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| How Mitt Romney's missteps kept Obama in the presidential race | How Mitt Romney's missteps kept Obama in the presidential race |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| The 2012 campaign began before the campaign of 2008 had finished. In February of that year, while Barack Obama was still locked in an epic struggle for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney summoned his closest allies to a Boston office to work out why his effort to be the Republicans' standard-bearer of 2008 had failed so badly. He handed out a memo he had written about himself, detailing his strengths and weaknesses, assessing his own defeated candidacy as if it were one of the businesses he once assessed as a hotshot management consultant. This was no mere exercise in navel-gazing. Romney was determined to learn the lessons of defeat in 2008 in order to win in 2012. | The 2012 campaign began before the campaign of 2008 had finished. In February of that year, while Barack Obama was still locked in an epic struggle for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney summoned his closest allies to a Boston office to work out why his effort to be the Republicans' standard-bearer of 2008 had failed so badly. He handed out a memo he had written about himself, detailing his strengths and weaknesses, assessing his own defeated candidacy as if it were one of the businesses he once assessed as a hotshot management consultant. This was no mere exercise in navel-gazing. Romney was determined to learn the lessons of defeat in 2008 in order to win in 2012. |
| Thus began a long march that ended today. The visible miles came last winter, when Romney trudged through the pig farms of Iowa and the snows of New Hampshire in his search for the Republican nomination. But that followed an invisible primary, an endless round of closed-door fundraisers to fill up a war-chest he hoped would scare off the most fearsome potential rivals. | Thus began a long march that ended today. The visible miles came last winter, when Romney trudged through the pig farms of Iowa and the snows of New Hampshire in his search for the Republican nomination. But that followed an invisible primary, an endless round of closed-door fundraisers to fill up a war-chest he hoped would scare off the most fearsome potential rivals. |
| Whether money was the explanation or not, Romney was indeed rewarded by the decision of several big-beast Republicans not to challenge him for the nomination. The New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Indiana's Mitch Daniels and others, including Sarah Palin, skipped the race, leaving the path open for Romney. | Whether money was the explanation or not, Romney was indeed rewarded by the decision of several big-beast Republicans not to challenge him for the nomination. The New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Indiana's Mitch Daniels and others, including Sarah Palin, skipped the race, leaving the path open for Romney. |
| When ambitious politicians duck a presidential contest, that's usually because they suspect the incumbent will be too hard to dislodge. In the summer of 2011, that looked like the smart decision. For Obama had just done what George W Bush had failed to do: he had removed – killed – Osama bin Laden. Many Republicans concluded that, given the US economy was bound to at least slightly improve by November 2012, the scalp of Bin Laden made the president tough to beat. | When ambitious politicians duck a presidential contest, that's usually because they suspect the incumbent will be too hard to dislodge. In the summer of 2011, that looked like the smart decision. For Obama had just done what George W Bush had failed to do: he had removed – killed – Osama bin Laden. Many Republicans concluded that, given the US economy was bound to at least slightly improve by November 2012, the scalp of Bin Laden made the president tough to beat. |
| The course for Romney ran anything but smooth. Instead of warming to the former Massachusetts governor as the obvious choice – a successful businessman who looked like Hollywood's idea of a president – Republican primary voters seemed ready to fall in love with almost anyone but him. The field of rivals included outlandish characters who seemed absurd to outsiders: pizza magnate Herman Cain, evolution-denying congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, Texas governor Rick Perry, who could not remember which three government departments he planned to shut down. Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said: "The Republican primary resembled a reality-TV show. All these guys might as well have been living in a tree house with Simon Cowell." | The course for Romney ran anything but smooth. Instead of warming to the former Massachusetts governor as the obvious choice – a successful businessman who looked like Hollywood's idea of a president – Republican primary voters seemed ready to fall in love with almost anyone but him. The field of rivals included outlandish characters who seemed absurd to outsiders: pizza magnate Herman Cain, evolution-denying congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, Texas governor Rick Perry, who could not remember which three government departments he planned to shut down. Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said: "The Republican primary resembled a reality-TV show. All these guys might as well have been living in a tree house with Simon Cowell." |
