GOP strategists: Puerto Rico Gov. Fortuno is a sleeper vice presidential pick

The Hill ^ | April 14, 2012 | Daniel Strauss

[Clintonfatigued]

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) is a sleeper pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 presidential ticket, according to GOP strategists.

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has kept his cards close to his chest on vice presidential prospects, saying that it would be “presumptuous” to think about it before winning the nomination. But in a recent interview with Newsmax, he described Fortuno as “a solid conservative and a firm leader.” He also dubbed Fortuno “one of the great leaders of our party.”

[Forward the Light Brigade]

No, No—Its Not a Latino Mittens needs—its a CONSERVATIVE! AS Juan McCain had Sarah Palin—Romney needs someone who is a popular conservative who has proven themselves—The list is a short one. Newt? Palin? Etc...

[AuH2ORepublican]

It’s not about Evangelicals switching to Obama; it’s about them staying home. President Bush was reelected in 2004, despite increased Democrat turnout, largely because he got millions of Evangelicals who hadn’t voted in 2000 to vote that year. Taking the attitude of “what are they gonna do, vote for Obama?” is a good way to guarantee low conservative turnout and an Obama victory.

And it is pretty clear that (i) Romney can’t win if he doesn’t carry at least one of OH, PA or MI, (ii) Romney would likely lose to Obama in all three states if the elections were held today, and (iii) none of the trendy VP picks would deliver one of those states to Romney while helping him hold must-win VA, NC and FL (Romney will be on his own to pick up the one extra state he needs, be it NH or NV). While Portman has only won statewide in OH in a single election, that’s the same number of statewide wins as Rubio in FL or Martinez in NM, and one more than Ryan in WI, and Portman won handily in a year in which the gubernatorial election was very close. If Romney can’t carry OH without Portman on the ticket, then he won’t carry it with any of the other VP candidates and Obama will be reelected.

[Verginius Rufus]

Al Gore was born in DC. That did not prevent him from being Vice President or from running for President.

Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia, which left the Union when he was 4. I think he was living in Georgia by then, but Georgia also left the Union. Both states were "readmitted" in 1870, when Wilson was 13. For several years of his childhood he did not consider himself a citizen of the United States.

I don't think being born in Puerto Rico disqualifies someone from becoming President or Vice President, but being from a place with no electoral votes is a definite obstacle...plus are people willing to vote for someone with a tilde in his name? I doubt it.

[Scanian]

Yes-—since WWI.

But has there ever been an adjudication of NBC status for such people? I can’t find anything.

[ak267]

Has anyone done any serious vetting of this guy?

[PowderMonkey]

"And, of course, he has strong Hispanic appeal."

Nonsense. Let's everybody stop and take a deep breath here. He's Puerto Rican. Sectionalism is alive and well throughout Latin America. Mexicans dislike the Guatemalans. The Bolivianos clash with the Peruvians, and most of South America hates the Argentinians, but they all look down their noses at the Puerto Ricans. Don't expect Fortuno to swing the Hispanic vote to the Republican party. Lumping all Hispanics into one big happy family is simply naive.

[raybbr]

Why in Hell should we have a VP or President from a place that doesn’t want to join the Union?

Why, to garner the most important voter in the history of the U.S. - the hispanic.

Don't you understand the "hispanic voter" has been elevated to supreme status?

[BillyBoy]

>> 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. <<

I agree 100% with AuH2ORepublican. Fortuño is NOT conservative and is NOT acceptable. If the ticket is Romney/Fortuño, I'm voting third party (and since I'm from Illinois, spare me the "you'll cause Obama to win if you do that" argument). I will NOT support two dopes who lent their support to Obamacare at the time it was passed.

I'm sick of hearing the birther conspiricies about how you're not a "natural born citizen" unless both were parents were born American citizens, but with Fortuño the more important point is he doesn't even govern a state but a U.S. territory. He wouldn't help Romney win any more votes (areas of the U.S. mainland with large Puerto Rican populations, like NYC, would still vote RAT) and I would seriously question Romney's sanity if that's the guy he wants to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Saying it's OK because he's was born a U.S. citizen is like David Cameron tapping the Premier of Bermuda to be Deputy Prime Minister of the U.K. and shrugging off the fact she lives on the other side of the globe by pointing out she was born a British citizen and her head of state is Elizabeth II. While she's "british" on paper that argument won't fly.

In Fortuño's case, there are numerous Hispanic Republicans (ESPECIALLY after the 2010 election) that are more conservative than him and have won elections in the U.S. mainland. Thus there's no reason to even put him on a short list of veep choices.

