Portman is always on the move, filling his days with meetings, conference calls, news events, committee hearings and speeches on the Senate floor, each task chipping away at the promise the Terrace Park Republican made to voters: “Jobs for Ohio.”

That promise was painted on the side of a white RV that Portman used to crisscross the state during his 2010 campaign. Now, a toy replica of that truck with the same mantra painted on it sits on the mantle in his Senate office, beside a small bust of William Howard Taft, a fellow Cincinnati lawyer who served as president and, later, chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The truck and Taft are reminders, Portman says, of why he’s here.

“I believe we’re at a turning point in our state and in our country that if we don’t make certain changes to our regulations or tax policy, our energy policy, our health care system, our legal system, that we won’t be able to have the economic opportunities for future generations of Ohioans that we have enjoyed,” Portman says.

“So that was what I focused on in the campaign. That’s what I have focused on since I have arrived here.”

But keeping that promise hasn’t been easy; there are no obvious markers for whether, six months into his first term, Portman is succeeding or falling short.

‘We’re planting seeds’

Last year, before Portman took office, Ohio’s unemployment rate hovered around a record high of 10.6 percent. The latest data from the U.S. Labor Department show that unemployment rate in the state has dropped to 8.6 percent.

But many in Ohio are still struggling to make ends meet. And Ohio is far from the 4 percent unemployment rate the state boasted a decade ago.

Portman says he isn’t measuring his success by unemployment rates, anyway.

“For us, the metrics are really twofold: One is the progress we are making on specific economic development initiatives, and the second … is the more traditional role of a senator in promoting pro-jobs legislation,” he said.

But even on those fronts, success has been slow in coming, measured more in incremental terms than in sweeping victories:

In April, Portman praised the announcement by PAS Technologies that they had signed a long-term contract with Pratt Whitney to refurbish aircraft engines in Hillsboro. The deal means between 40 and 200 new jobs. Portman had visited the plant and been in frequent contact with PAS Technologies CEO Phil Milazzo to encourage the deal.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Portman also has tried repeatedly to make the case for allowing GE Aviation of Evendale to continue the joint strike fighter alternate engine program on the company’s own dime. Congress has blocked further federal funding for the second engine for the new F-35 jet fighter. In March, Portman spoke with a top defense official about the program. He argued on behalf of the program to other officials at a hearing in May and to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during Panetta’s nomination hearing in June. The alternate engine program remains in limbo.

Also in April, Portman visited Lincoln Electric and Eaton Aerospace, both headquartered in Cleveland, to talk with company leadership and workers about economic development and bringing jobs back to Ohio.

“Each week, I talk to a CEO somehow. It doesn’t always result in something specific but we’re planting seeds,” Portman says. “We are aggressively trying to play a different role than a traditional senator.”

Part of playing a different role involves having a staff member devoted to jobs. Kevin Hoggatt is Portman’s director of economic development and special projects, a position that Portman believes is unique among senators.

Hoggatt, a native of Wilmington and graduate of Xavier University, is charged with juggling the progress on about 15 economic development projects, keeping in touch with private sector businesses, working with the Ohio governor’s office and with the local chambers of commerce.

“I wanted someone here in Washington focused like a laser on the job creation side of things,” Portman explained.

Among those “projects” are Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, GE Aviation in Evendale, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Chiquita Brands in Cincinnati and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Ky.

“I came into this job knowing the key players and issues, but not to the degree that I knew Piketon,” says Portman, a former congressman who represented southern Ohio in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2005. “There’s been a lot to catch up on.”

Little legislation to show

On the legislative front, progress has also been slow; little has passed the Senate this year, where partisan wrangling over budget issues have taken center stage. Plus, Portman is in the minority in the Senate.

“I’ll feel better when we can get some of this partisan gridlock behind us and begin to pass legislation,” Portman said. “There’s literally nothing getting passed these days, which frustrates me. But we’ve got the Senate moving in the right direction in a sense of jobs being the focus and some consensus being built around the regulatory relief effort, tax reform, trade agreements and energy policy.”

