POLITICO's Post Mortem of Romney's Campaign

[ProSense]

POLITICO's Post Mortem of Romney's Campaign

by masterp23

At 7:46 PM EDT on the 16th of September 2012 POLITICO published the first unofficial post mortem for the Romney campaign. This means that 8 weeks before the election on November the 6th there are a significant amount of aides and advisers in the campaign that have concluded that Willard Mitt Romney will lose the 2012 Election for the President of the United States!

The article heavily relies on an extensive Interview with Stuart Stevens, Romney's top strategist.

Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s top strategist, knew his candidate’s convention speech needed a memorable mix of loft and grace if he was going to bound out of Tampa with an authentic chance to win the presidency. So Stevens, bypassing the speechwriting staff at the campaign’s Boston headquarters, assigned the sensitive task of drafting it to Peter Wehner, a veteran of the last three Republican White Houses and one of the party’s smarter wordsmiths.

Not a word Wehner wrote was ever spoken.

Why?

When asked about the various versions of the convention speech, Stevens said: “The governor writes his speeches.” Pressed on whether he does so with no help, Stevens added: “He reaches out to a lot of people. … We don’t discuss who works on what. It’s all just the Romney campaign. Everything is just the Romney campaign.”

Right...

Much of the article is about Stevens defending his role and the campaign in general, but what is a running theme and not really highlighted by the POLITICO article is the shadow of Bush II hanging over the whole campaign

Instead, eight days before the convention, at a time when a campaign usually would be done drafting and focused instead on practicing such a high-stakes speech, Stevens frantically contacted John McConnell and Matthew Scully, a speechwriting duo that had worked in George W. Bush’s campaign and White House. Stevens told them they would have to start from scratch on a new acceptance speech. Not only would they have only a few days to write it, but Romney would have little time to practice it.

POLITICO has learned when Romney was gearing up for his 2012 run, he made never-before-reported overtures to Ken Mehlman, the manager of Bush’s campaign, and Mike Murphy, a top strategist who remains close to Romney.

Campaign officials said most parts of the Romney operation run in the rigid, metrics-driven style of Rhoades, a veteran of the buttoned-up Bush operation of2004. These parts include finance, voter contact, legal and communications. This stands in contrast to the hazy controls over things in Stevens’s domain, the officials said.

There are a lot more really interesting nuggets in the article, so I suggest you read the whole thing. Highlights includes the reaction of senior advisers to Clint Eastwood's rambling primetime "Stand-up routine" and details about a proposed "Route-66 Campaign Tour" (WTF?).

I think this is only the first of many "obductions" of the miserable campaign the "CEO extraordinaire" Willard Mitt Romney has run and a sign that the 2012 election in the last 8 weeks is clearly moving in the forward direction.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/16/1132624/-POLITICO-s-Post-Mortem-of-Romney-s-Campaign

Appears the neocon revival that was the Sunday talk shows was an EPIC FAIL.

[font color="black" size="12" face="arial"]What is Mitt hiding?[/font]







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[nolabear]

1. Just posted another thread re the same article. This stuff is hard to believe!

They think they can just cobble something together. If I was inclined to be speechless...no, wait, that's Mitt.

[LongTomH]

2. We still need to work hard! Register people to vote and Get Out The Vote!!!!!

If people decide that the election has already been won, they may decide to stay home. We need a massive turnout to defeat the GOP vote-stealing apparatus.

Register people in the next few weeks; then work to Get Out The Vote in your state!

[Loudly]

10. And remind them that if they intend to vote and think they are registered

they should confirm that the County Registrar still shows them on the rolls.

[Aerows]

3. Mitt has one thing to say

"Despite my money, it can't buy me enough savvy, charm or genuine likeable traits that I could ever become President. Hell, I'm shocked I ever became Governor of Massachusetts. They didn't, and won't make that mistake again"

[porphyrian]

4. . n/t

[liberalmuse]

5. I won't believe it, until all the votes are counted and Obama is declared the victor.

Anything can happen from now until then. The odds are it won't, but it's never good to count your chickens, so to speak.

[ProSense]

6. Good, and

until then it never hurts to point out that Mitt and his campaign suck and don't have a plan.

[Spazito]

7. Wow, that was a VERY interesting read...

and for it to come from Politico, a repub regurgitating outlet posing as mainstream media, imo, well, I don't know what the hell to think.

It is very, very negative on Romney, his poor decision-making, his poor choice of a team, etc.

I must say I really am that this would be coming out so early in the race.

[ProSense]

11. Yup

"It is very, very negative on Romney, his poor decision-making, his poor choice of a team, etc."

This idiot put all his eggs in the economic basket and tried to fool the public with a bullshit unworkable plan, hoping for a convention bounce and a bad jobs report. That was the strategy. Morons.

As I said in another thread, Mitt is a fuck up.

I mean, the guy screwed up a simple trip overseas where all he had to do was play nice and say hi!

His campaign has been going off the rails for months, but with every derailed car, the pundits found a way to keep him in the race.

Hell, they didn't even mention his clueless statement to the homeless victim of Isaac. He's a disaster.

I should add, his latest craven actions regarding the attacks on American in Libya are, without question, one of the worst self-inflicted disasters suffered by a candidate ever!