| And yet each of those candidates enjoyed a moment in the sun, a surge in support that made them – rather than Romney – the frontrunner. It was as if Republicans were desperate to find someone else to nominate. Accordingly, former senator Rick Santorum and the former House speaker Newt Gingrich won enough states between them to ensure the primary race dragged on. | And yet each of those candidates enjoyed a moment in the sun, a surge in support that made them – rather than Romney – the frontrunner. It was as if Republicans were desperate to find someone else to nominate. Accordingly, former senator Rick Santorum and the former House speaker Newt Gingrich won enough states between them to ensure the primary race dragged on. |
| That long, bruising primary battle cost Romney dear, and not just financially (it forced him to spend money defeating his fellow Republicans rather than saving it for the fight against Obama). The greater cost was political. | That long, bruising primary battle cost Romney dear, and not just financially (it forced him to spend money defeating his fellow Republicans rather than saving it for the fight against Obama). The greater cost was political. |
| It exposed the future Republican nominee to sustained attack from his own side. The notion of Romney as a ruthless plutocrat, coldly laying off American workers, did not come from the Democrat attack machine. Romney was not seen as embodying the 1% because of the Occupy movement. Rather, that portrait was drawn by Gingrich, who aired an extended commercial, "When Mitt Romney came to Town", that tore apart Romney's tenure at the helm of the private equity firm Bain & Co. It depicted him as a corporate raider, willing to shutter factories and shatter working lives if it made him richer. That critique lingered all year, eagerly picked up and advanced by the Democrats. But it originated with the Republicans. | It exposed the future Republican nominee to sustained attack from his own side. The notion of Romney as a ruthless plutocrat, coldly laying off American workers, did not come from the Democrat attack machine. Romney was not seen as embodying the 1% because of the Occupy movement. Rather, that portrait was drawn by Gingrich, who aired an extended commercial, "When Mitt Romney came to Town", that tore apart Romney's tenure at the helm of the private equity firm Bain & Co. It depicted him as a corporate raider, willing to shutter factories and shatter working lives if it made him richer. That critique lingered all year, eagerly picked up and advanced by the Democrats. But it originated with the Republicans. |
| Still, the damage of the primaries went deeper. To push aside Santorum, Bachmann and the others, Romney was obliged to adopt positions that would endear him to the Republican faithful – but which stored up trouble for later. So Romney reversed his previous support for abortion rights and gun control, called on undocumented migrants to "self-deport" and rebranded himself from a Massachusetts moderate, who as governor had passed healthcare reform, into the "severe conservative" who now promised to repeal "Obamacare". | Still, the damage of the primaries went deeper. To push aside Santorum, Bachmann and the others, Romney was obliged to adopt positions that would endear him to the Republican faithful – but which stored up trouble for later. So Romney reversed his previous support for abortion rights and gun control, called on undocumented migrants to "self-deport" and rebranded himself from a Massachusetts moderate, who as governor had passed healthcare reform, into the "severe conservative" who now promised to repeal "Obamacare". |
| Those reverses left him doubly wounded. For one thing, he could now be slammed as a serial flip-flopper, just another politician who believed in nothing and would say whatever it took to be elected. For another, he had been boxed into a series of positions bound to alienate core blocs of the electorate that had long been tough for Republicans to reach – the young, Latinos and suburban women among them. | Those reverses left him doubly wounded. For one thing, he could now be slammed as a serial flip-flopper, just another politician who believed in nothing and would say whatever it took to be elected. For another, he had been boxed into a series of positions bound to alienate core blocs of the electorate that had long been tough for Republicans to reach – the young, Latinos and suburban women among them. |
| Sure enough, through the summer months he was on the receiving end of an air assault from Obama, in the form of saturation TV ads in key states, which portrayed Romney as part boardroom vulture, part unprincipled phoney. Obama, who had faced no primary challenge of his own, had the money to do it – defining Romney before he had a chance to define himself. | Sure enough, through the summer months he was on the receiving end of an air assault from Obama, in the form of saturation TV ads in key states, which portrayed Romney as part boardroom vulture, part unprincipled phoney. Obama, who had faced no primary challenge of his own, had the money to do it – defining Romney before he had a chance to define himself. |