Portman spearheaded the Senate Republican Jobs Agenda, a four-page outline that lists his party’s budget, tax, regulatory, workforce, trade, energy and health care proposals. All 47 GOP senators have signed off on the document, which Portman keeps in a stack in his office. His staff hand out copies at every media event.

The plan resembles the Jobs Agenda that Portman promoted during his campaign, modified to get all GOP senators, from tea party-backed Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to moderate Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine, on board.

“Point is we have one,” Portman says. “Now, we’re pulling out different pieces and trying to get them passed.”

Among the legislation Portman is pushing are bills that would:

Require new regulations issued by independent agencies – such as the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission – to undergo the same scrutiny under the unfunded mandates law as those issued by executive agencies. Currently, independent agencies are exempt from the law, which makes sure the federal government doesn’t pass new regulations that force unnecessary spending by local government or the private sector.

Create a national energy efficiency strategy, which would expand the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, help states establish their own loan programs to finance efficiency upgrades, create standards on outdoor lighting and residential appliances, and require the federal government to adopt energy-saving techniques and building standards, among other things.

“There’s a long list of things that I’d like to see get done. But some of it is not within my control because the House and Senate are not moving much legislation these days,” Portman said. “But I’m continuing to promote those ideas and try to get as many of them enacted as possible and in the meantime moving ahead on the other economic development projects.”

‘Tenacious follow-through’

Back home, businesses and economic development officials praised Portman’s efforts, pointing out that many of the pro-growth policies and development projects he’s pushing for take time.

“While I certainly believe in reducing marginal tax rates and getting a handle on our fiscal house … those things are not going to work overnight,” said Mark Policinski, executive director of the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana (OKI) Regional Partnership.

Still, Policinski, who previously worked in Washington as a senior economist for The Joint Economic Committee, said having a staff member devoted to economic development is a good first step.

“It’s unique. It’s proactive. It’s exactly what an economy with really weak job performance needs,” Policinski said. “It can’t do anything but help.”

Matt Davis, who is vice president of government affairs for the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, agreed.

“Having that dedicated staff member willing to be our access point and interested in what’s going on on the ground is extremely valuable to us back here in Cincinnati,” he said, adding that Portman’s office has been very open to doing whatever it can to help the chamber promote Ohio.

“The more champions that we can have out there in Washington talking to companies, talking to CEOs, getting a sense of what they need in order to grow existing businesses or create new ones, that’s resources well spent by the senator,” he said.

Ed Loyd, a spokesman for Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands, said the company has been pleased with how Portman has listened to their concerns and pushed for additional flights to key business destinations from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

“What’s unique about Rob is his ability to bring multiple stakeholders to try to achieve a consensus or solution to the intractable issues that others would just shy away from,” Loyd said. “He projects integrity and depth and tenacious follow-through.”

Rick Kennedy of GE Aviation said Portman has been a critical supporter of the joint strike fighter alternate engine program in the Senate, where the company faces its biggest foes. GE Aviation has committed to using its own money to continue the project — not government funds — but it needs congressional authorization.

“Portman has done a very nice job of defining what we’re trying to do,” Kennedy said. “His is a very important voice to have in the Senate.”

When the discussion turned to raising the debt limit, Portman — sitting at the far end of McConnell’s conference room overlooking the National Mall — jumped in, making the case during a four-minute presentation that spending, not tax cuts, causes future deficits.

The dialogue would continue over the next several days, with the Ohio Republican speaking to McConnell and Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) multiple times in person and by phone.

It’s unusual access for a freshman senator, but Portman is no newbie to Washington. As a former budget director and trade representative for President George W. Bush, Portman has proved himself a valuable asset to top GOP debt negotiators. And he’s positioned to take some credit for contributing behind the scenes to the most significant issue of the year so far — a feather in the cap of a rising Republican star who some observers say could make a strong 2012 vice presidential contender.

In a recent interview, Portman, 55, was reluctant to discuss specifics of his meetings with McConnell and Kyl and downplayed his role in the debt negotiations.

