Throughout the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has had an oddly reactive approach to putting out policy proposals, seemingly flying by the seat of his pants and offering almost spur-of-the-moment, invariably ill-thought out policy ideas and usually defining himself by what he's not (i.e. Obama). Who can forget his tax plan, developed during the Republican primaries, which turns out to raise the tax burden on the middle class (whoops!)? He's done it again now that Paul Ryan is his running mate.
He seems to have impulsively decided to move up the date at which the Medicare trust fund becomes insolvent.
As Rick Perry might say: oops.
But first some perfunctory background. Broadly speaking, Medicare pays for hospitals services, services from doctors (e.g. like your family doc), and prescription drugs. In table form:
Medicare Component
Pays For
Financed Primarily Through
Finances Go Into...
Part A
Hospital services
Payroll taxes
Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund
Part B
Physician Services
General revenue/Monthly premiums from beneficiaries
Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) trust fund
Part D
Prescription drugs
General revenue/Monthly premiums on beneficiares
Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) trust fund
(Part C is the privatized portion of Medicare--Medicare Advantage--that generally combines these three benefits in a single private health insurance plan for the 23% or so of Medicare beneficiaries who choose to go that route: and at only ~114% of the price of traditional Medicare!)
As the table should make clear, there are two trust funds to think about: one funded primarily by payroll taxes that covers hospital services and another funded primarily by general tax revenue (with another significant component coming from insurance premiums on seniors enrolled in Medicare) that pays for doctors' services and prescription drugs. This excellent Kaiser Family Foundation primer on Medicare financing identifies a difference between these two trust funds that's worth noting:
A key difference in the structure of the HI and SMI Trust Funds affects their financial status. In the case of the HI Trust Fund, dedicated revenue may be greater or less than expenditures in any given year, so that in some years HI expenditures may exceed income, while in other years, reserve funds may be generated. By contrast, SMI Trust Fund financing does not produce excess revenue or shortfalls due to the way it is structured, with premiums and general revenue contributions adjusted each year in order to cover projected expenditures for that year. When
excess HI Trust Fund revenue is collected, the excess amounts are loaned to the federal government and used to pay for other federal obligations. Interest on the loans is credited to the Trust Fund as income.
So theoretically there is some money collected in the HI trust fund for spending on Medicare hospital services. Or rather, that money was loaned out to the rest of the government at interest to help pay for other things but it can be reclaimed when needed. But now that Medicare is paying out more than it takes in, at some point the money in that trust fund--or owed to it--will be exhausted. At that point, Medicare won't be able to fully pay for its obligations to cover hospital services, though it can still pay out whatever the Medicare payroll tax is bringing in. But the coming insolvency of the HI trust fund is a serious concern, particularly since the shortfall the trust fund experiences will just continue to grow with time.
In 2009, before health reform (or the Affordable Care Act or ACA or Obamacare--whatever the kids are calling it these days) passed, the Medicare Trustees forecast that the HI trust fund would be exhausted in 2016/2017. Then the ACA passed and the next year that number receded to 2029. The continuing stumbling of the economy put a little damper on that and for the next two years (including this year), the Trustees' report put the date of insolvency at 2024.
The point is that the ACA pushed the HI trust fund's insolvency date back from being a few years from now to being in the middle of the next decade. The catalyst for this change is the controversial savings (or cuts, as the GOP prefers to put it) that got so much airtime and ad time during the midterm elections two years ago. These Medicare savings showed up primarily in three forms:
1. As I intimated above, the privatized portion of Medicare (known as Medicare Advantage) costs more per enrollee than traditional public Medicare. The reason is essentially that the process by which the federal government's payments to these private insurers on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries are determined is currently rigged in the private insurers' favor, allowing them to pick up outsized federal subsidies. The ACA dials these back, reducing the government subsidy to these private insurers over time to largely bring them in line with traditional Medicare.
2. Traditional (public) Medicare pays for hospital services according to a fee schedule. The ACA, assuming certain "productivity improvements," requires that those reimbursements increase more slowly over the next decade than they were otherwise scheduled to. These assumptions aren't baseless, as the ACA also contains some mechanisms to help hospitals (and other providers) achieve them. But it's going to be a challenge to make it all work.
3. A hodgepodge of other savings/cuts (though not to physicians; their payments are governed by a different law). For instance, Medicare pays certain hospitals extra to cover some of the costs of the uninsured; the theory is if there are less uninsured people under the ACA, those payments can start going down.
