Tampa, U.S.A. — Good evening America, and hello to the fired-up delegation from the Buckeye State right in front of me.

My name is Rob Portman and they say I was on Governor Romney’s short list of vice presidential candidates.

Apparently, it wasn’t short enough.

But it’s been a great convention and I am delighted to be here tonight to talk about the fundamental differences between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama when it comes to understanding our economy.

Let’s begin by talking about something the Democrats love to demonize - Mitt Romney’s success in the private sector. He built a company from the ground up, created lots of jobs, and yes, he made money.

He made it the old fashioned way . . . He earned it.

Then you have Barack Obama, who has never started a business—never even worked in business. And he claims those who have should give credit to the government or someone else for their success.

So, you have one candidate who understands that success comes from working hard, competing and taking risks.

And you have another candidate who believes success comes from government.

Which one do you think knows how to turn this economy around?

Which one would you choose to invest your life’s savings?

Should it be any different for safeguarding our nation’s economy?

Or let’s say you don’t have any savings. Let’s say you’re worried about how to pay September’s rent or mortgage.

Let’s say you are one of the millions of Americans out of work or the millions more who have given up looking.

You’ve gotta be running out of patience – and hope. You have to be tired, looking for a new start.

Well, you don’t have to be patient any longer. Through your vote this fall you can change the leadership of this country and the opportunities for you and your family.

America, it has been nearly four years of over eight percent unemployment – and double digit unemployment for young people, Hispanics and African-Americans.

Four years. FDR and Truman won an entire world war in four years.

America is tired of waiting.

In business, if you don’t move rapidly, you are out of business. You are finished.

We want a president who operates at business speed not government speed.

President Obama says he deserves reelection because his economic policies have worked.

NOT in this universe they haven’t.

In fact, the experts tell us that if we don’t change our policies we are going back into recession next year.

Tens of millions of Americans are not out of the last recession!

Governor Romney had a plan to build his business. He now has a detailed plan to restore our economy and strengthen the middle class.

I ask you: Where is the president’s economic plan?

Blaming others does not qualify as a plan. Now the president did submit a budget. It was so bad that not a single Republican or a single Democrat in the entire United States Congress would vote for it.

He got zero votes. That is a failure of leadership.

President Obama has been right about at least one prediction he’s made about the economy. He said, “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

I think you are right about that, Mr. President.

It hasn’t worked, because you cannot spend your way, regulate your way, tax your way or blame your way out of the economic mess we are in.

You have to liberate the productive power of the American people through policies that encourage innovation, risk taking, investment and jobs.

And you have to compete and win in the global economy. Governor Romney understands this.

In contrast, President Obama is the first president in 75 years—Democrat or Republican—who hasn’t even sought the ability to negotiate export agreements and open markets overseas. Now why is this important?

Because 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside our borders. And to create jobs, our workers and our farmers need to sell more of what we make to those people.

While this administration has been dragging its feet, other countries have been busy negotiating hundreds of new trade agreements to benefit their workers and their farmers, taking away our opportunities.

President Obama has been so driven to advance his big government ideology that he has abandoned the daily economic work that a government must do to open markets, restore business confidence and create the climate for job growth.

This is the work President Romney would begin on day one.

Take trade with China. China manipulates its currency giving it an unfair trade advantage. So why doesn’t the president do something about it?

I’ll tell you one reason – President Obama could not run up his record trillion dollar deficits if the Chinese did not buy our bonds to finance them.

We are as beholden to China for bonds as we are to the Middle East for oil.

This will end under Mitt Romney.

We need to knock down these trade barriers abroad, but we also need to knock down the self-imposed barriers to success right here at home.

We need to reform our outdated and complicated tax code. We need to fix our burdensome regulatory system and we need an energy policy that encourages development of our resources right here, in the ground, in America.

America has a choice between Mitt Romney, who seeks to grow the economy, and Barack Obamawho seeks to redistribute it.

Which one do you think will liberate America’s entrepreneurial spirit?

At the other party’s convention, you will hear the chant, “Four more years. Four more years.”

Folks – we can’t afford four more years. How about no more years?

Governor Romney chose a terrific partner in Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – Paul is a close friend with a great family and a reformer’s heart.

Vice President Biden has told people out of work to just, “hang in there.” So much for hope and change.

Paul Ryan is not asking America to continue to hang in there. He is proposing new policies that will give poor and middle class families opportunities and hope for the future.

Mitt Romney made his mark turning around businesses and solving problems.

Paul Ryan made his mark as a respected reformer focused on results.

Together they will do what President Obama has not done: They will lead in breaking through the partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C.

America, give them the chance to restore America’s economy and restore the American dream.

I have seen that dream up close. When I was a kid, my dad left his job as a salesman and started his own business selling forklift trucks. My Mom was the bookkeeper. He had to borrow money from her uncle because the bank wouldn’t give him a loan. He lost money for the first few years, but he never lost his dream.

And by the time he retired and my brother took over, the business had 200 employees – supporting 200 families in Southwest Ohio.

This is the classic American story – not of government telling us what to do – but of free men and free women willing to work hard and take a risk to build something of value for themselves, their families and their community.

About a year into the Obama Administration – I asked my dad whether he would do it again. He said, “Rob – with all the uncertainty out there today – I don’t know if I would take the risk.”

In that one sentence, he summed up what I’ve heard from hundreds of small business owners across Ohio and around this great country. They’re afraid to make the investment and jobs are the casualty.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need new leadership and new policies to bring back the dream and renew America’s promise.

No more excuses, no more blaming others, no more waiting.