“I feel like I’m part of the team, and they’ve given me opportunities to express my views,” he told POLITICO in a room just off the Senate chamber. “I feel like leadership listens to rank-and-file members, including me.”

But it’s clear party elders are tapping into Portman’s experience and expertise and giving him a bigger platform to influence the caucus’s economic policies. McConnell awarded Portman a plum spot on the Senate Budget Committee. Kyl named him to his eight-person deputy whip team. And in May, leadership rallied behind Portman’s jobs plan that calls for a balanced-budget amendment, spending caps and tax code reform.

At last Wednesday’s leadership meeting, McConnell turned the floor over to Portman for several minutes. The freshman passed out two handouts, one of which contained a graph illustrating that without reforms federal spending will soar to as much as 50 percent of gross domestic product over the next 50 years, while revenue will remain flat. Spending today is about 25 percent of GDP.

“He wanted them to have that because he thought it was particularly good information for them,” said one GOP source familiar with the meeting. “To let a freshman take that kind of time says something in and of itself. It says that he had something relevant and interesting to say about where we are right now.”

There’s no formal role for Portman. Most meetings have been spontaneous. But in recent days, the wonky, soft-spoken freshman has aided leadership by fact-checking figures from the Treasury Department, running the numbers of how different debt-reduction packages could affect spending and revenue, and comparing various budget baselines.

While other senators rushed out of the Capitol to catch their flights home after Thursday morning’s vote, Portman decided to spend the night in Washington as leaders prepared for another round of White House talks Sunday.

That proved to be a smart decision. According to GOP sources, Portman personally met with Kyl after the minority whip returned from White House talks at midday Thursday. McConnell and Portman huddled Friday morning for a discussion that included comprehensive tax reform and spending cut triggers. That day, Portman met with Barry Jackson, the chief of staff to fellow Ohio Republican Speaker John Boehner, the lead debt negotiator in the House. Portman and Boehner, longtime family friends, later connected in person at the airport and chatted about the debt talks on the flight home to Cincinnati. Kyl and Portman connected again by phone Friday night.

“In meetings with the Republican leadership where debt and budget issues have been discussed, Portman stands out as a thoughtful senator who knows what he’s talking about,” said a top GOP leadership aide. “He certainly brings a measure of gravitas on economic and budget-related issues.”

During weekly caucus lunches, floor votes or chance meetings in the hallways, it’s not uncommon for senators to seek out Portman’s advice on how the Congressional Budget Office might be scoring a new bill or how the White House may approach the stalled free-trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

“He’s very credible on these issues,” said freshman Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who traveled to Seoul with McConnell and Portman to promote the South Korea trade deal. “People look to him for advice and input on them, and leadership turns to him to get input on these issues as well. I think they’d tell you the same thing.”

An attorney, Portman served as an associate White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush, who later named him his chief liaison to Congress. Portman won election to the House in 1992 and served until 2005, landing spots on the influential Budget and Ways and Means committees. President George W. Bush appointed him U.S. trade representative in 2005, then director of the White House Office of Management and Budget a year later, a post he served in for 14 months.

“He knows the process probably as well, if not better, than most Republicans,” said Rep. Steve LaTourette, an Ohio Republican who served with Portman in the House. “He’s been with Bush 41, Bush 43, now he’s in the Senate, he was in the House, and so he’s got all the institutional knowledge that Sen. McConnell would value in terms of … making sure the strategy is well thought out.”

At a time of high-stakes bipartisan talks with President Barack Obama, GOP leaders also may be reaching out to Portman because he is, as one Democrat put it, a “grown-up Republican.” Even liberals who railed against George W. Bush’s foreign and domestic policies had high praise for the man responsible for crafting the president’s budget.

“I think he’s a man who is professional, even though he and I have strong disagreements about a lot of issues,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who served as chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the House’s investigative panel, when Portman was OMB director.

“He was part of the Bush administration and in charge of the Office of Management and Budget at a time when the Bush administration was spending a lot of money without paying for it — on two wars and a Medicare prescription drug bill — so those are areas where we’ll have strong disagreement, but that doesn’t detract from my personal respect for him.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said he recently attended a dinner with a freshman GOP senator who said “stunning things and stuff like that would never come out of Rob’s mouth.”

