Incredibly boring white guy. Vanilla, wonky and unflappable. Bloodless technocrat. Dry as dust.
Those are some of the phrases used recently to describe Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, and in other years, they might disqualify him as a vice presidential candidate. But this year, boring is beautiful.
When comedian Stephen Colbert described a Romney-Portman ticket as “the bland leading the bland,” even the potential veep could not disagree. “I mean, it was a surprise,” Portman told The Washington Post, “but it was fine. To me, it’s not about being exciting.”
Every presidential campaign is shaped by the previous one. President Barack Obama is trying — with only modest success — to duplicate the passion he generated four years ago. And Republicans are desperate to avoid the mistake they made in 2008 by picking Sarah Palin, an inexperienced and ignorant candidate who quickly became a huge liability.
Portman is the quintessential un-Palin, bland and boring, to be sure, but also safe and reliable. He will never claim to see Russia from his house in Cincinnati. More important, he is completely qualified to serve as president, perhaps even more qualified than Mitt Romney. “The guy was truly made for the job,” says Republican strategist Mark McKinnon.
The Israelis are known for their top-notch intelligence network, so it was significant recently when Portman flew to Tel Aviv and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. A freshman senator from the minority party does not usually get such treatment. But one who could wind up in the White House next year certainly does.
Four factors make Portman the ideal choice, and the first is obviously his home state. No Republican in modern times has won the presidency without Ohio, and Portman is a proven statewide vote getter, rolling up a 16-point margin two years ago and winning 82 of the state’s 88 counties. Any running mate has only a marginal impact, but a shift of fewer than 120,000 votes in Ohio would have made John Kerry president in 2004. This year is likely to be just as close.
Second, Portman has good political instincts. He’s never lost an election (winning seven House campaigns before his Senate run), and along the way he’s developed an unusual specialty: He plays the role of Democrats in preparing Republicans for high-level debates. He was so effective at channeling Obama that after one training session with John McCain, a GOP aide complained, “Portman just annihilated our guy.”
