This is an intriguing possibility. Romney needs a running mate with some kind of star power and something different to offer.
Romney needs not to be the candidate. I don’t care who his VP is.
Plus it puts Puerto Rico in play in the general election.
This guy is very impressive!
And what about the u s constitution? hello ?
1. Paul Ryan
2. Marco Rubio
3. Bob McDonnell
Notice all three come from (potential) swing states.
CF, we’ve been over this before. No freaking way. Fortuño has very little charisma, is pro-life but otherwise rather moderate, and brings literally 0 electoral votes to the table.
If Romney picks a conservative runningmate (who is particularly attractive to Evangelicals), campaigns as a conservative, and points out how dangerous Obama is, he will certainly carry all 22 states that McCain carried, plus IN and the Omaha CD. Romney would also be favored to carry FL, NC, VA and NH, and perhaps NV as well. However, he would still fall short of 270 unless he carries OH (or PA or MI, but those are less likely than OH), and to do that he needs to carry blue-collar conservatives in the state.
It seems to me that the obvious runningmate for Romney would be Sen. Rob Portman of OH, who is an intelligent, experienced, hard-working, charismatic conservative who is popular among blue-collar voters in OH and is a Methodist. He is sufficiently conservative so as to motivate conservative voters not to stay at home but would not scare more moderate suburban Republicans. Quite frankly, Portman would make a far better presidential candidate than Romney or even than the candidate I supported, Rick Santorum, and if he can deliver OH to Romney we should be able to stop Obama from vetoing conservative laws, issuing dangerous executive orders and appointing hundreds of federal judges, including a couple of Justices.
Portman is also young enough to run for president someday. And since OH has Republican John Kasich as governor, a conservative Republican would replace him in the U.S. Senate (maybe Jim Jordan or Ken Blackwell). It makes too much political sense for Portman not to be selected, and it would be a great victory for conservatives in a presidential race that has been extremely disappointing to say the least.
No, it's lacking political savvy. Puerto Ricans in the US proper would still vote predominantly for Obama, as they are largely addicted to Democrats. And Mexican Americans (by far the largest "Hispanic" subgroup) and other voters of Latin American origin would likely not identify with a Puerto Rican candidate as countryman in any sense. Can't escape the feeling that the posted article from "The Hill" is bogus and that Fortuno's name could be thrown out here by Democrat sources merely as a trap to mislead Romney's camp.
He may have star power, but how many people outside of PR have ever heard of him ? I think it’s really far fetched, but the way this election cycle is going, anything is possible.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been saying for over a year ... if one of the governors/former governors wins the nomination, s/he will have to have his/her VP with SOME actual DC experience, either in the Congress, or some high Administration spot with a GOP POTUS. You can’t have two governors without some federal govt experience. Rubio will have less than 1/3 of a Senatorial term’s worth of experience (i.e. nothing). Kasich, as former House Budget Committee chair and current governor of a big swing state, is probably the best option for Romney, assuming he’s the nominee.
Picking a governor of PR sounds too much like a gimmick, imo.