“I think he is a grown-up Republican,” said Blumenauer, who served with Portman in the House and grilled him during congressional hearings when he testified as budget director. “In my experience, he has been thoughtful and not instinctively hyperpartisan. Obviously, he had some partisan roles and he played it well and he is a good member of his party. But he’s measured, he’s thoughtful. I think people on the other side of the aisle respect him, and I hope he is being listened to over there because there is a dangerous game being played.”

But Portman said Obama and Democrats are playing a game of chicken with the debt ceiling as well. If the debt cap is raised without deep spending cuts and long-term structural reforms, Portman said, firms like Moody’s will downgrade the nation’s credit rating, triggering a spike in interest rates and unemployment.

“None of that is a prescription for reelection,” he warned Obama.

“To simply extend the debt limit without dealing with the underlying problem is not possible today without negatively impacting the economy,” Portman said. “Raising the debt ceiling is necessary but not sufficient.”

These concerns led me to draft a specific jobs plan for Senate Republicans, which includes seven common sense steps to create the right environment for job growth.

One of the elements of the jobs plan is a new national energy plan to find more U.S. sources of energy to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil. But we can also lessen that dependence by using less.

Recently, I introduced the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness (ESIC) Act with Senator Shaheen (D-NH).

The bill will make our economy more productive and create jobs by incentivizing the use of energy efficiency technologies in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of our economy. Existing efficiency initiatives have already saved taxpayers more than $300 billion in energy bills and have reduced national energy use substantially. Our bipartisan bill takes efficiency to the next level through a variety of low-cost tools to encourage the use of efficiency technologies that will reduce costs for businesses and consumers, while making America more energy independent.

We believe this legislation will increase both our economic competitiveness and our energy security, while stimulating the economy and encouraging private sector job creation.

Ohio is the fourth largest manufacturing state in the country, with factories producing $84.1 billion worth of goods in 2008 and generating 18 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. Our new efficiency legislation includes effective provisions that will help Ohio manufacturers prepare for the future.

Ohio is also at the forefront nationally in manufacturing products that make homes and businesses more energy efficient.

Workers in Owens Corning’s world class facility outside Toledo, Ohio are developing and manufacturing insulation technologies that will be made in Ohio and will help reduce the energy consumption of our nation’s buildings, which today consume 74 percent of our nation’s electricity.

As a matter of fact, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recently held a hearing focused on the ESIC Act where Jay Scripter, Vice President of Sustainability at Owens-Illinois, testified on behalf of the bill. “I commend Senators Portman and Shaheen for their work on S.1000, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2011,” said Scripter. “It is bipartisan and sensible – and, among other things, it provides opportunities for America’s energy-intensive industries, such as glass manufacturing, to work cooperatively with government to increase energy efficiency.”

Nationally, the manufacturing sector consumes 30 percent of all energy used by our economy – more energy used than by any other single sector. By installing more energy efficient equipment and processes, manufacturers can achieve significant energy savings. These savings will allow them to reduce costs on consumers and free capital to invest in their companies and create jobs.

The Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act is a strong, targeted, and achievable attempt to make significant changes in the way our nation consumes energy. I look forward to working with Senator Shaheen and other Members on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to see this bill signed into law, which will increase both our economic competitiveness and our energy security, while stimulating the economy and encouraging private sector job creation.

Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is a U.S. Senator.

Instead of seeking space in the Hart Senate Office Building — the modern, steel-and-glass behemoth next door — Portman chose a row of rooms in Russell, the Beaux Arts relic on the corner of Constitution Avenue, across from the Capitol.

Russell has been bustling for over a century. John F. Kennedy, as a Bay State senator, huddled with Ted Sorensen nearby. Other lions, too many to count, have roamed these marble halls.

Portman loves the ghosts. You can almost hear them as he strolls into his private office. The click-clack of heels and the patter of polished black leather echo through the wall.

