The New Republic's Alec MacGillis quizzed Ohio Democratic leaders about rumored Romney VP shortlister Sen. Rob Portman. His find: Portman is well-liked among Democrats in his home state even though they disagree with him on most issues.

The most colorful response came from Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern:

"He's a disciplined right-wing ideologue," Redfern said, emphasizing the modifier. "He's polite. It's easy ... to dislike, say, Newt Gingrich, because he's a pain in the ass. Rob Portman is not a pain in the ass."

Read the whole thing.

Bill Clinton he was not. When it came to smoking pot, the teenage Barack Obama had rules. You had to embrace "total absorption" or face a penalty. When you smoked in the car, "the windows had to be rolled up." And he could horn his way in, calling out "Intercepted!" and grab the joint out of turn.

Best-selling author David Maraniss' "Barack Obama: The Story" describes the future president's teenage antics, notably his copious marijuana smoking, details of which were published early Friday by Buzzfeed. While the book won't be released until June 19, vast sections of it were already available Friday on Google Books.

[Related: Obama ex-girlfriend recalls his 'sexual warmth']

Starting on page 293, the reader begins to get the dope on high school-age Obama's group of basketball- and fun-loving buds, who dubbed themselves the "Choom Gang," from a verb meaning "to smoke marijuana."

"As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking  trends. The first was called 'TA,' short for 'total absorption.' To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled," writes Maraniss, author of a biography of the 42^nd president.

"When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang from marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "'Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,' explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo."

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Obama also made popular a pot-smoking practice that the future president and his pals called "roof hits." When they smoked in the car, they rolled up the windows, and "when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling," Maraniss writes.

Obama "also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted' and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind," according to the text.

Romney on his campaign plane (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Mitt Romney admits he's "haunted" by the verbal gaffes he's made during his second run for president but says he's the victim of a media environment that encourages "spontaneous" actions, yet pounces on mistakes.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, Romney acknowledges that he's forced himself to "be a little more careful in what I say" after mistakes that "make me want to kick myself in the pants."

[Related: Cell phone users like Obama, landline users prefer Romney]

Among his gaffes, Romney cites his comment at a New Hampshire luncheon in January when he said, "I'd like to be able to fire people." He said he meant health care companies that provide inadequate services, but the remark has been used against him in Democratic attacks ever since without that kind of context.

In the current media environment, Romney says, "you will be taken out of context, you'll be clipped, and you'll be battered with things you said."

"I have to think not only about what I say in a full sentence but what I say in a phrase," Romney tells Noonan. "The media always says, 'Gosh, we just want you to be spontaneous,' but at the same time if you say anything in the wrong order, you're gonna be sorry!"