Almost President

by Scott Farris

  The economic recovery under Obama was far too anemic and fragile for such crowing in 2012, but the unemployment rate had dropped from a 10 percent high in early 2010 to just under 8 percent a month before the election. Obama could also cite thirty consecutive months of private sector job growth, booming stock markets, and an increase in home construction and home prices as further proof that things were getting better, albeit slowly. Romney, advertised as an expert in turning around failing businesses, could no longer assert the economy was headed in the wrong direction, but had to make the more difficult argument that he could spur more improvement more quickly than was occurring.

  Republicans were also baffled that voters still blamed the Republican administration of President George W. Bush more than Obama for the nation’s economic problems, though it was now nearly four years since Bush had left office. Post-election surveys found that 52 percent of Americans felt Bush’s policies were primarily to blame for the lingering economic difficulties compared to just 38 percent who blamed Obama. Congressional Republicans, over whom Romney had no control, also bore the brunt of the blame when the nation’s credit rating was downgraded in 2011 following a standoff with Obama over an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling.

  None of this was Romney’s fault, but Romney did share the blame for the extraordinarily poor showing by Republicans among Hispanic, women, and young voters.

  Bush had won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2004 reelection, but since then Republicans had become increasingly strident on the issue of illegal immigration. So, in another tactic designed to assure conservatives that he stood in solidarity with them, Romney had adopted a particularly hard anti-immigrant line during the Republican primaries. He not only criticized proposals that would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, but also opposed plans to allow children of illegal immigrants to earn citizenship by serving in the military or performing well in college. Romney said his own policy on illegal immigration was to encourage illegals to “self deport.” Romney lost the Hispanic vote by forty-two points, 71 to 29 percent.

  Post-election, Republicans initially gave the sense that they also viewed their problem with women as primarily one of “messaging” over policy. According to Gallup polls, Obama defeated Romney by twelve points among women voters—and by a much larger margin among working women. While Romney won men by eight points, it was far from enough to counter the Democrats’ advantage among the much larger share of the electorate comprised of women. As in 2008, 53 percent of voters were women, meaning that once again roughly ten million more women than men voted in the 2012 election.

  Much Republican post-election commentary blamed the poor GOP showing among women on asinine comments by two Republican U.S. Senate candidates involving rape and abortion, comments that had put not only Romney but most Republican candidates on the defensive. In explaining their strong anti-abortion views that would justify denying women access to a legal abortion even in the case of rape, one candidate (erroneously) suggested it was physiologically impossible for women to get pregnant in the instance of “legitimate” rape, while the other candidate stated that while rape is a dastardly act, a pregnancy resulting from rape should still be viewed as a human life that was “something God intended to happen.”

  But the Senate candidates’ remarks were not the only instances where Republicans seemed insensitive toward women. There was a spirited debate over an Obama administration regulation that all insurance coverage must include offering free contraception for women. When a female law student testified before Congress in support of the regulation, Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” on air. Romney only tepidly rebuked the conservative talk show host for the slur, saying only that it was not “the language that I would have used.”

  Romney also alienated some working women by refusing to say where he stood on the first piece of legislation signed into law by Obama shortly after he took office in 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ended the time limit when women could file suit against their employers if they discovered they were being paid less than male counterparts for performing the exact same job. While Romney never indicated whether he supported the new law, Ryan was quoted as saying he believed the legislation, which he opposed, would benefit trial attorneys more than wronged women.

  Their poor showing among voters under age thirty also mystified Romney and the Republicans. They had believed that the young, so enthusiastic to make history and support the nation’s first African-American president four years before, had become disillusioned with Obama because Americans under thirty had, after all, the highest unemployment rate of any age group. Yet these young voters made up a larger share of the electorate in 2012 (19 percent) than they had in 2008. Obama won these younger voters by 60 to 36 percent, a twenty-four-point margin. This was a slight decrease from the 66 percent share of the under-thirty vote that Obama won in 2008, but it showed that perhaps the Republicans had lost a generation of voters.

  This overwhelming Democratic appeal among younger voters was new; John Kerry had won the under-thirty vote by only nine points in 2004. Republicans understood the ramifications of the trend. They recalled that Reagan had won over a generation of young voters in the 1980s, which had been critical in allowing the GOP to win three consecutive presidential elections and also control of the U.S. House in 1994 after forty years of Democratic rule.

  The 2012 Republicans’ disadvantage among the young may be rooted in the conservative social policies held by the party, and the perception of the GOP as a primarily white party. Post-election surveys concluded that 42 percent of voters under the age of thirty were non-white, and that young voters were also more socially liberal, supporting, for example, legalization of same-sex marriage, a position Obama came to late in the 2012 campaign. Obama won gay voters 76 to 22 percent.