Together those savings push back the date of the HI trust fund's insolvency by several years because the trust fund is paying out less over the next decade thanks to them.
When House GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (now Mitt Romney's running mate) was putting forth his budget proposals this year and last, he sought to include a plan to transform Medicare into a voucher program. The merits of that plan aside, people tend not to like change, particularly when they've been expecting or experiencing something else. The bigger the change you're proposing, the more important it becomes to make the change's implementation minimally disruptive. So Ryan delayed implementation of his proposed Medicare reforms for a decade, stipulating that they wouldn't start until 2022. That allowed Ryan to claim that no one currently receiving benefits would be affected by the changes, nor would anyone 55 or older, i.e. folks within 10 years of Medicare eligibility. It was only folks who were 11 years away from hitting Medicare eligibility at 65, the 54-year-olds and younger, who would be given a voucher.
But there's a problem here. If the HI trust fund is exhausted in 2016--assuming the ACA is repealed--then how does Ryan wait until 2022 to implement any kind of Medicare reforms? The answer is that he can't. So in writing his budgets, he retained the ACA's Medicare savings (while calling for the repeal of the rest of the health reform law). The fact that Ryan tacitly endorsed them and virtually every federally elected Republican--in the House and Senate--voted for them didn't stop Ryan's party from shamelessly continuing to attack the President for his Medicare "cuts." (Now that he's in the national spotlight, Ryan has recently been called upon to explain why the cuts that his running mate routinely denounces were included in his budgets. His rather lame answer: "First of all, those are in the baseline, he [Obama] put those cuts in...It gets a little wonky but it was already in the baseline. We would never have done it in the first place.")
But running on Obama's Medicare cuts at the same time he was demonizing them on the campaign trail proved too much even for Multiple Choice Mitt. After being unable to describe any difference between his plan for Medicare and Ryan's (the plans are, after all, virtually the same), by mid-week Romney had found a major difference between his approach and his running mate's: “My campaign has made it very clear: The president’s cuts of $716 billion to Medicare — those cuts are to be restored if I become president and Paul Ryan becomes vice president,” Romney said on “CBS This Morning.”
Nice! Jettison Ryan's baggage by not following his lead in adopting Obama's Medicare savings/cuts. Why did Ryan even embrace those in the first place? Oh, right...
It turns out this creates a problem for Mitt. He too has pledged that under his Medicare plan "Nothing changes for current seniors or those nearing retirement," meaning that none of his reforms begin until 2023 (i.e. the year in which a current 54-year-old would hit 65 and become eligible for Medicare). But by "restoring" Obama's savings/cuts, Romney moves the date of the HI trust fund's insolvency up to 2016 from 2024. Whereas Ryan had retained the hated cuts to keep the trust fund solvent until his reforms could kick in in the early 2020s, Romney is explicitly saying he won't do that.
Meaning that the trust fund will be exhausted in 2016, but Romney's reforms (a voucherization of Mediare similar to Ryan's proposal) won't kick in until 2023.
That makes for seven lean years in which Medicare can't meet the entirety of its hospital care obligations to current beneficiaries. Indeed, the magnitude of the shortfall and thus the degree to which current beneficiaries' services are cut into grows each year. Again, ignoring the merits of Romney's proposed reforms, under his plan there will be a seven year gap between the HI trust found becoming insolvent and any reforms beginning.
To date he hasn't explained how Medicare beneficiaries are supposed to get by during their seven lean years and what, if anything, his administration is prepared to do to fix the problem. The Obama campaign seems to have noticed, mentioning at 1:38 of their latest video explaining Romney and Obama's differences on Medicare that "If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected, Medicare will be bankrupt by the end of their first term."
Good of them to reference it but this strikes me as a huge issue requiring more attention: Mitt Romney is pledging to accelerate Medicare's spending, depleting the HI trust fund more quickly, to the point that it will be exhausted within four years. And he's also promising not to reform Medicare in any way for a decade. That's huge. And I doubt it was intentional. More likely, it was an unintended (and unforeseen) consequence of Romney's constant ill-thought-out Not-Obamaism. But now is the time for the Obama camp to make him pay for it.
I'm genuinely surprised. Portman was the obvious "don't rock the boat" pick with a potential marginal upside in Ohio. But that choice is appropriate for a campaign that's more or less in a dead heat with its opponent.
