Trump’s Cleveland convention is politically delicate for Ohio’s endangered Republican senator.
Cleveland — Ohio senator Rob Portman hadn’t even set foot in the arena where the GOP convention is being held before he found himself embroiled in a controversy.
Speaking at a breakfast Monday morning, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and chief strategist, declared Ohio governor John Kasich “petulant” and said he was “embarrassing his party in Ohio” by declining to endorse Trump or speak at the convention in his home state. Portman, Manafort claimed, was “very upset” with Kasich because Kasich’s position was “hurting him” in his reelection bid.
“No,” Portman replied, when asked Monday afternoon if he was indeed upset with his home-state governor, calmly repeating himself a few more times, seeming confused over the circumstances that prompted the question (and, he said, unaware of Manafort’s comment).
Was he frustrated that Manafort had brought him into this, apparently without ever talking to him?
“No,” Portman replied calmly, with a shrug and a laugh.
The fracas neatly summed up the situation in which Portman finds himself. The senator faces reelection against a well-known former governor in what is perhaps the ultimate presidential-year swing state. He has millions in his campaign account, far more money than his opponent, who has struggled to keep up in fundraising. Portman’s team, as campaign manager Corry Bliss proudly told volunteers and reporters Monday afternoon, has embraced new media, advertising on Snapchat and Instagram. Each of his ten campaign offices across Ohio, Bliss says, carries different literature tailored to regional issues, almost as if they were running “ten different local campaigns.”
Portman, in other words, seems to be running a successful campaign when it comes to the things he can control. But he can’t control Trump.
At events on Monday, Portman appeared to have achieved a level of zen about his plight.
Asked Monday if Trump would help his reelection bid, Portman made no promises.
“Well, we’ll see,” he told reporters. “It’s an unpredictable year, right?”
Portman, in other words, seems to be running a successful campaign when it comes to the things he can control. But he can’t control Trump.
Portman spent the morning working on a Habitat for Humanity project just ten minutes from the convention site. In the afternoon, he held a “volunteer appreciation” event with Senator Joni Ernst and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, an event he deemed a “mini-convention.”
“If my opponent for the Senate thought Donald Trump was going to do well in Ohio, he would be publicly embracing him and he would be showing up at this convention,” former governor Ted Strickland, Portman’s Democratic opponent, charged at a press conference Monday.
Not so, said Portman.
“I called Habitat about a year ago and said, ‘We’re going to do this.’ Again, long before we knew Donald Trump was going to be the nominee. To those people who think that somehow I’m trying to do Habitat because of not wanting to be on the convention floor, I’ll be on the convention floor right after this. But — sorry to sound defensive. I get that question a lot,” Portman finished calmly, his tone betraying none of the frustration many of his Senate colleagues display at reporters’ repeated inquiries about Trump and his impact down ballot.
Portman has endorsed Trump, and he said at a gaggle before he donned a hard hat to begin prying apart a dilapidated house with a hammer and crowbar that he would “probably” campaign with the GOP nominee. But the embrace he offered the party’s national standard-bearer wasn’t exactly cuddly.
“I believe [Trump would] be a much stronger president than Hillary Clinton, and that’s the choice,” Portman said after the event with Gingrich and Ernst, at which, it was pointed out, Trump’s name was not mentioned once by any of the speakers.
What should we read into that?
“Nothing,” Portman said with a laugh. But, he added, he thinks he talked about him — or, at least, about his running mate. “I talked about the Trump/Pence ticket,” he says. “I thought that was a good ticket. I talked about Mike Pence being a good choice.”
Portman in many ways is the opposite of Donald Trump. A former Office of Management and Budget director, U.S. trade representative, congressman, and first-term senator, he has a reputation as a master of Washington processes. He is a formidable fundraiser, both for himself and for other candidates. He served as vice chair of the NRSC in the 2014 cycle, traveling across the country to raise money for his colleagues. In short, Portman epitomizes the establishment against which Trump has railed for this entire election season.
He’s also Trump’s opposite temperament-wise: calm, friendly, and unflappable where the wealthy real-estate developer is brash, combative, and unpredictable. He is a competent and smooth public speaker, but he ignites little excitement. On a stage with Ernst and Gingrich at which he was meant to be the star, he often appeared cast in a supporting role.
Portman was a major factor in convincing the Republican National Committee to hold the convention in Cleveland; he fought hard to bring the event, a major economic boost to the host city, to his home state. But now that the circus has come to his backyard, Portman has chosen to be present without being too present. He attended the convention Monday, he’ll spend time with his home-state delegation, he’ll speak at a breakfast, and he said he may make it back to Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday.
He summed it up to reporters Monday morning: “I told them I was doing my own thing, you know?”
— Alexis Levinson is National Review’s senior political reporter.