Almost President

by Scott Farris

  But even these successes were not always clear-cut. Critics wondered how many smaller office supply stores Staples had put out of business and how many jobs were lost?

  Bain also invested in and advised companies for which their involvement resulted in those companies selling off key assets, increasing company debt, laying off workers, and sometimes being completely liquidated—after Bain collected the fees it was owed. The example that received the most attention during the 2012 campaign involved GST Steel. Bain eventually invested nearly $50 million in the company and then directed GST Steel to borrow heavily to modernize its plants in North Carolina and Kansas City “and to pay dividends to Bain,” according to Kranish and Helman. When steel prices fell, Bain closed the Kansas City plant, laying off 750 employees. Asked about how he could justify Bain demanding and receiving large dividends from companies that were already in trouble, Romney said, “It is one thing that if I had a chance to go back I would be more sensitive to.”

  Romney’s embrace of “creative destruction” would lead to a misstep that arguably cost him the presidency. Confident of his credibility given his father’s work at AMC, Romney was harshly critical of President Obama’s bailout of the American auto industry. Prior to the bailout taking effect, Romney had penned an op-ed for the New York Times in which he argued the companies would be better served if allowed to go into a controlled bankruptcy, though he was unclear who in the private sector, particularly in the midst of the financial crisis, had the resources to help the industry other than the federal government. Romney’s opinion piece was headlined, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” Romney had not written the headline himself, but he never disavowed it, instead predicting that with a federal bailout “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” Instead, General Motors and Chrysler, the two companies who received federal assistance, did turn their fortunes around and reported record sales and profits. The bailout proved immensely popular in states dependent upon the auto industry and its feeder industries for thousands of jobs. Romney’s opposition, and his steadfast refusal to acknowledge the bailout’s success, prevented him from possibly carrying Ohio and perhaps even Michigan.

  Having made his fortune at Bain, Romney, following his father’s template, decided to enter politics. Befitting both his pedigree and his status as a successful CEO, he started near the very top, challenging one of the political icons of the twentieth century, the last surviving Kennedy brother, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, who was seeking his sixth Senate term in 1994.

  Despite his father’s political legacy, Romney had been a registered independent who had given donations to both Republican and Democratic candidates until he registered as a Republican in October 1993. Such an unformed political identity led a conservative Boston newspaper columnist to call Romney “philosophically vacuous.” As Kranish and Helman noted, for Romney the question was not what did he believe but “what kind of candidate did he need to be to win?”

  The only Republicans elected in Massachusetts were moderates, so that is how Romney defined himself. On such hot button issues as legal abortion and gay rights, Romney told supporters of each, “I’ll be better than Ted Kennedy.” He also supported gun control measures opposed by the National Rifle Association and declined to sign the “Contract with America” being pushed by congressional Republicans that year, which vowed support for such measures as term limits and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. Romney even distanced himself from the presidency of Ronald Reagan, declaring, “I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush.” As a Massachusetts political operative said, “When you deny Ronald Reagan when you’re a Republican, then nobody knows where you are.”

  Facing his first serious electoral challenge for his Senate seat, Kennedy turned out to be anything but a doddering old timer ready for retirement. When Romney insisted during a debate that he was “pro-choice” on abortion, Kennedy retorted that Romney’s position was more “multiple choice.” He used Romney’s record at Bain to suggest Romney had been responsible for throwing people out of work, citing GST Steel as a prime example. Outrageously, given the lengths to which his brother had fought to gain acceptance as America’s first Roman Catholic president, Kennedy even tried to use Romney’s Mormon faith against him, suggesting the Mormon Church still discriminated against African Americans, when the church had begun allowing blacks to become priests more than fifteen years before. Despite that stumble, Kennedy won by seventeen points. Still, Romney had made a credible effort and was poised for future opportunities.

  Before another political run, however, Romney took a detour to help “rescue” the 2002 Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held in Salt Lake City. The games were engulfed in scandal when it was revealed that local organizers had gone above and beyond the traditional feting of the International Olympic Committee with gifts and payments so large they amounted to outright bribes in order to secure the games for Salt Lake. Someone needed to be brought in to clean up the mess and restore the local committee’s integrity. Given his family’s prominence in the Mormon Church and his demonstrated managerial and financial acumen, Romney was chosen ahead of a local son who badly wanted the job himself, future Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who became Romney’s rival for the Republican nomination in 2012.

  While relatively few sponsors actually withdrew their support of the games, and there was never a serious chance that the games would be moved or cancelled, Romney would later insist that running the Winter Olympics that year involved “the most troubled turnaround” of which he had ever been a part. He trimmed expenses, sometimes substantially and sometimes symbolically. (Volunteers on the committee had usually been provided a free lunch buffet during meetings; now Romney charged them $1 for a slice of pizza.) Romney secured an additional $300 million in sponsorships to add to the $1 billion in sponsorships plus another $400 million in federal aid already in place prior to his arrival. The games went off without a hitch and ended with a nearly $300 million surplus, and Romney got a good deal of the credit.