Apparently Romney concluded that thus far he's been on track to lose. Granted, he hasn't had a good week since the first half of June, he's the first candidate in recent memory to have a higher unfavorable rating than favorable, and three polls that came out at the end of last week showed him down between 7 and 9 points.
But I still wasn't expecting a risky choice like Paul Ryan, the GOP Budget Chairman best known for his draconian budget that would replace Medicare with a voucher for private health insurance. This strikes me a sign of mild panic (or at least resignation) in the Romney camp. Which surprises me.
Sorry Rob, maybe next time.
Thirty-five years ago (the anniversary is on September 5), Voyager 1 began a historic journey across the universe. During the 1970s, a rare alignment of all the Solar System's outer planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and then-planet Pluto--offered a once-in-several-lifetimes opportunity to get tremendous bang for one's space exploration buck. NASA scientists, long on ambition and imagination but short on budgetary politics sense, envisioned a Planetary Grand Tour of a fleet of space probes continuously hopping from one of those distant worlds to the next. Fiscal reality reduced that fleet to a duo, the Voyagers, intended to study Jupiter and Saturn.
It was at Saturn that the twins' destinies diverged. Voyager 2 was given the go-ahead for an extended mission following its successful flyby of the planet: it was to salvage the majestic concept of the Planetary Grand Tour. It would go on to give us our first (and to date, only) close-up looks at Uranus and Neptune. It then continued on into deep space.
Meanwhile, mission scientists made a different decision about Voyager 1's post-Saturn destination. A proposal to send it on a Pluto flyby was rejected (Pluto remains unvisited; the arrival of the New Horizons probe in 2015 will mark mankind's first exploration of that world). Instead, it was diverted to take a closer look at Saturn's enigmatic moon, Titan. The probe's instruments had difficulty penetrating Titan's thick, hazy atmosphere but produced tantalizing hints that conditions on the moon might allow for the existence of seas--this was confirmed in 2006, when the Cassini-Huygens mission found lakes of ethane and methane, the only standing liquid known to exist in the universe off of the Earth.
Voyager 1's flyby of Titan was the end of its own planetary tour, as the process jettisoned it out of the plane of the planets' orbits. It now headed off to deep space. Aided by its interactions with Saturn and Titan, Voyager 1 was receding from the Sun faster than any other probe. Today, Voyager 1 is the farthest piece of humanity in the universe, a whopping 11.1 billion miles from home. Wiki has a sobering simulation of what its view would be were it gazing homeward:
I bring up this remarkable spacecraft not just because it's as far as anything's ever been, but because it's back in the news this week for yet another first (and yet another reminder of its remoteness):
Evidence suggesting that NASA's venerable Voyager 1 probe is about to leave the solar system is piling up, scientists say.
Researchers are eyeing three key parameters for signs that Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, has escaped into interstellar space. The spacecraft's measurements show that two of these three parameters are now changing faster than at any other time in the last seven years, scientists said.
If it hasn't already, it's on the verge of leaving our solar system and marking mankind's first venture into interstellar space. So begins its last great adventure, one that presumably will never end (though by 2025 we will probably lose contact with it as its power sources die). A drink to the universe, to our amazing little emissary, and to the men who built her!
Sherrod is in trouble.
It's not time to panic. But it is time to wake up.
I'll admit, I've been complacent. With his early double digit lead, his skill at connecting with Ohio families, and his long history of service to the state, I didn't imagine he could be unseated. Certainly not by an opponent as lacking in substance, political experience, and integrity as Ohio's 34-year-old State Treasurer.
But I've ignored the new reality: thanks to recent rulings from the nine robed demigods who channel the Spirit of the Founders, this year's election isn't like those held even just four or six years ago. Our public offices are now for sale in a way they've never been before.
Andrew Romano, writing in Newsweek, has proclaimed Sherrod "The Hunted Democrat" in an eye-opening piece. Please read it.
Still, Ohio is the starkest example of the dystopian havoc that outside groups can now wreak on a race. In theory, the contest shouldn’t be close. Brown has outraised Mandel by $5.1 million. His approval and disapproval ratings are roughly equal; Mandel’s unfavorables outstrip his favorables by a perilous 15 percentage points. This is part of the reason why Brown was drubbing Mandel by an average of more than 13 points as recently as January—even though the populist, pro-Obama senator is far more progressive than the swing state he represents.
