Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America

by Balz, Dan

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  On December 13, my colleague Phil Rucker and I sat down with Romney for one of a series of interviews he was doing that week with print and Internet publications. He had been criticized for not talking to the press, and this was the week the campaign had chosen for him to check the box. He used the interview to continue his attack on Gingrich, whom he called “an extremely unreliable leader in the conservative world.” He also acknowledged that he still needed to persuade some Republicans that he was a true conservative. “There are some elements that create the impression that I may not be a conservative. One is being from Massachusetts. The other is a health care plan that people feel was in some ways a model for what Barack Obama did. And those two things create an image which is not identical to what I’d like to project. . . . People I think question those conservative values, and I have to bring them back to my record and, frankly, my writings. One of the reasons I wrote a book was to make sure people understood what I really believe.” Later in the interview he again stressed his conservative position. “I know today there are some of my positions that are not seen as being conservative, and that’s the right of people to look at. But if you look at one of the most defining issues of conservatism today, it is whether we’re going to reform Medicare and cut back the scale of the federal spending, and the Speaker called that ‘right-wing social engineering.’ And I applauded the Ryan plan.” He also said he was confident he could unite the party as its nominee. “My positions on issues are very much in alignment with the big tent of the Republican Party,” he said. “I’m for limiting the scale of government, cutting government spending, dramatically reducing the intrusiveness of government in our lives. My message on the Constitution is entirely consistent with that of the base of my party. And so I don’t think there’s any difficulty in those in my party coalescing behind me if I’m the nominee.”

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  Matt Rhoades liked to tell people, “Winners close.” He was the quiet force inside Romney’s headquarters. He had risen through the ranks of Republican strategists, joining the Republican National Committee staff straight out of college. In 2004, he was director of opposition research for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, and four years later he served as Romney’s director of communications. He was known for having a pipeline to the Drudge Report. He was tough and tough-minded, a man of few words who stayed out of the limelight. When he accepted the job as director of Romney’s PAC, he told me he would not put up with the internal chaos that had marked Romney’s first campaign. He prized discipline, planning, and execution. As the campaign year neared, he was mindful of 2008, when Romney didn’t close, in either Iowa or New Hampshire. He knew Romney was in a stronger position this time, but he was focused on taking full advantage of the governor’s position. “We’ve got to close,” he said as he prepared for the last weeks of campaigning before Iowa and New Hampshire. Which is why when Romney set off on a bus tour of New Hampshire on December 21, the name of the tour was “Earn It.”

  The Republican campaign was running at full speed now in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney was making sure his New Hampshire firewall was secure before turning back to Iowa. The night before, he had given what aides had billed as a closing argument speech, though it was mostly a rehash of past themes and rhetoric. Romney still had trouble delivering inspiring speeches on the stump. But the staging, at the picturesque town hall in Bedford, and the advance notice produced a full house of supporters and reporters. Romney’s team was in a good mood that night as they kicked off the tour, but one senior adviser remained cautious about Iowa. “I think you could throw a blanket over four or five people, and we could be fifth, we could be first,” he said. “I think we’re probably going to be in the top two or three but I just don’t know. I mean, the stuff that’s fallen off Newt is not necessarily going to us.” But the more he talked, the more optimistic he sounded. “I mean, it feels weird to me,” he said. “I almost think we’re on the brink of making this over really fast.” He noted that there were eleven days between New Hampshire and South Carolina and that South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who had endorsed Romney, was bullish about his chances there. “Were we to get these first two, we would have time to get to South Carolina and create something.” Romney was not so sure. In our interview with him the prior week, he had offered this view of how long the nomination battle would last: “Traditionally, people who’ve done well early are able to knock out their opponents because their opponents run out of money. I’m not sure that’s the path that will be followed this time, in part because of the availability of Internet, cable, and debate access for campaigns with limited funds. So people may stay in longer than they have in the past, [people] that haven’t been able to raise money. So I can’t predict what will happen.” Romney also thought the race would last longer than many were predicting because of a change in the rules, which now called for delegates to be awarded proportionally in early contests rather than the winner-take-all rules of the past.

  The next morning, in Keene, New Hampshire, Romney belittled Gingrich for complaining about the attack ads raining down on him in Iowa. Interviewed by NBC’s Chuck Todd, he sent a message to Gingrich that he should be prepared for even tougher attacks. “I know that the Speaker would like to say that we shouldn’t have any negativity,” Romney said. “But, look, if you can’t handle the heat in this little kitchen, the heat that’s going to come from Obama’s hell’s kitchen is going to be a heck of a lot hotter.” Later in the afternoon, Gingrich appeared at a press conference in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he was asked about Romney’s comments. He smiled. “Look, I’ll tell you what. If he wants to test the heat, I’ll meet him anywhere in Iowa next week one-on-one, ninety minutes, no moderator, just a timekeeper. If he wants to try out the kitchen, I’ll be glad to debate him anywhere. We’ll bring his ads and he can defend them.” He accused Romney of hiding behind his super PAC. “I don’t think he wants to do anything but hide over here and pretend it’s not his fault that he is flooding the people of Iowa with falsehoods. That’s his money and his staff and it’s his responsibility. I can take the heat.”