  The most controversial moment of Romney’s tenure as head of the games was when police alleged he had used the F-word in a confrontation with a teenage volunteer directing traffic. Romney, whose strongest expletive was probably “poophead,” heatedly denied the allegation. “I have not used that word since college, all right?” Romney told reporters. “Or since high school.”

  Having added saving the Olympic Games to his resume, Romney returned to Massachusetts to run for governor. After first paying back taxes to reassert that his primary residency was indeed Massachusetts, rather than low-tax Utah, Romney announced he would run in 2002, as he had in 1994, as a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. “My position has not changed,” Romney said of his support for legalized abortion.

  Elected governor of Massachusetts at age fifty-five, the same age his father had been when first elected governor of Michigan, Romney learned that governing a state was not the same as managing a corporation. In an early meeting with legislators, Romney explained, “My usual approach has been to set a strategic vision for the enterprise and then work with executive vice presidents to implement that strategy.” It was a sour start given that legislators do not think of themselves as junior executives working under a CEO governor.

  Romney had inherited a tough state economy, and he had a tough time turning it around. Job growth was anemic during most of his tenure, but his administration was scandal-free, and he successfully dealt with some modest budget deficits. It was a solid record, but he lacked the kind of signature achievement needed to gain attention and credibility as a potential presidential candidate, a next step Romney had begun actively planning just six months into his term as governor.

  It was at this time that Romney also began recalibrating his beliefs, especially on social issues, in anticipation of needing to be seen as more socially conservative if he hoped to win the Republican presidential nomination. Romney claimed he had a
n epiphany on abortion while investigating the issue of using embryonic stem cells for medical research, and announced he would henceforth be “pro-life.” But there were other position changes, as well. Once opposed to “abstinence-only” sex education in schools, Romney now championed the program for young teens in minority neighborhoods. Once a strong opponent of new coal plants, Romney withdrew Massachusetts from a multi-state effort to combat greenhouse gases. He also became a leading crusader against same-sex marriage. While Romney had never supported same-sex marriage, his campaign against the idea seemed a betrayal to many gay rights activists who had been assured many times by Romney of his personal tolerance.

  The issue that gained him national attention, however, was health insurance reform, a topic suggested to him by the founder of Staples, Thomas Steinberg. Steinberg noted that it made no financial sense to have a system where people without insurance were often forced to seek treatment in emergency rooms where the cost was “three, four, five times what it costs to go to a doctor’s office,” especially when that extra cost would be passed on to others. As was his nature, Romney ran the data and concluded that universal health coverage could work in Massachusetts, which already had one of the nation’s lowest percentages of uninsured residents. Romney sold the individual mandate as “the ultimate conservative idea” because it required all individuals who could afford it to take personal responsibility for their health care rather than “look to government to take care of them.”

  Presaging the impassioned debate over Obamacare, Romney’s proposal stirred strong debate in Massachusetts, but it received a huge boost when Senator Kennedy backed his former rival and endorsed the plan. In April 2006, Romney signed his health care reform package into law and began touting it in editorials published in major national newspapers. Yet, even in his moment of triumph, Romney hedged his bets, unsure exactly how his health care reform plan would play with conservatives nationally. Using his line item veto powers, Romney vetoed eight provisions in the bill, including one that fined small businesses for failing to provide health insurance to employees. He did so knowing the Democrats would override the vetoes and keep the reform package intact.

  Even though he left office with a dismal job approval rating of 34 percent, perhaps reflecting voter sentiment that he had spent more time running for president than running the state, Romney now had the type of gubernatorial achievement that made him a serious presidential contender.

  Entering the 2008 presidential race, Romney believed he had three main challenges: concerns about of his Mormon religion, concerns about the sincerity of his new conservative convictions, and the question raised by an early supporter: Could this fabulously wealthy man with the privileged upbringing “really relate to an average voter?”

  On the Mormon issue (and demonstrating what strides Romney would make for the faith by 2012), surveys taken in 2006 found more than a third of voters said they would not vote for a Mormon for president and two-thirds thought the country was not ready for a Mormon president. By contrast, only 40 percent thought the nation was not ready for an African-American president. Romney’s strategy, then, was to actively court leaders among evangelical Christians, who were seen as the most resistant to a Mormon candidate and who were also a key voting bloc in Republican primaries. He invited leading evangelicals, including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Richard Land, to his home to discuss their concerns and assure them of the sincerity of his newly found conservative views on issues such as abortion.