I'm not saying no to Fortuño, I'm saying HELL NO.

[livius]

I voted for a conservative VP the last time around, and we can see where that got us. I’m not doing it again.

I don’t care who Mittens buys for his VP. I’m not voting for him.

[little jeremiah]

We aren’t stuck with him.

Defeatism will help us be stuck with him though.

I want to see a convention gone wild.

[Texas Fossil]

Did Statehood Support Help Romney in Puerto Rico?

Pic: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/03/18/us/politics/538-puerto/538-puerto-blog480.jpg

“New Progressive Party” voted in GOP Primary?

—

Did Voter Fraud by Puerto_Rico’s Pro-Statehood New Progressive Party Taint Local & GOP Primary Results?

http://latinorebels.com/2012/03/22/charges-of-voter-fraud-by-puerto-ricos-pro-statehood-taint-local-and-gop-primary-results/

—

Did Statehood Support Help Romney in Puerto Rico?

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/statehood-support-should-help-romney-in-puerto-rico/

New Progressive Party, voted GOP? Don’t understand

[BillyBoy]

>> I don't think being born in Puerto Rico disqualifies someone from becoming President or Vice President, but being from a place with no electoral votes is a definite obstacle...plus are people willing to vote for someone with a tilde in his name? I doubt it. <<

I'm not a birther and I don't think being born in Puerto Rico disqualifies you either (as someone else noted, Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona territory to U.S. citizen parents). However, people are forgetting the other part of the constitutional requirements for presidency, residency. It makes it very clear: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States .

Even if you assumed they meant "non-consecutive" residency within the U.S., if you add up Fortuno's years in Washington when he served in Congress and his years in law school, it STILL doesn't add up to 14 years. I can't imagine the founders meant that living on an island territory somewhere "counted" as "within the United States", or the entire clause would be pointless since people nowhere near the United States could claim to be "residents". I think they put that clause in specifically to prevent what Fortuno advocates want here... someone who was "American born" on paper but has no ties to the United States physically or culturally in many years suddenly becoming the leader of our country. The clause was inserted for good reason, to prevent such a bizarre thing from happening.

As someone else noted, it sounds like a bad Twilight Zone episode (Rod Serling intoning: "Meet Luis Fortuño, age 51. He's the leader of a small spanish-speaking Latin American island who is about to become President of the United States. Not possible in the real world, you say, but Sr. Fortuño is about to find that anything can happen... in The Twilight Zone.")

[COBOL2Java]

What the Hell is wrong with this party? We’re morphing into criminal Democrats!

morphing? As in not yet there?

[justiceseeker93]

This is an intriguing possibility.

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.

[bgill]

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, not a state. The U.S. citizens born in Puerto Rico are not natural born citizens. Fortuno is not eligible to be VP, much less President. What the Hell is wrong with this party? We’re morphing into criminal Democrats!

Ditto.

[BillyBoy]

>>> The question isn't US citizen. It's natural born citizen of the US. <<

The question isn't natural born citizen of the US, it's the residency requirement of "fourteen Years a Resident within the United States", which everyone forgets about but which Fortuno clearly doesn't meet.

[BillyBoy]

>>> The question isn't US citizen. It's natural born citizen of the US. <<

The question isn't natural born citizen of the US, it's the residency requirement of "fourteen Years a Resident within the United States", which everyone forgets about but which Fortuno clearly doesn't meet.

[BillyBoy]

>> I voted for a conservative VP the last time around, and we can see where that got us. I’m not doing it again. <<

If Fortuno is the VP choice, you won't have to worry about doing it again, since Fortuno is not a conservative. He's a RINO like Romney.

[cripplecreek]

People also need to look at the issues that have arisen due to the re issuance of birth certificates there. Its been a mess.

[Verginius Rufus]

It would be stupid to put this guy on the ticket, but I don't buy the argument that you have to be born in one of the states to be a natural born citizen, and I think living in territory over which the US flag flies should count for residency. Puerto Rico had its own US quarter, just like DC or Guam. It isn't land belonging to a foreign country.

If Romney is the Republican nominee, it will be the first election between two candidates neither of whose fathers was born in the US (if you count the colonies which later became the US as "US" in the case of the early Presidents).

Before Obama, I believe that the only Presidents with foreign-born fathers were Andrew Jackson and Chester Alan Arthur (the latter was elected Vice President and only became President because of his predecessor's assassination). Woodrow Wilson's mother was born in England.