  The 2012 results continued to vindicate George McGovern’s vision of a “New Politics” majority coalition for the Democratic Party. Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham agreed that Republicans were losing “the demographics race.” As Graham told the Washington Post, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

  As Graham and other Republicans sifted through the data, trying to understand Romney’s loss and what it foretold for the future of the Republican Party, one thing seemed clear: Mitt Romney would not be integrally involved in the debate. That seemed partly by choice.

  In giving his concession speech, Romney had entered the half-empty Boston hotel ballroom with no introduction, music, or fanfare of any kind. Following his brief and perfunctory concession (the brevity hinting at some lingering bitterness toward Obama, who was also known to have no great respect for Romney), Romney left the ballroom as quietly as he had arrived—and he remained quiet. In the months following the election, he gave no interviews or follow-up news conferences, major addresses, or public appearances of any kind.

  With his defeat, Romney had no real role in the Republican Party. For the first time since Bob Dole in 1996, the losing candidate had no official portfolio that required him to remain in public view. With the death of the moderate wing of the party and having never been accepted by conservatives, Romney had no particular following within the GOP. Romney further ensured his irrelevancy in party circles by announcing that he would never seek elective office again.

  If that were not enough, Romney gave Republicans additional reason to push him aside. In a surreptitiously recorded telephone call a few days after the election, Romney explained his loss as the result of Obama’s ability to provide special “gifts” to the groups of voters who had supported him, particularly women, minorities, and young voters—the very groups Republican strategists knew the party would need to win over if they hoped to win future elections.

  These patronizing comments echoed another major error Romney had made during the campaign when, in a talk to donors that was also surreptitious
ly recorded, he characterized the 47 percent of American citizens who make too little to pay federal income tax as freeloaders who see themselves as “victims” and who refuse to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” adding that he could never win over such voters.

  The quickness and vehemence with which his fellow Republicans denounced Romney and his comments was remarkable. What was particularly startling about the Republican leaders’ denunciation of Romney, was that his comments regarding the notion that America was now divided between “makers” and “takers,” were well within Republican orthodoxy. A variety of Republican officials and pundits had made similar points for years. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, the de facto leader of the conservative movement in the Senate and the party, had agreed that “there are two Americas,” which he said were divided between “those who are paying for government and those who are getting government.” Louisiana Governor Jindal, one of the earliest post-election critics of Romney’s assertions that Obama had won by giving minorities “gifts,” had similarly said Obama and the Democrats were promoting a “culture of dependency.”

  Still, first-term Republican Congressman Cory Gardner of Colorado told the Washington Post that Romney was wrong to “place blame for this election on the shoulders of people who didn’t vote for the Republican Party.” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie chided, “You can’t expect to be a leader of all the people and be divisive.” And Jindal underscored his belief that the Republicans, in nominating a wealthy financier while the nation still lingered near a recession many blamed on wealthy financiers, had chosen the wrong man with the wrong message at the wrong time. “We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

  With Republicans eager to help Romney quickly disappear from public view, it was ironic that the only invitation he received that generated much media coverage was one from Obama to have a private luncheon at the White House. Neither man revealed what had been discussed at the luncheon, but it seemed very unlikely that Obama intended to enlist Romney as a policy ally the way Franklin Roosevelt had utilized Wendell Willkie to help rally American support for war preparedness in 1940–41.

  Nor did Romney seem anxious to offer his services, which was also criticized. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank called Romney’s behavior “small” in announcing his return to corporate boards while declining to speak out in the immediate aftermath of the election during the heated debate around federal deficit reduction. Historian Richard Norton Smith, meanwhile, lamented that Romney’s vaunted management skills were not being put to use as Harry Truman used Herbert Hoover to chair a commission on government reorganization.

  It was as Al Smith had posited eighty years before: America still had not figured out a good use for its losing presidential candidates.

  1 Obama is the first incumbent president re-elected with a smaller share of the popular vote than he had received in his initial election, a fact that further muddled the question of whether the 2012 election had established any clear governing mandate.

  2 A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2011 showed that only one-third of self-described evangelical Christians, a core constituency of the Republican Party, considered Mormonism to be a Christian faith.

  3 Ryan was only the second Roman Catholic to be a part of a Republican national ticket (the first being Barry Goldwater’s running mate, New York Congressman William Miller). Ryan’s selection reflected the growing centrality of conservative Catholics in the Republican Party coalition.

  4 AMC had been created through the merger of the Nash and Hudson car companies.

  5 In a streak unprecedented in American history, 2012 was the fourth election in a row when at least one of the presidential nominees was the son of prominent public figure. Al Gore’s father, Senator Al Gore Sr., had considered running for president, George W. Bush’s father was president, and John McCain’s father and grandfather were both admirals in the Navy. John Kerry’s father was also a prominent foreign service officer. Interestingly, the two Democrats elected president between 1992 and 2008, Clinton and Obama, grew up without their biological fathers present in the home.

