Over on the home page, a glance at Senator Portman’s career:

But in late 1992, as Gradison campaigned around the Cincinnati suburbs, Portman had a revealing conversation with Representative John Boehner, the current House speaker, who was then a young congressman from a neighboring district. Boehner had gotten to know the youthful attorney through Portman’s work in the Bush administration and wanted to give him a tip: He told Portman that he’d heard this would be Gradison’s last run, and that he might even resign within months.
“Boehner said, ‘You need to get ready,’” Portman says. “I really owe him. With my wife, I put together a notebook with a list of names,” so that in December 1992, when Gradison called Portman with the news that he’d be leaving the House to take a private-sector job, Portman could immediately start to raise money for a campaign. Portman may have had ties to the business community through his father’s company, but throughout the district, he was mostly unknown.
The March 1993 Republican primary for the special House election in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district was the toughest race of Portman’s career. He’d coast to reelection six times in the safe Republican seat, but winning that initial GOP nod against former congressman Bob McEwen and businessman Jay Buchert, and seven other conservative candidates, was a baptism by fire. “I had 6 percent name identification, and half of them thought I was Todd Portune, who had just run for city council,” Portman says. “I did not have a profile.”