- published: 17 Jun 2014
- views: 5386
Robert Jones "Rob" Portman (born December 19, 1955) is a lawyer and the junior United States Senator from Ohio. He is a member of the Republican Party. He succeeded retiring Senator George Voinovich.
From 1993 to 2005, Portman served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 2nd congressional district, which stretches along the Ohio River from the Hamilton County suburbs of Cincinnati east to Scioto County and Pike County. Portman won seven consecutive congressional elections with over 70 percent of the vote.
Portman served in two federal cabinet positions under the administration of President George W. Bush. From May 2005 to May 2006, he was the U.S. Trade Representative. From May 2006 to June 2007, he was Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He is considered a possible pick for Vice President on the Republican presidential ticket in 2012.
Portman was born in 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Joan (née Jones) and entrepreneur William C. "Bill" Portman II. His patrilineal great-grandfather, surnamed "Portmann", immigrated from Switzerland; Portman also has Scottish, Northern Irish, English, and German ancestry. When he was young, his father borrowed money to start the Portman Equipment Company, a forklift dealership where he and his siblings all worked growing up. The company grew from a small business with five employees and Joan Portman as bookkeeper to one that employed over 300 people. According to a 2010 Weekly Standard profile, Portman "developed a political philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship," having grown up "[hearing] talk about regulations, and taxes, and government getting in the way of small business" because of his early experiences with his family business.
Theodore "Ted" Strickland (born August 4, 1941) was the 68th Governor of Ohio, serving from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 6th congressional district (1993-1995, 1997-2007).
In the 2006 gubernatorial election, Strickland was elected to succeed term-limited Republican incumbent Bob Taft after defeating Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, receiving 60% of the vote. However, he was narrowly defeated for re-election in the 2010 gubernatorial election by former U.S. Representative John Kasich.
Strickland currently serves as a member of the Governors' Council at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Born in Lucasville, Ohio, Strickland was one of nine children; his father was a steelworker. A 1959 graduate of Northwest High School, Strickland went on to be the first member of his family to attend college. Strickland was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in history with a minor in psychology from Asbury College in 1963. In 1966, he received a Master of Arts degree in guidance counseling from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Divinity from the Asbury Theological Seminary in 1967. He then returned to the University of Kentucky to earn his Ph.D in counseling psychology in 1980. He is married to Frances Strickland, an educational psychologist and author of a widely used screening test for kindergarten-age children.
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).
The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1966, after one year at Stanford University, he left the United States to spend thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He entered the management consulting industry, which in 1977, led to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as Chief Executive Officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Ward Bishop and later Stake President in his area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and he helped turn the fiscally troubled games into a success.