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  Once Christmas was over, the candidates refocused all their energies on Iowa. The Hawkeye State became a multiscreen political theater as the candidates navigated a turbulent landscape, the most unpredictable anyone could remember. Santorum began the final week of campaigning in a bright orange vest and carrying a shotgun for a short hunting expedition. Rick Perry campaigned with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the notorious anti-immigration official from Arizona. Arpaio got Perry off to a bad start at a breakfast outside Des Moines when he referred to Iowans as Buckeyes, the nickname of Big Ten rival Ohio State. Santorum and Gingrich attacked Ron Paul, whose growing support threatened both their candidacies. And the sparring between Gingrich and Romney continued. In Dubuque, the former Speaker said of his opponent’s attacks, “Frankly, they plain lie.” Still stung by Romney’s charge that he was an unreliable conservative, Gingrich said, “I don’t want to be insidious about Governor Romney, who I think is a very competent manager and a very smart man. But to have someone who is a Massachusetts moderate, who said he did not want to go back to the Reagan-Bush years, who voted as a Democrat for Paul Tsongas in ’92, who campaigned to the left of Teddy Kennedy, who as recently as running for governor said [he was] sort of a moderate pragmatic—to have him run a commercial that questions my conservatism? I mean, I’ve been a conservative all my life.” Gingrich said he would not fight fire with fire. He would try to stay positive in his advertising. “We have a lot of time,” he said. “I trust in the ability of the people of Iowa to look at something that is baloney and see it as baloney.”

  By then, Gingrich was already out of time, thanks to weeks of pounding by Romney and Restore Our Future. The landscape changed once again, barely a week before the caucuses. At midweek, a CNN producer called Santorum’s campaign urgently trying to book him for an appearance
that afternoon. John Brabender, Santorum’s chief strategist, remembers the producer saying, “We’re coming out with a new poll, we’re not going to make it public till four o’clock, all we can tell you is, you really should do Wolf Blitzer.” The new poll showed Santorum tripling his support and leaping into third place behind Romney and Paul. “All of a sudden,” Brabender said, “what happened is people who wanted to be with us but for the longest time thought we were in last place and so they just really weren’t there—all of a sudden they were there.”

  Perry and Michele Bachmann were fighting desperately to avoid being driven from the race. Bachmann had put herself on a punishing schedule as she tried to match Santorum’s feat of campaigning in every county in the state. She was in last place in the CNN numbers, the final indignity for the winner of the Iowa Straw Poll. But there was one more painful moment, an embarrassing defection by her state chairman, Kent Sorenson. Late in the afternoon on December 28, Bachmann arrived at a restaurant south of Des Moines for a quick meet-and-greet before running off to do a live shot for television. Among those waiting was Sorenson. One of Bachmann’s advisers asked him if he wanted to say a few words, but he begged off, claiming he had just had some dental work done. A few hours later he showed up at a raucous rally for Ron Paul at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and announced that he was switching sides. “I believe we’re at a turning point,” he told the audience. Bachmann said Sorenson had been lured away with the promise of a financial payment, which Sorenson denied. Her campaign was expiring amid bitter charges and countercharges.

  New Year’s Eve brought more shocks when the Des Moines Register released its final poll of the Republican race. The Register had a notable track record of predicting the outcome of races in Iowa, and when the numbers began to flash on BlackBerries and iPhones at restaurants around Des Moines, where reporters were celebrating the arrival of the election year, it was clear that the caucuses were heading for one of the closest finishes ever. Over the four days of polling, Romney led with 24 percent, followed by Paul with 22 percent and Santorum with 15 percent. Then came this paragraph: “But if the final two days of polling stand alone, the order reshuffles: Santorum elbows out Paul for second.” In a year of surprises, why not this latest: a surging Rick Santorum with just days left before the caucuses. Santorum’s timing was perfect. It was too late for any of his opponents to launch the kind of air attack that Romney had thrown at Gingrich.

  On the evening before the caucuses, Santorum appeared before an overflow audience packed in a steamy side room at the Pizza Ranch. It was a dramatic change from just two weeks earlier when he had trouble holding a lunchtime crowd during a speech at an insurance company in Des Moines. He told the crowd this was his 380th Iowa event. “We haven’t speed-dated through Iowa,” he said. “We’ve taken our time. It’s been a courtship.” With the caucuses twenty-four hours away, he pleaded with Iowans to set aside everything but their own instincts and their own judgments. “You’re first,” he said. “That is a huge responsibility. I know a lot of people make light of the Iowa caucuses, but as you will see tomorrow night, it will have a huge impact on this race. And so the decision you make, and I know this, cannot and should not be taken lightly. . . . This is the most important election in your lifetime. . . . Do not defer your judgment to people who know less about who these candidates are than you do. Lead. . . . I’m asking you to lead. I’m asking you to be bold.”