But then the super PACs and 501(c)(4)s began to spend on Mandel’s behalf: nearly $12 million so far, or more than Brown dropped on his entire 2006 campaign, with another $7 million reserved for the fall. The number on Brown’s side of the ledger is much smaller: about $3 million from unions, liberal interest groups, and Democratic super PACs. All told, Mandel’s third-party allies have outspent and outreserved Brown’s 6 to 1, and nearly twice as much money has been spent and set aside by or for Mandel than Brown. No other competitive Senate race is this lopsided. In response, the polling gap between Mandel and Brown has shrunk to 7.7 percent, and strategists are beginning to talk of the race as a possible tossup.
Sherrod has become Public Enemy Number One to the outside billionaires who are now free to try and buy a Senate seat. Our Senate seat.
It was 100 years ago this year that a Constitutional amendment went to the states after receiving the requisite 2/3 vote in each chamber of Congress. The writers of this amendment, mindful of the corruption and Senate seat-selling that had come to mar Congress's upper chamber, sought to return ownership of Senate seats directly to the people.
And here we are again, with the well-connected and the wealthy seeking to write a check for a shiny new Senate seat. But it's not their seat to buy. It's ours.
I stand with Sherrod.
The band Mumford and Sons is a doing a series of Gentlemen of the Road stopovers in four U.S. cities. The idea of these stopovers is that they're more extended, intimate (though extremely crowded) events--not just a concert, it's a daylong festival, followed up by a series of after-parties around the town after the show. Yesterday was their first American stopover, in Portland.
The concert is just one of four "Gentlemen of the Road Stopover" festivals that Mumford & Sons has planned for this summer (in addition to a regular tour). This has drawn national attention to Portland -- not only is the event expected to bring in fans from all over the country, band members have praised the city's art scene and historic, creative vibe in explaining why they picked it as a venue.
"It's got the ocean, a lively music scene, and it's an old town. We're very interested in history," said Mumford multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Winston Marshall, 24, in a phone interview. "It's exactly the vibe and character we were looking for in picking these sites."
Marshall will get to see more of Portland than just the Eastern Promenade -- after the show, he's scheduled to be at one of the five after-parties, at The Big Easy in Portland's Old Port.
But it's their philosophy that I dig:
The band's other "Stopover" festival events this summer are all in relatively small places: Bristol, Va.; Dixon, Ill.; and Monterey, Calif. Portland is the first city on the U.S. leg of the tour. (The festival debuted in June with one show each in the U.K. and Ireland.)
Marshall said the idea of the "Stopovers" was to have a daylong festival that celebrates an entire community.
"We want to be learning about the towns we're in, going into the bars and pubs," said Marshall. "We're not particularly well-informed or well-educated, so this is good for us."
I love the idea of the tour. Instead of the band having to run to the airport after the show, they hang out in the community following the festival (indeed, they were apparently already in town hanging out on Friday night during the First Friday Art Walk). But it was the venue that really sealed the deal. The festival was set up in a spot that I don't believe has been used for that purpose before, though it is the spot where the annual Fourth of July fireworks are held. The main part of Portland is a peninsula, jutting out into the Atlantic (Casco Bay). The festival was held in the public park that makes up the very eastern edge of that peninsula. You can see it marked on the handy map to the right that the band provided on their website.
More than that, most of it was on a hill, with the main stage set up down at the bottom (and the second stage set up a little to the right). So as you're sitting out in the bright sunshine of a beautiful August day, what you're seeing is the band and behind them the blue waters and green islands of Casco Bay, dotted with boats going to and fro. I don't have a wide-angle lens on my iPhone but I think this captures a bit of what it looked like:
I think I've only been to concerts in indoor/theater venues before so I was blown away by this. Factor in amazing sound quality and an amazing performance (they ended with a fireworks performance after 9pm) from all involved and I'd be hardpressed to say that wasn't the best concert--ahem, festival--I've ever been to.
This post was a bit bloggy-er than what we usually do here but I was really impressed with Mumford and Son's approach to this tour and I wanted to share their philosophy (and the amazingness of the location).
I can't vote there anymore but I'm fascinated by the political earthquake that took place in the district this week. After not only serving 9 terms in the House, but actually winning this year's primary and being a shoo-in for yet another term, Steve Latourette announced this week he's going to retire after this term. It's hard out there for a moderate. Apparently if you're not completely insane, your future in the Republican party isn't very bright these days.