[Spazito]

16. I could not agree more...

"I should add, his latest craven actions regarding the attacks on American in Libya are, without question, one of the worst self-inflicted disasters suffered by a candidate ever!"

I have to think this was a decision made by Romney who, in his arrogance and complete inability to look beyond his own craven needs, thought this appearance would be a 'game changer'. It was, oh yes, it was.

[nc4bo]

17. His own acceptance speech never mentioned our military, those who died or were injured, never

mentioned how he would make the care of returning Vets a priority yet had no problem pounding the war drum.

Now here we've been attacked, people died, he jumps the gun with his criticism, doesn't apologize but doubles down on his mistakes.

He's not one time said that he would never casually put our men and women in harms way.....such an incredibly selfish individual lacking judgment, lacking any moral or ethical code, the man is just the wrong choice to lead.

I want him and his idiot running mate to keep looking insane, I want them to put their crazy out in public, let them insult just about every voting bloc there is, let the continue to offend with their austerity plan that will suffer the 99% and enrich the 1%.

This will be the only way to get and keep people pissed off enough to get off their asses and vote against them.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. anybody going Freudian on this apparently self-destructive loser?

what did he think about HIS daddy?

maybe dinesh d can do some analysis along the lines of Obama 2016

btw, I spent over an hour reading comments at Rotten Tomatoes wrt reviews of the above horrorshow, and the level of ignorance and utter delusion of most of the commenters is truly frightening.....poster after poster is conVINCED he's a communist atheist

[Cha]

19. I agree, Spazito..

with everything coming from Politico these past years..it makes no sense! They're use to carrying mitt's water..not throwing it on him.

[Spazito]

20. Yeah, my 'spidey senses' are going off as I don't trust Politico at all...

but I can't figure out what the benefit to the Romney campaign could possibly be in writing this very detailed, negative article, it's ALL bad news for him and his campaign, not one redeeming note in it.

[ProSense]

21. Maybe they were trying to

distract the left while Senator Johnson pushed Romney's non-plan: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021358668

I mean, it the GOP that's the party of stupid!

[Spazito]

22. You know, ProSense, I honestly go from ....

to to just about every day Romney, Ryan or their campaign spokespersons open their mouths, send out a tweet, write an OP/Ed, etc.

It all started, for me, with the beyond stupid "etch a sketch" comment and has not stopped since.

My eyes are getting sore from all the rubbing

[ProSense]

24. I thought

"It all started, for me, with the beyond stupid "etch a sketch" comment and has not stopped since.

...Romney was goofy before he got the GOP nomination (that weird laundry photo). The Etch-A-Sketch was the first clue that he and his team might be incompetent. It has been a clown show since then.

[Cha]

23. Thanks for the link, ProSense.. I REC it..needs

to get out there.

[ProSense]

25. Thanks. n/t

[ibegurpard]

8. this stuff is dangerous to be saying

the last thing we need is a sense of complacency. And there are TONS of downticket races that desperately need a turnout.

[ProSense]

9. Can't we do two things at one time:

Kick Mitt when he's down and get out the vote?

Yes. We. Can.

No danger in pointing out that Mitt is unfit.

[RoccoR5955]

12. It ain't over until the LAST vote is counted

We STILL have to get people to the polls regardless of what any poll says!

[Flatpicker]

13. What I get from this

Is that Romney is the Peter Principle President.

Got where he is due to family connections, but doesn't have the ability to have gotten there based on merit.

[nc4bo]

14. OMG that first part reminds me of the snarling and teeth gnashing coming out of the Palin campaign

Holy Cow - now I have to finish this.......

[jerseyjack]

15. ---and that't the problem.

Stalin: "It isn't who votes. It's who counts the votes."

[mkultra321]

26. Poorly run campaign

Truly this Romney team is just awful. Stevens sounds like a marketing guy constantly stuck in brainstorming mode and the reporting structure has too many conflicting decision makers with no clear lines of authority. It also explains why Ryan's VP roll-out was so muddled. Half the team just wasn't that into him and couldn't fake it.

Reading this article, I was reminded of their terrible decision back in February to fire the debate coach that actually made Romney seem like a viable candidate in the Primaries. The debate coach got all the credit for the turnaround in his performance and stole Mitt's ( or maybe Stevens's?) spotlight so he got fired. -- So much for the description of Mitt from the article that he sticks it out with people. Remember, he likes to be able to fire people who provide him services.

Link here for debate coach article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72433.html

[ProSense]

27. Worst. Candidate. Ever. n/t

[ProSense]

28. Krugman: The Domestic Dan Senor

The Domestic Dan Senor

Lot of buzz about the Politico Romney-in-disarray story. I was struck by one detail that hasn’t gotten much play: the original draft of Mitt’s convention speech was written by Peter Wehner, who Politico describes as “one of the party’s smarter wordsmiths.”

Well, maybe. But Wehner was also the point man in charge of Karl Rove’s effort to sell Social Security privatization. How’d that go?

Now, Wehner’s speech was scrapped, replaced with the leaden collection of right-wing platitudes we actually heard. But still, it appears that on domestic as well as foreign policy, Romney is turning to the very same people who botched everything under he-who-must-not-be-named.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/the-domestic-dan-senor/