Your mileage may vary, but this solicited a hearty guffaw from me as I read it.
DAYTON, Ohio—Was this Rob Portman's final performance?
The Republican Ohio senator who played the role of President Barack Obama during debate prep sessions with Mitt Romney, known for his master ability to channel the Democratic mind, could be retiring from the debate-prep world.
"I think I may hang up my debate boots," Portman told Yahoo News after Monday night's third and final presidential debate in Boca Raton, Fla.
It's obvious at this point that President Obama was simply being "too kind," as he put it himself, during the first presidential debate, and the president summarily wiped the floor with Romney during the second and final presidential debates. With this in mind, can Portman really be credited as a master for his "ability to channel the Democratic mind?"
More revealingly, Portman went on to admit during his interview with Yahoo News that Republicans typically do not pay attention to details except for when conducting opposition research.
"The biggest thing you learn when you play somebody is what their positions are on the issues," Portman said. "We don't actually listen to what the other side is saying, and in this role you actually have to listen and get into the details. And to be honest with you, there's not a lot of new policies, there's no agenda for the future, there's not a lot of vision."
Republicans would probably be much better campaigners, less reliant on lies and suppression, and better at governing, if they bothered to listen and "get into the details" before sequencing directly into electorate-pandering campaign mode.
Before President Obama was even sworn in as president or produced his first policy proposal, congressional Republicans, lead by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and then-House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, plotted to do everything in their power to make him a one-term president.