Both parties scrambled Tuesday to assess their prospects in the 14th district in the wake of Rep. Steven LaTourette’s surprise retirement.
With the GOP Congressman’s decision to delay his retirement long enough to avoid a special primary, Republicans were confident that they could choose a successor capable of holding the moderately GOP-leaning district in November.
But Ohio Democrats are moving to replace their nominee, Dale Blanchard, with a top-tier contender, and whether they’re successful could determine their ability to put this winnable seat in play. [...]
“These are some of our best organized counties,” Ohio Republican consultant Barry Bennett said. “These guys fight for their lives, so they get it.”
Neither the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee nor the Ohio Democratic Party could comment specifically on any effort to persuade Blanchard to drop his candidacy so that he could be replaced in similar fashion with a viable candidate. If Blanchard does drop out, expect Democrats to invest in this seat, which is considered a perfect fit for the moderate LaTourette but highly competitive without him.
Why replace perennial candidate Dale Blanchard? Well, the guy isn't a pro, he's a sacrificial lamb. Take a look at his campaign website: it's horrific.
But despite Democratic hopes that he can be replaced, he doesn't appear to be going anywhere:
Solon Democrat Dale Virgil Blanchard said Thursday morning that he has no intention of dropping out as the Democratic Party’s nominee for Ohio’s 14th Congressional District.
Blanchard, an accountant, who has run for the position every two years since 2000, has felt energized since U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Bainbridge Township, announced he would not seek re-election.
“Under no circumstances am I going to drop out,” Blanchard said. “I have no reason to do it. I’m the one who wants it.” [...]
Making predictions about politics is usually a dumb idea. And in a week or two when Mitt Romney announces his VP pick, I'll probably have egg on my face.
But I'm going to make a prediction anyway: Romney's vice presidential pick will be Ohio's very own senator, Rob Portman.
This isn't a particularly novel prediction, as it's well-known that he is on Romney's short list and the folks over at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball are also betting that it'll be Portman. I've leaned in this direction for some time now--through the Marco Rubio and Chris Christie fads--but in recent weeks this pick has started to seem more likely.
Despite Portman being from the uber-swing state, it's generally accepted that candidates generally don't choose a running mate with the intent of swinging a specific state, though they may seek some sort of regional "balance" to avoid the perception of having only sectional appeal. Off the top of my head, the last election I can think of where the ability of a VP candidate to swing a state or region played an important role in his selection was in 1960.
However, there's something peculiar happening in the polling right now: the curious phenomenon that Obama is outperforming his national numbers in key swing states, most noticeably in Ohio. As Nate Silver noted at the end of last week: Ohio Polls Show Trouble for Romney.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in Ohio, where there were two new polls out on Friday. One of them, from the firm We Ask America, gave Mr. Obama an eight-point lead there. Another, from Magellan Strategies, put Mr. Obama up by two points.
Our model “thinks” the Magellan Strategies poll is a more realistic estimate of the state of play in Ohio. The model now forecasts a three-point victory for Mr. Obama there, which it translates to about a two-in-three chance of his winning the state given the uncertainty in the forecast.
Mr. Obama’s projected three-point lead in Ohio is important for the following reason, however: it’s slightly larger than the 2.4-point advantage that the model now gives Mr. Obama in the national popular vote.
In other words, based on the data so far this year, Ohio has been slightly Democratic-leaning relative to the country as a whole. That reflects a reversal from the usual circumstances. Normally, Ohio — though very close to the national averages — leans Republican by two points or so.
That was followed up by another new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll of three battleground states this week:
A snapshot of the race, taken during a burst of summer campaigning, found that Mr. Obama holds an advantage of 6 percentage points over Mr. Romney in Florida and Ohio. The president is stronger in Pennsylvania, leading by 11 percentage points. The margin of sampling of error is plus or minus three percentage points in each state.
As of this moment, the RealClearPolitics average of state polls of Ohio has Obama up 4.8 points in Ohio.
Republicans do not win the presidency without winning Ohio. I invite you to play with 270towin and find realistic winning scenarios for Mitt Romney that don't involve Ohio. It's very, very tough. And while it's still overwhelmingly likely that whoever wins the popular vote will also win the electoral vote and become President, there is a small chance that Obama will lose the popular vote but win the electoral college (Nate Silver's models currently show that outcome 5.4% of the time, vs. only 0.8% for the reverse scenario). If that occurs, Ohio will likely be the reason.
