By Paul West, Tribune Washington Bureau –
WASHINGTON — If the conventional wisdom is right, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will reject a more ideological, movement-style conservative and announce soon that he’s running with Rob Portman, a well-regarded member of the Washington establishment.
The Ohio senator held top budget and trade jobs in President George W. Bush’s administration and is Romney’s “smartest choice” for vice president, said Republican strategist Mike Murphy.
“He is already vetted and respected by the media, so no Palin-like feeding frenzy looms. He is from the must-win state of Ohio. And Portman reinforces Romney’s core message: a competent economic manager with wide experience who can help get the economy moving again,” said Murphy, a former Romney adviser.
Some influential conservative voices, including the Weekly Standard magazine and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, are promoting either Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the No. 2 spot. But each has shortcomings that keep fueling the Portman boomlet.
It’s worth noting, though, that speculation about running mates is frequently off-base.
“The VP pick almost never ends up being who you think it will be,” said a Republican strategist who has advised Portman and declined to speak on the record because he didn’t feel confident about making a prediction. “With all the fingers pointing at Portman, Pawlenty and Ryan, there’s this kind of nagging feeling that there’s some other, big surprise out there.”
In an effort to build suspense, Romney will feature potential running mates in a campaign swing that starts Saturday, including Portman, Rubio, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Romney has kept his deliberations secret, but the data driving his decision — a process of elimination involving a number of potential choices — are available for all to see.
The biggest problem facing the presumptive Republican nominee, according to national polling, is a lack of support from women voters. A running mate who could help close the gender gap would be a powerful choice.
Unfortunately for Romney, he appears to have no good options there. Two most often mentioned — New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte — have very little national seasoning, a larger-than-usual hurdle thanks to the GOP’s ultimately unhappy experience with Sarah Palin. Another longshot pick, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would bring foreign policy heft that Romney notably lacks. But her “mildly pro-choice” views on abortion could trigger a social-conservative mutiny.
McDonnell, the popular governor of swing-state Virginia, got tangled in an anti-abortion controversy over requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound test. Dredging that up could hurt Romney nationally and might well outweigh the benefits in Virginia.
Gov. Bobby Jindal comes from Louisiana, already safely in the Romney column. It’s hard to see how either he or Pawlenty, a dropout from the GOP presidential race, could do enough to help Romney carry any of the battleground states.
Rubio, a Cuban American, is the only person Romney has said that he was vetting. But picking him could prompt unhelpful media scrutiny of his finances, including use of a Republican Party credit card to charge more than $100,000 in expenses. He also was forced to alter his central political narrative after discrepancies were exposed in the history of his parents’ arrival in the U.S. from Cuba.
Ryan is unlikely to make enough of a difference in his home state of Wisconsin, where Obama is favored, and his role as the GOP’s budget architect would inflame an issue — changing Medicare — that is already a potential liability for Romney.
Christie’s blunt-spoken independence makes the New Jersey governor a risky choice, by violating one of the cardinal rules for an ideal running mate: In addition to having no skeletons in the closet, the perfect No. 2 has to give a solid convention speech, shine in the vice presidential debate — and otherwise stay discreetly in the background.
Portman, more than Romney’s other options, fills that job description. He’s been called the king of GOP debate prep, having rehearsed George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain for TV encounters. He’s discreet, which should please Romney, who abhors leaks. He has a reputation as a serious lawmaker able to work across party lines. Perhaps most important, he could add a point or two to the ticket’s total in Ohio — not a big number but perhaps enough to help flip a potentially decisive state, where Romney trails narrowly.
“If Romney doesn’t win Ohio, he’s dead,” said William Galston, a Brookings Institution political scientist.
A surprise vice-presidential pick would be out of character for the cautious, conventional Romney, but if he’s got one up his sleeve, he’ll likely reveal it very soon. The last thing his advisers want is a media scramble over the running mate that disrupts their national convention script.
A safe and boring choice, by contrast, might only be good for a short burst of publicity, which argues for waiting until just before the delegates gather in Tampa, Fla., at the end of the month.
That’s why each day that passes without an announcement from Romney makes it more likely that Ohio’s junior senator will get the call.