  Caucus night was a blur of precinct results, shifting numbers, and uncertain outcomes. For most of the night, Romney and Santorum were neck and neck, with Paul running third. Santorum hesitated to go out to speak until he knew the final results, but his aides urged him at least to claim a moral victory even if he wasn’t in first place. No matter what, he had far exceeded expectations. Brabender reminded him that no matter what he said, the first lines would be the ones television would capture. When he finally addressed supporters, he had a broad smile on his face. “Game on!” he said. It was a remarkable showing for Santorum, but by early the next morning, the near-final count showed Romney with a lead of 8 votes out of more than 120,000 cast.

  A few days later, Rhoades told me, “Everything we did in Iowa was to win the nomination, not to win Iowa, to win the nomination. That was our plan from the beginning, keeping our options open was the plan to win the nomination. Popping out there, doing debates, never going the McCain route of writing off the state at some point. We kept our options open from day one because it was all about winning the nomination. And we ended up winning Iowa.” As Romney boarded his chartered airplane for the flight to New Hampshire the morning after the caucuses, he was in position to do what no Republican had done in the modern era of presidential politics—win both of the opening contests. The only worrisome thing was that while he had “won” the caucuses, he actually received fewer votes than he had four years earlier. He had momentum, but he did not yet have his party.

  • • •

  Jon Huntsman Jr. awaited the other candidates in New Hampshire. He was the misfit in the Republican race, the lone apparent moderate (other than perhaps Romney) in a party where such species were nearly extinct. Huntsman was a popular former governor of Utah who had been tapped by Obama in 2009 to become U.S. ambassador to China. The appointment was seen as a clever way to fill a critical diplomatic post and sideline a potential 2012 rival at the same time. Then rumors of a possible Huntsman candidacy surfaced in January 2011. Huntsman came to Washington that month for the state visit by Chinese president Hu Jintao. Obama couldn’t resist having fun with his envoy to Beijing. “I’m sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary,” he said to laughter at a press conference. That night, Axelrod spoke to Huntsman. “I went up to him and said, ‘Jon, I want you to know you can have my endorsement too if that helps,’” he said. “And he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know where all this is coming from, it’s way overblown.’”

  Meanwhile, a fledgling Huntsman for President operation sprang up under the direction of John Weaver, a veteran Republican consultant who had been a senior strategist for John McCain. The team also included Fred Davis, a Republican ad maker from Hollywood known for his theatrical flair, who had done the “I am not a witch” ad for Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell. The Weaver operation technically was not connected directly to Huntsman. In interviews both said there was no direct contact between the two while Huntsman was in Beijing. But Huntsman could easily monitor the press coverage as the team built a Web site, a theme, and the skeletal infrastructure for a candidate who met all of Huntsman’s criteria. Huntsman resigned his diplomatic post and returned to Washington at the end of April. The day he landed, he got off the plane, put on a tuxedo, and attended the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Late that night he called Weaver and said he wanted to meet the next morning with the team Weaver had put together. Weaver suggested late morning, knowing the likely condition of the others after a night of hard partying. Huntsman insisted on an early start. The group arrived at Huntsman’s home in the Kalorama neighborhood in Northwest Washington with various degrees of hangovers. “From 7:30 a.m. onward, it was back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings, all at his request,” Weaver said.

  Huntsman was ill-suited to seek the nomination of the Republican Party as it was constituted after the 2010 elections. In Utah he was a fiscal conservative but a moderate in other areas. He had looked favorably on the need to combat global climate change. He supported civil unions for gay couples. Once out of the Obama Foreign Service corps, he took issue with the war in Afghanistan, saying he would bring U.S. forces home as quickly as possible. Stylistically, he lacked the hard edge that some activists on the right expected of their presidential candidates. Long after he had dropped out of the race, he talked with me about the political culture shock he experienced when he returned from China and joined the Republican race. “You come back to the anger and the vitriol,” he said. “How you could talk of a president, of any party, as they
were President Obama? I just couldn’t get my head around that.” I asked whether he found the country changed during his time away. “Very much so,” he said. “The party structurally was different. It was siloed in different ideological areas. The Tea Party of course had blossomed, and that was a driving sort of vanguard force. The vitriol toward the president, the venom, was something that I had never experienced before, and I had worked for Ronald Reagan as a young guy as an advance man. He was a gentleman, he believed that politics ought to have certain standards for decorum and respect. And what I was hearing just was not out of my world politically. The anger, the town hall meetings with people throwing punches and shouting down politicians.”

  Huntsman believed this was destructive to the Republican Party. “I came from the Republican Party of ideas,” he said. “You think about solutions, you put ’em forward, you fight for them based upon our Republican ideals—that don’t include, by the way, hating the other guy, but teeing up something that’s bold, courageous, and optimistic. So that’s the party I came out of. And when you hit head-on with the reality that you don’t just put ideas forward, you rip the guts out of the other guy, you rip him down, you cut him to shreds, you eviscerate him—that wasn’t my style. People could say you’ve got to be that angry, you’ve got to rip the president. I just worked for him, for heaven’s sake. I was his envoy to China. He’s a decent man. I can’t do that. And even if I did, it would come across as disingenuous. I’m not going to play that game.”