Now that the primary season has all but officially ended (mercifully and at last), it is time for political analysts to look back at the yearlong trek that got us Nominee Romney and see what conclusions we can draw from this prolonged fight. There are several things that led to Romney’s success this time around:
The Job Interview
At first glance, it may seem the most cogent lesson is the simplest one: the Republicans once again nominated their next-in-line candidate. Just as John McCain, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford before him, Romney was widely perceived as “earning his turn,” so to speak. But there is something going on at a deeper level here – why (with the notable exception of George W. Bush) does the modern GOP seem to hand their nomination to the next-in-line? After all, this is a truism, a force, strong enough to revive John McCain from political death a thousand times over in 2008. And it was enough to protect Romney from one of the most anti-establishment, angry conservative electorates in recent memory. How?
It has been said that the Republicans treat their primaries much like a job interview, while Democrats treat theirs like a dating game – a comparative analogy that has some heft behind it to be sure. Democrats get excited about insurgent candidates that send thrills up their legs, whereas Republicans like to sit back and determine whether our candidates have the experience necessary for the job. Looking at the 2008 primaries in an parallel universe, then, we wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Mike Huckabee vs. Hillary Clinton general election matchup – where Huckabee had won the Democratic primary and Hillary the Republican one.
Insurgent candidates are just not built to survive modern Republican primaries. And so Romney perhaps had the huge advantage in this way from the outset: with no Huckabee and no Palin in the mix, he was the only “serious” candidate applying for this job. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum were never going to pass the job interview process. Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry both had a chance based on the resumes they had submitted, but as soon as they were called in for a face to face interview they were both summarily dismissed from contention. And so, after inspecting each of the job applicants in turn, ultimately the Republican Party ended up calling the candidate that looked the most attractive at the beginning of the process and saying, “You’re hired.” It’s a familiar process that makes sense for the “party of business” to follow.
Continue reading for Cycling Seppuku, I Can be Your Friend, Where in the World is Romney Sandiego, and “Establishment” Support…
Cycling Seppuku
There were several candidates in this primary who, in the immortal words of Marlon Brando, coulda been a contender… but their largest obstacle was not Mitt Romney or any other candidate, it was themselves. Tim Pawlenty looked good on paper, but he doomed his campaign early on with a couple of decisions: first, to hire an ad company that apparently aspired to work for Michael Bay instead of a future President of the United States; and secondly (and much more importantly), to run a negative campaign and then get involved in a fight-to-the-death with Michele Bachmann. Before ever even beginning to introduce himself to voters, he lashed out against Mitt Romney and “ObamneyCare” – but then wouldn’t say it to Romney’s face in a debate. But the bigger issue wasn’t his purported cowardice, it was that he had chosen to go negative so early in the campaign. By doing so, he painted himself into a corner with fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann. When she rose in the polls and he didn’t, he attacked her – and then had little choice but to continue attacking her. All this negative campaigning before anyone knew anything about Pawlenty left a bitter taste in voter’s mouths, and T-Paw was the first candidate to withdraw from the 2012 race. Let this be a lesson to future candidates: define yourself and tell your story first before even thinking about attacking other candidates. People need to get behind you before you start kneecapping everyone else. Pawlenty should have easily survived the Battle of Minnesota, but his self-inflicted wounds threw the fight to Bachmann.
Then there was Rick Perry. At the same time Michele Bachmann was winning Ames and Tim Pawlenty was dropping out, Rick Perry was jumping in late – promising to be the force to be reckoned with. But, as with other White Knight candidates of years gone by, people quickly realized that White Knights aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. In Rick Perry’s case, a string of what can only be remembered as quite possibly the worst debate performances by a major candidate in modern history, Perry repeatedly shot himself in the foot and killed his own campaign.
And thus went the roller coaster of
cheap nike dunk sb cycling seppuku: Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum all rose on wings of wax which subsequently melted under the heat of increased scrutiny. Bachmann had her crazy eyes and crazier stances. Cain began sliding in the polls when he failed to articulate any sort of coherent foreign policy or even his own stance on abortion – a slide which was cemented by charges of sexual harassment from half a dozen women. Gingrich flopped because of his infamous lack of discipline, lack of organization, and because of his attacks on Romney’s time at Bain which rallied conservatives (briefly) around Romney. (Gingrich was resurrected in South Carolina but subsequently destroyed in the Florida debates.) And Santorum’s own answers in those debates spelled the beginning of the (long, drawn out) end of his campaign as well.
Yes, Romney helped along some of these candidates to their graves, but generally speaking most of them did the bulk of the work themselves. Which brings us to another lesson.