| Yet Romney could not just blame Obama. Much of his trouble was of his own making. He helped colour in the cartoon of himself as an out-of-touch one percenter when he boasted that his wife had "a couple of Cadillacs" or when his tax returns – showing that he paid a meagre 14% – had to be dragged out of him. In July, he botched an overseas tour meant to boost his credentials as a potential world leader by offending America's most easily pleased ally, Britain, when he suggested the London Olympics could be a flop and by travelling to Jerusalem to offer his view that cultural inferiority might be the cause of Palestinian suffering. | Yet Romney could not just blame Obama. Much of his trouble was of his own making. He helped colour in the cartoon of himself as an out-of-touch one percenter when he boasted that his wife had "a couple of Cadillacs" or when his tax returns – showing that he paid a meagre 14% – had to be dragged out of him. In July, he botched an overseas tour meant to boost his credentials as a potential world leader by offending America's most easily pleased ally, Britain, when he suggested the London Olympics could be a flop and by travelling to Jerusalem to offer his view that cultural inferiority might be the cause of Palestinian suffering. |
| What should have been a moment to relaunch his candidacy and make Americans look at him anew – his party convention in Tampa in August – also had little effect. His speech was overshadowed by a moment of Dadaist theatre, as Clint Eastwood harangued an empty chair standing in for an imaginary Obama. Romney was on his way to becoming a joke figure. | What should have been a moment to relaunch his candidacy and make Americans look at him anew – his party convention in Tampa in August – also had little effect. His speech was overshadowed by a moment of Dadaist theatre, as Clint Eastwood harangued an empty chair standing in for an imaginary Obama. Romney was on his way to becoming a joke figure. |
| In September, he went from being ridiculed to being hated. A leaked video showed him addressing fellow millionaires at a fundraising event in May, where an unplugged Romney candidly wrote off 47% of the electorate as parasites, non-taxpaying dependents who would never vote Republican because they would not "take responsibility for their own lives". Even many on his own side believed it was an act of self-destruction so complete that no candidate could possibly survive it. | In September, he went from being ridiculed to being hated. A leaked video showed him addressing fellow millionaires at a fundraising event in May, where an unplugged Romney candidly wrote off 47% of the electorate as parasites, non-taxpaying dependents who would never vote Republican because they would not "take responsibility for their own lives". Even many on his own side believed it was an act of self-destruction so complete that no candidate could possibly survive it. |
| But Romney had one more chance. The first TV debate in Denver on 3 October was, for many Americans, the first time they had paid close attention to the election. What they saw was an incumbent president who looked exhausted, listless and disengaged. With his head down, his answers sluggish, it seemed he either was too tired to be president or no longer really wanted the job. | But Romney had one more chance. The first TV debate in Denver on 3 October was, for many Americans, the first time they had paid close attention to the election. What they saw was an incumbent president who looked exhausted, listless and disengaged. With his head down, his answers sluggish, it seemed he either was too tired to be president or no longer really wanted the job. |
| Romney, by contrast, was spirited and energetic. Above all, he came across as a human being rather than the caricature of Obama propaganda: all he had to do was not seem like a rapacious capitalist bloodsucker and, in an instant, he had broken the core message of the Obama campaign. The immediate bounce that Romney enjoyed in the polls suggested that a small chunk of the electorate, disenchanted with the president, had been waiting to see if the Republican was a plausible replacement. In Denver Romney crossed that threshold. | Romney, by contrast, was spirited and energetic. Above all, he came across as a human being rather than the caricature of Obama propaganda: all he had to do was not seem like a rapacious capitalist bloodsucker and, in an instant, he had broken the core message of the Obama campaign. The immediate bounce that Romney enjoyed in the polls suggested that a small chunk of the electorate, disenchanted with the president, had been waiting to see if the Republican was a plausible replacement. In Denver Romney crossed that threshold. |
