but probably not 20,000 of them, or 40,000 if all due to ballot box stuffing), and if Kennedy lost TX, then Illinois with the 8,000 vote margin would have been litigated, and its result may well have been reversed, in which case Kennedy would have lost.

2. Lieberman - he almost carried FL for Gore, or did carry FL for Gore depending on your point of view.

So, making a cautious choice unless your campaign is in irons, is probably the sensible one, which best balances the risk/reward ratio.

The only problem with picking Portman is that if he wins I'll lose a great Senator.

Portman is a nice guy, but I may remeber everybody that Obama has a big chance of winning without Ohio.

I'm beginning to warm up to the idea of a Romney/Portman ticket.

How is it that you always post things which are literally the opposite of the truth? I don't think I've ever seen one of your posts I agree with.

Portman can help Romney in Ohio but he won't help in some must-win states.

So Ohio isn't a must win state for Romney?

Must-win states that I'm calling are Virginia and North Carolina.

I would say that too.. But we should take a look at Pennsylvania and Iowa.

Romney needs to win more swing states than Obama.

Take a look at this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GekQ3Y-qBJo

Huh?? You want someone a bit more in the Paul or Johnson mode and you're warming-up to PORTMAN as a running mate?!?

You are bound and determined to convince yourself to vote for Romney, aren't you? ;)

This is silly, Portman would be a horrible pick. He was in charge of Bush's budget office for only a single year, yet the national debt raised half a trillion dollars under his watch. Obama will be seeking to tie Romney to the negative perception of Bush's policies, and a VP pick like Portman would make such a task much easier for him. Besides, Portman's only been in the Senate for two years and doesn't really have anything to bring to the ticket anyway.


He won't be old enough to vote anyway, no? :P

I don't even know anymore :P

Dems keep trying to make hay from associations like that but it never works.

I'm not trying to look at this through a partisan lens, but instead from the point of view of Romney's campaign and whether a pick strategically makes sense for them. If Romney is going to win, he's going to need to focus like a laser on Obama's economic failures; given that plenty of swing voters are still partially blaming Bush for things, it's very detrimental for Romney to have a running mate that held a cabinet-level position supervising Bush's budget, as it essentially hands Obama a new line of attack to define Portman negatively, attack Romney, and directly connect him to Bush.

Besides, especially with the deficit thing, it opens the possibility to attack ads that would say something to the effect of,

"Romney claims he wants to reduce the national debt, but his Vice Presidential nominee created a budget for George W. Bush that included an unprecedented deficit of over half a trillion dollars. Can we trust Mitt Romney's judgement with our economy?"

Something more polished and to-the-point, of course, but you get the gist. Of course there are plenty of counter-arguments to be made and everything but certainly Romney would rather avoid making his opponent's narrative any easier to build.

Yeah, i don't think Portman is going to be the VP.  He is too closely tied with the Bush White house. 

Also, I don't think anyone outside of federal employees will consider him to be presidentially capable.  His media presence and awareness is too low. 

I think Big Picture, its just easier to predict who the VP possibilities are at least 2 years ago.  The VP shouldn't be someone who just recently arrived in govt.  The VP needs to be someone who is well respected by the national public. 

I've always thought that the VP will be Thune, DeMint, or maybe Frist. 

The CSM says (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/0423/Rob-Portman-for-the-GOP-veep-Not-if-2008-is-any-guide-video) that, if history is a guide, Romney won't pick Portman.