We need Romney /Ryan and we need them now! And with your help, it will happen.

Thank you and God bless our great country.

Image Courtesy of  Be the Change, Inc.

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Manassas, U.S.A — Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, issued the following statement regarding possible Republican vice presidential candidates:

“There is growing unease among conservatives that the ‘short list’ of vice presidential candidates Mitt Romney has under consideration has too many establishment-type Republicans and few, if any, principled small government constitutional conservatives.

“Conservatives want Governor Romney to win, but there are millions of independent and right-of-center voters who are disillusioned with business-as-usual in Washington.  To attract their votes, Romney needs a running mate who is a small government constitutional conservative, not an establishment insider.

“As the names of establishment Republican personalities like Ohio Senator Rob Portman, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Congressman Paul Ryan, or ‘outside the box’ choices like General David Petraeus (whose political views are largely unknown) have surfaced, the names of small government constitutional conservatives, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have faded into the background.”

Viguerie offered concise critiques of the conservative bona fides of Pawlenty, Portman, Rice, Christie, Ryan, and Petraeus in recent articles on ConservativeHQ.com.

Tim Pawlenty: Prairie State Michael Bloomberg. “Far from being a conservative, when it comes to the nanny state versus individual liberty, Tim Pawlenty is more of a Prairie State Michael Bloomberg than a Reagan Republican.”

Has Romney Already Chosen Portman for VP? “He [Portman] may be unknown to many Republicans across the country, but in Washington–where he worked in both Bush administrations–he is the ultimate insider. He’s also the ultimate Bush Republican.”

Rice for VP a Slap in the Face to Conservatives: “Given her association with some of the worst neo-con inspired policies of the Bush era, putting Condoleezza Rice at the top of the VP short list is an insult to the conservatives, Tea Partiers, and independents who are looking for a break with the old establishment Republican Washington that Rice represents.”

Chris Christie: He’s a Brawler; But He is No Conservative “This cycle it is more important than ever that we make sure Republicans nominate a reliable conservative, not just another business-as-usual Republican politician. Chris Christie may be a brawler, but there is no record showing he can be relied upon to put his formidable talents behind many key elements of the conservative agenda.”

Paul Ryan for Vice President? Not So Fast. “Many in the conservative movement admire Ryan’s gumption in proposing a plan to return the federal government to fiscal sanity. The problem is the Ryan plan uses the Washington, DC version of sanity.”

General David Petraeus for VP — Patriot Yes, Conservative? “General Petraeus is a much-admired man who has ably, and sometimes brilliantly, served our country in the best tradition of the American armed forces. However, if Governor Romney is seriously considering David Petraeus for Vice President, he cannot and must not be given a pass on a thorough examination of Petraeus’ commitment to the small government constitutional conservative agenda.”

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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Who Mitt Romney’s running mate will be is still uncertain. Expectation levels are high because the elections are only a few months away. Republicans around the country know that this decision will be crucial in their aspirations of returning to the White House.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has a serious chance of becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate. He would certainly help the Republican Party in their aspirations of regaining the Hispanic voter’s support, which currently favors the Democrats. Rubio served in the House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008 and was elected as a Senator in 2010. Senator Rubio’s political skills, which include a fluent Spanish and high popularity among  Hispanics, would definitely help Mitt Romney to win states with high Hispanic population like Florida, New Mexico and Arizona. 

Ana Navarro, a Politico columnist, referred to Senator Rubio as the anti-Palin. She explained that the population of Alaska during Sarah Palin time as a governor was of 700,000, on the other hand, Senator Rubio represents a state of more than 19 million people, Florida is also a state with a variety of cultures in which practically every U.S. demographic group is represented.

Condoleezza Rice is another name that has appeared as a possible candidate for the vice-presidency. The Former Secretary of State will surely be able to help Romney in foreign issues.  But Condoleezza Rice’s deep involvement in George W. Bush government might not help her because of the bad public image that Bush government has in these days. Also, the fact that Rice is not married doesn’t make her an ideal candidate to the most conservative base of the Republican Party.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman also has great possibilities. He is the Senator of Ohio, one of the swing states that could determine this election. He was elected in 2010; he won with a margin of 57 to 39 percent, winning 82 of Ohio’s 88 counties. His campaign focused on common-sense conservative ideas to help create jobs and get the deficit under control. He helped Romney in the victory against Santorum in the Ohio primaries and the public opinion sees him as a safe pick.

Republican strategist Mark Weaver said that Senator Portman’s organization level in Ohio is very deep and he also “has so many people that are committed to helping him that would all come the way of Mitt Romney.  And in a close state like Ohio, the difference of having someone like Portman on the ticket could be the win.”

Another possible vice-presidential candidate is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal; he recently referred to President Obama as “the most liberal, most incompetent President in the White House since Jimmy Carter.”  Governor Jindal also responded to President Obama’s declaration that the private sector was doing fine by saying: “The private sector is not doing well when 23 million Americans are unemployed and underemployed in this great country. This president, the private sector is so foreign to him he might need a passport to actually go visit and he might need a translator to help him talk to folks in the private sector.”

Governor Jindal supported Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primaries; he started supporting Mitt Romney until Rick Santorum dropped on April 10. This particular aspect could be taken into account by Romney and does not benefit Jindal at all, because it is clear that Governor Jindal preferred Governor Perry as the Republican candidate, but still Bobby Jindal would have his chances because he is considered one of the rising stars of the Republican Party.

These were just some of the names of possible vice-presidential candidates. There are many more, like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie or the former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Who knows if there might be a surprise in Romney’s nomination, like there was in the 2008 election when John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate?

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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