Of course, the candidate winning the popular vote has only lost the election three times in races where two candidates earned all the electoral votes (in the election of 1824, electoral votes were split between four different candidates). In the late 19th century, during a period of intense polarization this happened twice in 12 years: in the election of 1876 (the only time a candidate won an outright majority, not plurality, of the popular vote and still lost the election) and the election of 1888. In our own time, of course, the relevant example is the election of 2000. Which happens to have been 12 years ago.*
Yes, the polls in Ohio may well tighten up (maybe even reverse themselves) over the next three months. But Romney needs to make his choice now, not after waiting a few months to watch how Ohio plays out. Hoping that Ohio will swing his way requires making a number of assumptions: that Romney's opposition to the auto bailout ultimately won't have much impact, that Obama's characterizations of Romney in his latest ad blitzes won't stick, that the lower unemployment rate in Ohio will be trumped by continued tepid national numbers, and so on.
One thing that held me back a bit regarding Portman, however, was that his lengthy record of public service includes a stint as George W. Bush's budget director. George W. Bush's fiscal credentials, you may recall, are suspect among a base that's rhetorically devoted to fiscal discipline. And memories of his dismal economic record are unlikely to have faded among the broader public.
Indeed, we've seen lately that the Obama campaign is framing the election as something of a matchup of the policies of Bill Clinton vs. the policies of George W. Bush. A Portman pick would seemingly play into that narrative. In addition to the recent announcement that Bill Clinton will be getting a primetime speaking slot at the Democratic convention next month (taking the slot that normally would go to Joe Biden, who gets bumped to performing as Obama's warmup act the following night), Obama has used some lines on the campaign trail that compare Romney's Bush-esque agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation with his own Clintonesque tax agenda:
I'm running because I believe you can’t reduce the deficit -- which is a serious problem, we’ve got to deal with it -- but we can’t reduce it without asking folks like me who have been incredibly blessed to give up the tax cuts that we’ve been getting for a decade. (Applause.) I'll cut out government spending that’s not working, that we can’t afford, but I’m also going to ask anybody making over $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton, back when our economy created 23 million new jobs -- (applause) -- the biggest budget surplus in history and everybody did well.
Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan -- and it worked. That’s the difference. (Applause.) That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.
(Perhaps predictably, Mitt Romney's campaign has continued its habit of using out-of-context quotes to make attack ads. They have at least one of Obama saying "we tried our plan--and it worked" to imply he's speaking about the stimulus which, Trunk's excellent post aside, is much easier to demonize among average Americans than is Clinton's economic policy).
But Portman is trying this week to get out in front of attempts to link him to the Bush administration's failures. See this article out of The Hill today: Possible VP pick Rob Portman was ‘frustrated’ at Bush budget office
.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who served as former President George W. Bush’s budget director, sought this week to distance himself from his former boss by saying he was “frustrated” in the high-profile post.
Pressed on his record with Bush, Portman — a leading GOP vice presidential contender — agreed to an exclusive interview with The Hill in his Senate office.
Portman was careful to not criticize Bush while detailing the challenges he faced from other administration officials, whom he declined to name. The comments indicate that Portman is seeking to keep Bush at arm’s length while also not appearing to be disloyal.
Self-serving attempt to overcome his greatest weakness as Romney closes in on a final VP decision? Or perhaps the word has come down to start the messaging process because he's very likely to be the VP nominee? I have no idea, of course, but it's interesting. Perhaps Romney will ultimately choose a different incredibly boring white guy as his Number Two (e.g. Tim Pawlenty) but right now Portman has to be the favorite.
Fun fact: this ticket would be the reverse of the winning ticket in 1920. In that election, a Republican Senator from Ohio (Harding) topped the ticket, pulling along a Massachusetts Governor (Coolidge) as his VP. Now we'd have a Massachusetts Governor enlisting an Ohio Senator.
* This is just a bit of political numerology. Presidential elections in the 1880s were more polarized than those today: the two intervening elections between the 1876/88 popular-plurality-loser elections were decided in the popular vote by 0.1% and 0.3%. Meanwhile, in our time the 2004 and 2008 elections were decided by 2.4% and 7.2%, respectively (though the latter had some shades of 1932 to it, which disrupted what otherwise looked like a potentially close election).