  The meeting went well enough that Romney was convinced he could win conservative Christians to his side, particularly if he contrasted himself with the men he considered his chief rivals for the 2008 nomination, Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, both of whom were considered party moderates. Romney’s goal was not simply to convince social conservatives that he was an acceptable candidate; he wanted to be their champion. It was a significant strategic mistake. It did not play to his strength, which was economic issues, nor did it seem sincere.

  Romney blamed his loss in the Iowa caucuses on anti-Mormon sentiment held by the large number of evangelical voters there, but then he lost New Hampshire, too, this time to the eventual nominee, McCain. Observers concluded that Romney, the man who touted himself as an expert manager, was running a disjointed, wasteful, and inflexible campaign. Romney soldiered on for a few more primaries before throwing in the towel. His loyal campaigning for McCain led to Romney being briefly considered as McCain’s running mate, but McCain ended up choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin instead.

  Given the poor track record of losing vice presidential candidates winning a future presidential nomination, the snub was to Romney’s advantage. Further, the financial crisis of 2008 had become the Great Recession of 2009. As the 2012 campaign kicked off in earnest in 2011, social issues were on the back burner; the economy was now clearly the number one issue in America. It seemed to need a turnaround artist, and Romney believed no one fit that bill better than himself.

  Among conservatives, a second Obama term seemed unfathomable. With unemployment remaining at more than 8 percent through 2012, the economic recovery was anemic at best. They were certain Obamacare, which had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court by a single vote thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts, was widely unpopular. And they were convinced there was a lingering uneasiness among many voters with Obama, an uneasiness that manifested itself in polls that showed nearly half of Republicans believed that Obama had not been born in the United States (Obama was born in Hawaii) and nearly a third of Republicans believed he was secretly a Muslim (Obama is a professed Christian).

  A loss to Obama would be so disastrous that it would result, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said, in “the end of . . . the Republican Party.” Another leading conservative talk show host, Laura Ingraham, who called 2012 a “gimme election” for Republicans, went further: a Romney loss should “shut down the party. Shut it down, start new, with new people.”

  So, when Romney did lose, and not in the squeaker everyone had expected, he quickly felt the wrath of party activists who embraced Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dictum that “there is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune.”

  Even though the Republican platform had been the party’s most conservative since 1964 and Romney had faithfully hewn to its planks, conservatives bristled at suggestions that Romney’s loss—accompanied by two lost Republican seats in the Senate and eight in the House—was due to the party having moved too far to the right. They countered that the problem was that their nominee had been too much a moderate. Conservative activist Craig Shirley went so far as to say that Romney’s miscues proved, “in hindsight, he may have been the worst choice” the party could have made in 2012.

  This was unfair—and inaccurate. First, Romney had done a number of things well in his campaign; he was a much-improved candidate from 2008. He had developed into a polished public speaker and an effective debater. He had raised an extraordinary amount of money—some $1 billion—not only for his campaign but also for the Republican Party. His campaign had also seemed free of leaks and infighting, befitting a candidate who claimed management skills as his top qualification for the presidency.

  Second, the party had far worse alternatives. The field of candidates Romney had defeated to win the nomination was remarkably weak. Most highly regarded party leaders, including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, and many others, had passed on making a presidential bid, possibly not agreeing that 2012 was a “gimme election” for Republicans.

  Perhaps as in 1988, when Democrats had expected Michael Dukakis to handily defeat Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush, Republicans had overestimated how favorable conditions were to their cause, and underestimated how badly damaged the Republican brand remained in 2012.7

  Incumbent presidents are difficult to unseat. From 1900 thro
ugh 2012, there were eighteen presidential elections where an incumbent president was on the ballot; the incumbent lost only five of those elections. In four of those five elections, the incumbent presidents—William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush—had faced a strong intra-party challenge that weakened their general election candidacy. While overt enthusiasm for Obama in 2012 was noticeably less than in 2008, Democrats remained united behind Obama and he faced no in-party challenge.

  Republicans, of course, hoped the analogy with Obama would be Herbert Hoover in 1932, when Hoover became the only incumbent since 1900 to lose without having a strong intra-party challenge. However, Hoover in 1932 was presiding over an economy that was significantly worse than that facing Obama in 2012, and it was an economy getting demonstrably worse before Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933.

  What benefited Obama was that the economy, for all its problems, was seen as improving. In this respect, Obama’s situation was akin not to Hoover but Ronald Reagan in 1984, when Reagan won a landslide victory despite a national unemployment rate of 7.4 percent. Because that number was down from the 10.8 percent peak that had occurred in Reagan’s second year in office, Reagan’s campaign was able to declare “It’s Morning in America” to underpin his reelection.