Ohio Senator Rob Portman has been a regular in the speculation over who Mitt Romney might taps for the shotgun seat in his ride toward the White House. Up until now, a lot of that has just been idle What-Ifs tossed around by the press corps. But recent reports floating around the web say Portman has had a good number of meetings with the Romney camp, including the staffer carrying the ball on the Veepstakes.
The Atlantic reports Portman has had six meetings with the campaign. One of those included a chat with Beth Myers who is vetting potential running mates. Portman has said these chats weren’t specific vetting sit downs, just his way of letting the campaign know what’s going on in Ohio. Seems it would easier if they just followed the leading alt-weekly’s news blog. Hm.
The Atlantic gives the Portman-as-VP idea a lot of weight. Handicapping the running mate game with some flair, they put it as follows:
If you imagine the veepstakes as Mario Kart (or the Queen’s Croquet or a heated round of bridge or anything since this is imaginary), then former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is making a late surge while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are falling off. ”
The real question is whether the Romney camp has seen Portman’s chicken.
This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2012.
It seems like the VP is going the same way as the primaries. The really bad possibilities self-destruct and then the last guy standing is the guy they wanted all along, but not very badly. More than half of the republican voters kind of hated Mitt Romney until there was no one else but Ron Paul, or Paul Ron or whoever the republican is that the young ones like. But for VP Rubio or Christie would be great from an Obama point of view….I mean Chris Christie is just a republican Jimmy Dimara; and Rubio is just a George Zimmerman type of vigilant right-wing guy who has NRA connections.