| That change revealed what had always been the structural reality of this race. By rights, it should always have been close. Here was an incumbent president who had struggled to lift his approval rating above 50%, who had seen the number of Americans saying the US was on the "wrong track" become a majority and, most crucially, had watched as the unemployment rate had remained stuck at 8% for almost his entire presidency, shifting below that figure only a matter of weeks ago. The last president to be re-elected with a jobless percentage that high was Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, in what were rather different circumstances. | That change revealed what had always been the structural reality of this race. By rights, it should always have been close. Here was an incumbent president who had struggled to lift his approval rating above 50%, who had seen the number of Americans saying the US was on the "wrong track" become a majority and, most crucially, had watched as the unemployment rate had remained stuck at 8% for almost his entire presidency, shifting below that figure only a matter of weeks ago. The last president to be re-elected with a jobless percentage that high was Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, in what were rather different circumstances. |
| So the election should never have been a cakewalk for Obama. That it had seemed that way, until Denver, attested to the deeply flawed candidacy of Romney. By raising his game at that first debate, he restored politics to something like normal service. | So the election should never have been a cakewalk for Obama. That it had seemed that way, until Denver, attested to the deeply flawed candidacy of Romney. By raising his game at that first debate, he restored politics to something like normal service. |
| Obama conceded that he had messed up, joked that he had been napping in the first encounter and sharpened up for the next two, where he remained clear, focused and unafraid to confront his opponent: in Denver he had failed even to mention Romney's 47% remark. Now he made it his closing argument. | Obama conceded that he had messed up, joked that he had been napping in the first encounter and sharpened up for the next two, where he remained clear, focused and unafraid to confront his opponent: in Denver he had failed even to mention Romney's 47% remark. Now he made it his closing argument. |
| But October was a tough month for the president. He was hobbled by accusations that he had bungled or even deceived the public over the September killing of four US diplomats in Benghazi, an issue unlikely to go away. Still the end of the month brought some unlikely and helpful allies. | But October was a tough month for the president. He was hobbled by accusations that he had bungled or even deceived the public over the September killing of four US diplomats in Benghazi, an issue unlikely to go away. Still the end of the month brought some unlikely and helpful allies. |
| The first was a former nemesis, Bill Clinton, who in 2008 had dismissed Obama's presidential bid as a "fairytale". In the campaign's closing days, Obama let the man they call the big dog run – as the country's most beloved Democrat grew hoarse making the case for his successor. Obama didn't just exploit Clinton's ability to connect to the white, male blue-collar Americans who remain beyond the current president's reach – he all but ran on Clinton's record, arguing that "We know my plan works because we've tried it," referring to Clinton's success in the 1990s. | The first was a former nemesis, Bill Clinton, who in 2008 had dismissed Obama's presidential bid as a "fairytale". In the campaign's closing days, Obama let the man they call the big dog run – as the country's most beloved Democrat grew hoarse making the case for his successor. Obama didn't just exploit Clinton's ability to connect to the white, male blue-collar Americans who remain beyond the current president's reach – he all but ran on Clinton's record, arguing that "We know my plan works because we've tried it," referring to Clinton's success in the 1990s. |
| The second ally was a genuine surprise. Some pollsters doubt that Superstorm Sandy really made a big difference for Obama, noting that Romney's surge, "Mittmentum", had already stalled before the weather changed. But few deny that Obama benefited from the chance to be seen doing the job of president, while Romney was sidelined, and profited especially from the bearhug he received from the Republicans' rising star, Chris Christie. His gushing praise for Obama, and refusal to campaign at Romney's side in Pennsylvania, was precious validation for the president – and it came at just the right time. | The second ally was a genuine surprise. Some pollsters doubt that Superstorm Sandy really made a big difference for Obama, noting that Romney's surge, "Mittmentum", had already stalled before the weather changed. But few deny that Obama benefited from the chance to be seen doing the job of president, while Romney was sidelined, and profited especially from the bearhug he received from the Republicans' rising star, Chris Christie. His gushing praise for Obama, and refusal to campaign at Romney's side in Pennsylvania, was precious validation for the president – and it came at just the right time. |
| And so the two men duelled to the very last, Romney making two campaign convention-breaking stops on election day itself. The campaign had finished, but the politics is anything but over. | And so the two men duelled to the very last, Romney making two campaign convention-breaking stops on election day itself. The campaign had finished, but the politics is anything but over. |
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