Portman, a soft-spoken man with sandy-grey hair, sinks into his couch. He points toward the mantelpiece. There sits a small bust of William Howard Taft, which the senator picked up during the move.

But Portman’s real hero is Taft’s son Robert A. Taft. Taft the younger, who represented Ohio in the Senate from 1939 until his death in 1953, was known as “Mr. Republican.”

Tracking down a bust of Robert Taft has been a challenge. Like many Senate greats, Taft has become just a few lines in the political-science textbooks, all but forgotten except among hard-core conservatives.

Portman promises to find a bust eventually. In the meantime, he has done what he could. For one thing, he got himself assigned to the same third-floor office that Taft used. He also tracked down Taft’s desk on the Senate floor. Portman pursued that ancient oak the way he does most things: with an easy grin and sharp elbows.

When the incoming freshmen arrived in Washington, the Senate historian informed them that they could request a particular desk. “Bingo!” Portman chuckles. “I asked them to find where Robert Taft etched his name.”

Sen. Al Franken, Democrat of Saturday Night Live and Minnesota, was in possession of the wooden prize. “Al Franken didn’t care much about Robert A. Taft,” Portman observes, his left eyebrow raised half an inch. “So I ended up getting his desk.”

For another minute or two, Portman riffs on Taft, mentioning some of his legislative battles. He then catches himself. He could continue like this for hours, he laughs. But he won’t.

Portman’s point, however, is more than nostalgic.

“Taft was a classic conservative,” Portman says. “Of all the Ohio senators, he is the one to whom I best relate. He was a little taciturn, I think, and not the greatest speaker. But he was clearly a major force here — a Lyndon Johnson type of leader in his own time.”

Portman is charting a similar path. It may be early in his first term, but he has high hopes for Senate Republicans in coming years. He is eager to help build the party’s numbers in 2012.

You may not have read much about him in the papers lately. Portman — a 55-year-old former congressman who served George W. Bush as budget chief — was one of the GOP’s high-profile success stories in 2010, a Beltway player with deep Midwestern roots. Yet since taking office, the comer has kept a decidedly low profile.

Other GOP freshmen, such as Sens. Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Rand Paul (Ky.), have produced their own budgets. Portman has not done that, but he has hardly been on the sidelines.

Portman is a fiscal expert, to be sure, but his focus since January has been economic. In early May, he authored the conference’s comprehensive jobs plan, a multifaceted growth memorandum. The document calls for tax cuts, a balanced budget, less onerous regulation, and free trade. Increased energy production, repealing Obamacare, and killing card-check are other key components.

Portman is the first to acknowledge that this sounds like boilerplate. He shrugs off the charge; evangelizing for the tried and true is something he enjoys, and he wishes others did, too. A recent Gallup poll backs him up: It shows jobs to be the top issue among all voter groups. For independents, a bloc the GOP needs in its corner, the employment issue dominates.

Still, peddling conservative axioms in the Age of Obama is no easy task. When Portman unveiled his proposal, it got little play in the national press. Both parties were consumed in a brawl over entitlements and spending. The high-drama fight was, as it has been for months, over Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which seeks to reform Medicare, among other sacred cows.

Portman tells me that he respects Ryan and others for leading on the entitlement front. He says that debate more than merits the attention it has been getting. His aim, however, is to make sure that the party is also leading on growth, in terms of both its message and its policies. Obama, he says, knows how to talk up jobs, even if he does not know how to enable the private sector to create them. Republicans, he says, cannot rest easy.

Less than a month after Portman released his jobs agenda, Republicans are suddenly flocking toward it. Nervous following the disaster in western New York, where the GOP lost a ruby-red House seat, Republicans are reiterating the message that won them a slew of seats last year: jobs, jobs, and jobs again.

House Speaker John Boehner underscored this point at his latest press conference. Boehner did not back away from the Ryan budget, but he did emphasize that jobs had to play a renewed role in the Republican agenda.

Speaking with reporters, Boehner urged Republicans to return to what Portman calls “classic conservatism” — the low-tax, high-growth stuff that has always drawn people to the party.