I Can Be Your Friend
Mitt Romney became infamous in 2008 (fairly or unfairly) for his “scorched earth” tactics he utilized against Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson (and later against Mike Huckabee and John McCain). This time around, until the past couple of months, he ran a largely above-board and friendly campaign. He and Michele Bachmann never attacked one another; until the past couple of months, neither did he and Rick Santorum. At one point, he even suggested that people take a look at Herman Cain and vote for him if they wanted to! He never hit back against Tim Pawlenty and never stooped down to respond to Jon Huntsman’s attack ads. He was, generally speaking, quite affable and friendly with all his competitors – a marked change from 2008 when the entire field reportedly hated him.
Of course, that congeniality began to change in September when it looked like Rick Perry could run away with the contest, but as noted above, Romney didn’t have to do much before Perry imploded of his own accord. Romney never worried about the Bachmann or Cain rises in the polls, and only responded to Gingrich’s rise when urged to do so repeatedly by his campaign handlers and nervous GOP insiders. And respond he did, launching a massive negative campaign in the battle for Florida. But when Florida was done, Romney and Gingrich entered into some sort of unofficial ceasefire as Gingrich retreated to Georgia (skipping NV, CO, MN, MO, MI, and AZ, and essentially ending his campaign in the process). Now, Gingrich is making appearances saying Romney is going to be the nominee and that he will support him. Again, quite the marked change from 2008.
Romney learned that the electorate doesn’t like negative campaigning, and it paid clear dividends for Romney this time around.
Where in the World is Romney Sandiego?
One other key element of the Romney campaign through 2011 was to avoid overexposure. This is one of the more important decisions that led to a Romney victory because of its overarching reach in shaping strategy. In 2008, Romney announced his candidacy in February and started pumping tens of millions of dollars in television ads in Iowa and New Hampshire shortly after. He shot up in the polls, but then watched his numbers slowly deflate as the primaries and caucuses drew closer. This time around, Romney was determined to avoid overexposure, and it worked.
There’s an axiom in modern politics that voters don’t even start paying attention until after Labor Day. And so the Romney campaign divided their primary calendar into three sections – roughly pre-Memorial Day, Memorial Day to Labor Day, and post-Labor Day. And then they meticulously laid the groundwork to be successful in their objectives in each of the
air max shoes cheap sale three phases. Pre-Memorial Day was spent on the campaign rollout, introducing Romney, and laying the early organizational groundwork. Phase two was spent out of the spotlight as much as possible and focusing on raising a campaign war chest that would shock and awe the competition, starting with his one-day event that hauled in $10 million in late May. Near the end of the summer, all the pundits were asking, “Where is Mitt Romney?” Well, Romney had things right where he wanted them. Groundwork was laid. Money was raised. And starting with Labor Day weekend, Romney was unleashed through a slew of interviews, speeches, townhalls, and other public events. Just when voters started paying attention.
In doing so, Romney was able to avoid spending needless amounts of money prior to September (while his competition was forced to spend in order to raise their name recognition, another benefit of having run before) – and he was able to make his campaign fresh and new to the average voter late in the game when opinions actually began being formed. It was also a marked contrast with the other fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants operations his competitors were running. Most, if not all, of the other candidates lacked any sort of meta-strategy like the one Romney employed. They attempted to lay campaign groundwork, fundraise, and do public events all at the same time, and found it increasingly difficult to do so as time went on.
”Establishment” Support
Whether or not Mitt Romney was “the establishment candidate” in this race will likely be debated to death in years to come. But one thing is for certain, if sitting Representatives and Senators represent “the establishment”, then Romney had the most establishment support by leaps and bounds above all other candidates.
Why does this matter? It has been a simple predictor in modern GOP primary elections that the candidate with the most endorsements from sitting Representatives and Senators will be the nominee. Moreover, the winning nominee has always had at least 50 endorsements from that group, and most often well above a hundred. This time around, it wasn’t even close: Romney has
nike lebron james shoes more than a hundred (I honestly stopped counting after a while) and nobody else had more than ten or so. For everyone who said throughout the course of this campaign, “Endorsements don’t matter,” take note. Endorsers are campaign surrogates, can rouse local or national support (depending on their stature), and actually do (perhaps subconsciously) influence undecided voters’ decisions.
The Bottom Line
Romney won the 2012 Republican Primaries due to a number of different factors. Some, like his campaign strategy, he had control over. Others, such as the other candidates self-destructing, he did not. This was one of the most fluid and surprising races we’ve ever witnessed: candidates rose from the political graveyard more than once, and candidates who nobody ever thought stood a chance found themselves flying close to the sun. In the end, however, the result was anything but surprising: Mitt Romney, the frontrunner, won the nod in an incredibly memorable battle. Now, it’s on to battle Barack Obama – and it’s nice to see the party already beginning to coalesce around Romney, thanks in large part to the Democrats attacks on his wife, Ann. To the general election!
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