Gina Raimondo was on center stage Sunday night. Mark Patinkin wonders what's next.

If you want to get a 13-minute profile on "60 Minutes," one of the country’s most important shows, it usually doesn’t help to be secretary of commerce.

That’s a “yawn” of a job – something about cataloging business stats.

So it says a lot that Gina Raimondo last Sunday got center stage there.

Especially since, when offered the role by Biden, Raimondo admitted, “Initially, I thought, ‘What does the commerce secretary do?’"

In the vagaries of America’s nexus of politics and public opinion, the "60 Minutes" spotlight gave a certain imprimatur to a conversation around her: Rhode Island’s first female governor is on many lists as a presidential prospect.

In fact, Lesley Stahl asked her about it: "Does that sound good to you?”

Raimondo ducked the question.

“What sounds good to me is being the best commerce secretary there's ever been,” she said.

Very diplomatic, Madame Secretary.

In Rhode Island, where politics is more hardball than most places, Raimondo has detractors, including countless state workers still angry over her pension reform. And "60 Minutes" left out other controversies, like the disastrous 2016 rollout of Health and Human Services software that locked many folks out of programs.

But Raimondo has shown an ability to get past such things, and in her current job, she has stood out nationally, far more than the last four commerce secretaries – Wilbur Ross, Penny Pritzker, John Bryson and Gary Locke, whoever they were. None left much of a mark.

Yet Raimondo has managed to, especially around one of the issues of our time, at the heart of both the economy and national security.

In 2024, it’s all about chips.

Which may seem unexciting, but remember that time during the pandemic when the lack of them meant auto dealers had no cars? And same with a ton of other products? Supply chains messed up chip deliveries from places like Taiwan and we weren’t making enough of them here. There was ominous talk about America in semiconductor decline.

No longer – in part because of the Chips Act that Raimondo championed, with many billions committed to bolstering the industry here.

Some may yawn at that too, but of such things – a chip turnaround – future political prospects are made.

"60 Minutes" is not known for puff pieces, but they summed up her impact in the introduction to Sunday’s piece:

“Once the governor of Rhode Island, Raimondo at 52 seems to have come out of nowhere to become a rising star of the Democratic Party and of the Biden administration.”

Wait – “out of nowhere”? What are you implying about Rhode Island, Ms. Stahl?

Then Stahl went on to underscore the importance of Raimondo’s obsession with chips: “As commerce secretary, she's running new projects that could touch the lives of every American, and she's helping lead the expanding Cold War with China and confront Russia's aggression in Ukraine. The battlefield for both those conflicts is technology.”

One thing that’s helped Raimondo stand out is that in an age of ideological extremes, she acts both like a Democrat and a Republican.

Admittedly, some of those lines are being blurred, with working-class folks embracing Trump.

But Raimondo is hugely pro-business, with some even saying she’s sold out to corporations.

Stahl asked her about that too.

“I think that's ridiculous,” Raimondo said. “I hold businesses accountable as much as anyone. When I tell them they can't sell their semiconductors to China, they don't love that. But I do that.” Yet she also knows you can't disengage from China, so she's visited there a number of times.

Raimondo also talked about another “Democratic” part of her – she’s about childcare as well as chips. Companies that get federal money have to provide it.

But she says that’s pro-business, too. If you want to get female employees, you need to offer that.

More: How the global chip shortage delayed an affordable housing project in East Providence

Raimondo’s focus on rebuilding American manufacturing isn’t just strategic, it’s personal, springing from her Rhode Island roots.

In an emotional point in the show, "60 Minutes" cameras filmed her at the shuttered Bulova watch factory in Providence where her dad was laid off in 1983, leaving their family struggling.

She admitted that part of her work today is to keep other Americans from facing that.

I’ve talked to Raimondo before about that difficult part of her past, and interviewed her many times. I sat with her in the governor’s office, followed her on the campaign trail and profiled her at her East Side home.

But the "60 Minutes" piece was still eye-opening to me.

It was an insight into an extraordinary journey that's overcome many bumps, and started here.

From Rhode Island to the Cabinet.

And perhaps one day, with Raimondo now being on that short-list, higher still.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Gina Raimondo's `60 Minutes' appearance puts former governor in spotlight