  6 Romney’s name Willard was in honor of family friend and hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott; Mitt was in honor of a family cousin, Milton “Mitt” Romney, once a quarterback for the Chicago Bears.

  7 Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Dukakis’s loss was the fifth time in the previous six presidential elections that Democrats had lost the popular vote for president; Romney’s loss similarly represented the fifth time in the six elections since 1988 that Republicans had lost the popular vote for president.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All good books (I hope this qualifies) are the product of many people, not just the author. I have been fortunate to receive the assistance of many good friends.

  Special thanks go to two “Buds.” William H. “Bud” Moore, friend and mentor, gave me many excellent and extensive suggestions for improving the manuscript and also the foundation in history that allowed me to tackle this project. Friend and colleague Egil “Bud” Krogh, a man who has been at the center of presidential history, provided great encouragement and direction and introduced me to my wonderful agent, Laura Dail.

  Laura took a personal interest in this project, making the right edits and prodding me with provocative questions. Most especially, I thank Laura for selling our project to a fine company, Lyons Press, and partnering me with an exceptional editor, Keith Wallman. Keith, too, improved this book immeasurably. He and his colleagues at Lyons treated me, a first-time author, with all the courtesy due a Pulitzer Prize winner.

  Among the many talented and generous friends who reviewed my proposal or drafts of the manuscript, or assisted in the various other tasks necessary to complete and market a book were: Karen Deike, former boss and beloved friend; fellow wire-service veteran Hank Stern; poet and professor Jerry Harp; friend and fellow political junkie Gary Conkling; politico Steve Novick, one of those who shouted “Gore or blood!” during the 2000 recount; another superb former boss, Jim Wieck, who helped secure the photographs used in the book; Courtney Kerr, friend and photographer; critic and confidant Rick Thamer; and the creative Austin advertising mogul and New York Times blogger M. P. Mueller.

  I am fortunate to live in the very literate city of Portland, Oregon, and I thank the staffs at Multnomah County Public Library, Reed College library, and Portland State University library for their help and assistance. And what a treat to live in the city that is home to Powell’s City of Books, where you can find a 130-year-old biography of Winfield Scott Hancock on the shelves.

  I want to thank the great presidential scholar Richard Norton Smith for his kindness. He is one of many writers, some famous, others not, who offered encouragement and assistance in this process. They will never know how many times their kind words helped me persevere.

  This being my first book, I have thought about all the people who helped nurture my love of history and writing: my teachers in Lander, Wyoming, and at the University of Wyoming; the many editors and colleagues in journalism who made me a better writer; and my political bosses—Malcolm Wallop, Bill Budd, Mike Sullivan, Gray Davis, and Vera Katz—who gave me lessons in practical politics.

  Then, there are my first teachers, my mother and late father, who raised me in a house filled with books, newspapers, and lively discussions of current events.

  Most important, I want to acknowledge those to whom this book is dedicated. My two children, William and Grace, were infinitely patient and inspiring. My wife, Patti, was a great partner in this as in all our endeavors. Sharing my love of history, she helped with research, talked me through my various bouts of writer’s block, and was an extraordinarily
valuable editor, identifying gaps in my arguments and reining me in when my prose went seriously awry. Without her, there would be no book, and life would be very dull.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The most authoritative comparable book to Almost President is Leslie H. Southwick, Presidential Also-Rans and Running Mates (Second Edition), (McFarland and Company Inc., Jefferson, N.C., and London, 2008). Southwick has compiled a remarkable amount of data on all those who ran for president (and vice president) and fell short, and has authored a series of essays on each that includes Southwick’s own take on the qualifications of each candidate.

  Livelier essays on losing candidates can be found in Irving Stone, They Also Ran: The Story of the Men Who Were Defeated for the Presidency (Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1945). Stone’s provocative assessments demonstrate how the context of the present influences our interpretation of the past. Stone wrote most of the essays immediately following the Great Depression, when Jefferson and Jackson were enjoying revivals and the Scopes Monkey Trial was a recent memory. He is therefore far too hard on Bryan and Clay and too generous to Greeley, Tilden, and Cox.

  Paul F. Boller Jr. includes anecdotes about losing candidates in Presidential Campaigns (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1984), a follow-up to Boller’s immensely popular Presidential Anecdotes. Most helpful in thinking about what it means to be a loser in our society is Scott A. Sandage, Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2005), which is worthy of the several prizes it has won for its insight into the evolving American attitude toward success and failure.

  An invaluable online resource used throughout the writing of this book is Dave Leip’s Atlas of Presidential Elections (www.uselectionatlas.org), which has detailed information on every presidential election.