“Just because we’ve proposed it in the past doesn’t mean it is not a good idea,” Boehner noted. “I think the package that we have represents a lot of traditional ideas along with new ideas about how to let the private sector create jobs.”

Portman agrees. He has been hammering this theme since Washington was knee deep in snow and he was in a transitional office, far away from Russell’s shadows. “This is the central issue of our time because it relates to everything else,” he says. “If we don’t have a strong economy, and we are not creating jobs, we will not be able to make progress on the deficit and the debt.”

Portman frames growth as not simply a business issue, but one that is integral to American exceptionalism. “I saw this when I was the United States trade representative,” he says. “I traveled the world representing our great country. Sometimes, in public, officials of other countries would be critical of us. Then in private, they would all say the same thing: We need American leadership.”

“That means democracy-building, human rights, anti-corruption, and transparency,” Portman says. “It also means opening markets and creating opportunity.”

Portman began to make his jobs pitch at the first Senate Republican retreat earlier this year. He was asked to speak at the closed-door session at the Library of Congress, to share his story from the trail, where he used jobs as the keystone of his message, and won in a swing state.

Portman told his GOP colleagues that championing jobs is not only a solid place from which to build policy, but also good politics. “I talked about the need for Senate Republicans to have a consistent message on jobs, tied to the context of the debt, health care, and everything else,” he says. “I suggested that we needed a Senate consensus.

“Four months later, we finally had that consensus,” Portman smiles. “It took a while. Some members were not supportive of everything in the initial drafts that I sent around; others wanted to add things. But we eventually got to a consensus of 47 senators. Not everyone is wildly supportive of everything in there, but they all said that this is something that they can get behind.”

Portman says the members of Congress have an obligation to do more than throw punches at each other over the looming $14 trillion national debt. Addressing the economy itself, and not just government spending, is instrumental to the recovery. “We cannot simply cut our way out, we have to grow our way out,” he says. “The top concern for every American is how we are going to get this economy moving again. That was the top concern in 2004 and 2008, and it will be in 2012. Sometimes our candidates miss that point.”

Portman is taking his plan beyond Washington. In long phone conversations and private meetings, he has spoken about his effort with numerous 2012 presidential contenders, from Mitt Romney to Jon Huntsman to Tim Pawlenty, among others.

“I advise them that this is the central issue,” Portman says. “I know that this plan may not be the plan they are comfortable with, but you need to have a plan and explain it in straightforward terms to the American people, without Washington jargon and political talk.”

“We are in a very tough global economy,” Portman continues, “and America has to change the fundamental structures of our tax system, regulatory system, health-care system, legal system, and trade posture, in order to get back on our feet.”

Such talk has earned Portman chatter as a potential vice-presidential nominee and even, from conservatives such as NR’s Jay Nordlinger, hopes for a Portman presidential bid. Portman, of course, says that he remains focused on his upper-chamber work.

In coming months, Portman pledges to speak up and ensure that Republicans “do not miss the boat” on jobs as they make a concurrent argument to voters on entitlements. “I am a strong believer that good policy is good politics,” he says. “It’s easy to complain about the unemployment rate, but voters want you to be for something, not just against the Democrats. We are now offering something positive and constructive, seven consensus points.”

Portman knows a few things about how federal and state burdens can rattle a business. Growing up in Cincinnati, he spent summers working at his father’s forklift dealership. Since then — at Dartmouth and the University of Michigan Law School, and then in his twelve years in Congress, followed by a stint in the George W. Bush administration — he has often recalled those days at the Portman Equipment Company.

“I wish my Democratic colleagues would go out and talk to people in the trenches,” Portman says. “People are making decisions about whether to hire or not, and the cost of doing business is a huge part of that calculus. What has been coming out of Washington — the regulations, the mandates — have made it harder for companies to stay here.”

Democrats, Portman says, can demonize the GOP platform all they want, but ultimately companies will “vote with their feet.” Unless Republicans polish their jobs message, voters, he warns, will do the same.