SENATE CANDIDATES DEBATE TUESDAY
»U.S. Senate candidates Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher have their last debate at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Columbus. The debate will air live on WHIO-TV Digital Channel 7.2. The televised debates are hosted by the eight largest newspapers in Ohio, including the Dayton Daily News.
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COLUMBUS— Tom Meyer knew Rob Portman long before Portman embarked on a career that found him working for two presidents named Bush, negotiating global trade deals and this year running as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Meyer was his boss when Portman, as a college student, spent the summer working for the Portman Equipment Co., the family forklift truck business in Cincinnati.
He had the grimy job nobody wanted – grinding off old paint on trucks that needed to be repainted.
It was, said Meyer, the “lowest job in the place.” Portman embraced it.
“Rob didn’t come in to drink coffee,” added Meyer. “He came in to get the job done. He was busy 99 percent of the time.”
Portman, 54, received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
The education he got on the shop floor in Cincinnati at the company his dad Bill started with borrowed money, however, provided the lessons that have guided his life: taxes should be low and government should be limited so businesses can create jobs and put people to work, enabling them to take care of themselves and their families.
It has fueled his opposition to what Portman considers an expensive and overreaching overhaul of the health care system and his advocacy for a one-year suspension of the payroll tax.
Portman’s dad demanded that his children, including Rob, learn the business from the bottom up, said Meyer.
“There wasn’t any favoritism at all,” said Meyer.
Portman’s dad grew the company, which was sold in 2004, from five to 300 employees.
“He was my inspiration to do this in the first place — the need to encourage risk taking ... the American strength is small business and so in a very real way he started this journey for me,” Portman said recently aboard his campaign RV as it rumbled from a meeting at the editorial board of the Canton Repository to a roundtable with business people in Wooster.
Portman’s dad died in August at 88 but his memory is Portman’s companion in what he says is an unexpected return to the campaign trail.
Running for office wasn’t in his plans
Portman returned to Ohio full time after resigning as President George W. Bush’s budget director in 2007. It ended nearly 20 years of service in Washington, D.C., and a lot of time commuting back to the home he kept in the Cincinnati suburbs.
Portman worked for President George H.W. Bush as an associate counsel, a deputy assistant and director of the office of legislative affairs from 1989-1991.
Then in 1993 he was elected to fill a U.S. House vacancy and re-elected six times before resigning in 2005 to become U.S. trade representative for President George W. Bush, the job Portman had before becoming budget director in 2006.
“I had not planned to run for anything,” said Portman. He enjoyed being at home more with wife Jane and their three children, practicing law and teaching. There was even time to coach his daughter’s soccer team.
That all changed in January 2009 when Republican U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, announced that he wouldn’t seek a third term.
Portman said Voinovich’s decision caught him by surprise.
“In December, I co-hosted an event for George Voinovich in Cincinnati. That shows you how sure I was (that Voinovich would seek re-election),” said Portman.
Policies advocated by the new Obama administration helped him make up his mind, said Portman.
“The new administration coming in made it clear what they were going to do, which was dramatically increase spending ... trying to force a big health care solution on our families and our economy...,” Portman said.
He talked over a return to politics with his wife.
“The more we talked about it, we really agreed it was kind of an all-hands-on-deck moment for our country,” said Jane Portman.
They had met on a blind date that “kind of got mixed reviews,” she said.
“Rob talked too much ... I couldn’t get in a word edgewise,” she added. In those pre-e-mail days, they exchanged letters and dated before getting married.
They made compromises.
A Presbyterian, Portman became a Methodist to please his wife and she committed herself to the Republican cause. That cause demanded that he try to return to Washington, Mrs. Portman said.
“We really didn’t hesitate,” she said. His father’s death and a broken collarbone suffered in a biking accident last summer didn’t slow her husband down, she said.
“He’s an impatient patient,” said Mrs. Portman.
Big advantage in campaign cash
Portman’s ties to the Bushes and his connections to the business community in Ohio and across the country helped him mount a huge campaign cash advantage over his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher. The most recent campaign finance reports show Portman with nearly a 7-to-1 cash-on-hand edge, nearly $8.9 million to about $1.3 million.
It has allowed him to mount an aggressive TV advertising campaign while Fisher’s has been limited.
There is more to Portman’s campaign than slick TV ads, however. He is a good listener who’s able to put people at ease, something he picked up years ago back on that shop floor, said Meyer, his old boss.
“One thing Rob was good at was working with people,” said Meyer. “He would communicate with me and he would communicate with the painter.”
It may be, said Meyer, something Portman learned from his dad. The senior Portman met regularly with all employees for “B and B” – beer and bologna – sessions to discuss how work was going, Meyer said.
Even Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party in Cincinnati, concedes that Portman comes off as a nice guy.
“He presents himself as a very rational, logical and, frankly, nice guy.... He’s very personable,” said Burke. In the Cincinnati business community, “it would probably be better to refer to him as St. Rob,” Burke said sarcastically.
Portman’s politics, however, are “very hard right” and he advocates policies that will do little for “people who need the help of government,” said Burke. Portman sometimes has a thin skin, Burke said.
“I don’t think he likes criticism at all,” said Burke.
This year the Tea Party has heaped tons of criticism on establishment Republicans like Portman but he has avoided nearly all of it.
Rob Scott, president and founder of the Dayton Tea Party, said Portman’s absence from government for nearly 10 years helped.
Just as important, however, is a winning style that Scott compares with — of all people — Obama’s.
“His policies are 180 degrees different from Obama (but) he has the same charisma and demeanor and calmness about him, like candidate Obama,” said Scott. “He’s very relaxed, very approachable.”
Political scientist Mark Caleb Smith said Portman may be just what Ohio is looking for right now, “knowledgeable, yet not stuffy, conservative, but not impractical.”
“He handles the spotlight well, but he does not seem to be a performer... He seems to be earnest and focused on solutions, which sells well in Ohio right now,” said Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University.
On the campaign trail, Portman has shed his business suit for an open collared shirt and a Cincinnati Reds windbreaker. Getting in the race was the right choice, he said.
“I believe in my heart today and I believed in my heart then that if I could be elected, I could make a difference on day one,” Portman said.
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