Romney's Corporate Campaign

The New Republic: Individual Attention, Underdog Demeanor Count With Customer-Like Voters

(The New Republic)  This column was written by Noam Scheiber.

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The thought that comes to mind at my first Mitt Romney event in Manchester, New Hampshire, has nothing to do with politics or, for that matter, Mitt Romney. It has to do with a company called Ameriprise Financial. Pretty much the only thing I know about Ameriprise is that its corporate spokesperson is Dennis Hopper, of Easy Rider fame. Every now and then I catch Hopper's mug on television, whereupon he exhorts aging baby boomers to rebel against - well, against what it's not entirely clear - by having Ameriprise plan their retirements. It's a completely preposterous pitch: Is there anything less rebellious than forecasting your monthly spending needs into your eighties? Still, if I were an aging baby boomer, I'd probably sign up with Ameriprise. I'd appreciate the appeal to my self-image.

A Romney town-hall event is, in its own way, a lot like an Ameriprise commercial. Romney's press schedule announces the chance to "Ask Mitt Anything," and there are big Ask Mitt Anything signs flanking the candidate when he speaks. There is something completely preposterous about this, too: If you spend a day going to various "Ask Mitt Anything" events, you quickly realize that, while you can ask Mitt anything, Mitt pretty much gives the same eight or ten answers over and over again. But here's the thing: If I were a New Hampshire voter - that famously tough-minded species - I'd probably go for it. This guy gets me, I'd think. At least in the way a savvy corporation understands its customers.

If the nomination went to the candidate most at home delivering PowerPoint presentations, Romney would almost certainly win it. His monologues overflow with facts and statistics. But they're so exquisitely organized, they build so efficiently to their punchlines, you almost forget they require meticulous preparation. The only time this occurred to me was at another "Ask Mitt Anything," when Romney fielded a question about tort reform. "Last year, America's corporations - no, I've got to step back, I need to give you more ground work," he said, briefly exposing some mental circuitry. He continued: "The only way a nation like ours can stay ahead of China forever ... is by having better innovation and technology. ... This statistic should alarm you: Last year, American corporations spent more money fighting tort claims, paying off tort claims, than they spent on research and development." This, like all of Romney's answers, was punctuated by an abrupt, "Thank you." On to the next slide.

Romney's analytical style is hands-down his most compelling attribute. It's what made him successful as a management consultant and private-equity-fund manager. And it's what most distinguishes him from the man he'd like to succeed (though both hold MBAs from Harvard). But management consulting isn't the most obvious preparation for life on the campaign trail. Later, we show up at a diner in Derry where Rudy Giuliani stopped the day before. Romney can look less like a flesh-pressing candidate in these situations than like a video of a candidate that's being fast-forwarded. At one point, a hunter in an orange baseball cap asks about global warming. Romney doesn't so much answer the question as strafe him with bullet points: Nuclear powerclean coalefficient vehicles liquefied coalsolarwindethanol biodiesel. Romney is talking even faster now than during the Q&A setting, as if to compensate for the relative inefficiency of one-on-one campaigning.

On the way out, Romney sees the hunter again. "What were you hunting with today, a 20-gauge?" he asks. "No, I had a brand new, over-and-under 12-gauge," says the hunter. This is another Romney tic. When forced to make small talk, his habit is to guess at some trivial detail. It's of a piece with his general appetite for data. The problem is that it's constantly setting him up to be wrong, whereas Romney is a man who likes to be right. Later on, at a farm store, Romney asks the owner, "You've got about five thousand [square] feet here?" (right answer: 4,000) and whether an employee is her daughter (nope). At our final stop in Derry, Romney spots a man wearing a foreign-looking soccer jersey. "That's a Reebok shirt, isn't it?" "I don't know," says the man. Suddenly, Romney comes about as close to losing his cool as I've seen all day: "It is. It says Reebok right there." He's practically pleading as he points to the man's back: "You have a Reebok insignia right here."

Romney is fond of casting himself as the underdog. With Giuliani effectively skipping Iowa and Romney banking on victories there and in New Hampshire to propel him to the nomination, the latter has taken on heightened importance. Polls show Romney as the front-runner in both states, but his lead over Giuliani here is rapidly diminishing. The press hounds him about this all day. Romney's response is to marvel at how a guy like him, who began the race in the single digits, could now be leading in several states. It's the kind of spin all candidates engage in, but Romney says it so earnestly you'd think he'd arrived on the campaign trail penniless from Guatemala, not as a former governor with a huge personal fortune.

Even if it's true that Romney has overcome some serious hurdles -- his lack of national name-recognition, for one -- his chiseled features and immaculate tailoring belie his underdog claim. He looks like the opposite of an underdog - an overdog. Romney inadvertently reinforces this impression from time to time. A man tells Romney his daughter attends Michigan State. "My brother is on the board of Michigan State!" Romney gushes. Later, at a bakery up the street, Romney recalls a similar bakery from his youth "not far from my parents' summer home."

The central irony of the Romney campaign is this: Everything Romney has achieved in life, he's achieved thanks to his relentless empiricism and analytical rigor - in a word, his rationality. As a young consultant assigned to Monsanto, Romney learned so much about the firm's operations that its executives assumed he had an engineering degree. (He didn't.) When Romney took over as CEO of Bain & Company in 1990, the consulting firm was in such lousy shape it could barely make payroll. Romney put Bain on sound footing by rescheduling its debts and renegotiating its contracts with vendors.

Accomplishments like this make Romney pretty close to an ideal Republican candidate, especially after the highly unempirical Bush era. And yet, it turns out that something as seemingly irrelevant as his religion inspires irrational fear and loathing among the people who will anoint the GOP nominee, particularly in the South. Life has taught Romney there's no such thing as a problem that defies logic, at least not if you think about it hard enough. But here's one that does. Worse, it's entirely arbitrary. It's not Romney's fault he was born into the Mormon faith. Nor is it his fault that, over the last generation, conservative voters have come to see religion as a proxy for moral character. The whole thing must be maddening.

The last event of the day is yet another "Ask Mitt Anything," this time at a church in Merrimack. Midway through the Q&A, a hard-looking man named Ron gets up and says, ominously, that he has a comment and a question. The comment comes first: "I'm sick and tired of hearing from the left-wing media" about how the governor's religion disqualifies him from the presidency. The crowd breaks into heavy applause before Ron can even finish, and Romney looks relieved. Something I hadn't realized before this moment suddenly occurs to me: Romney's Mormonism may, in a perverse way, help him in a place like New Hampshire. Without it, he's just another well-spoken preppy with a square jaw. With it, he becomes instantly sympathetic, someone you can relate to - the victim of circumstances beyond his control. Everything about Romney may scream "overdog." But, at this moment, he is the opposite.

[beachroses]

Sorry, I made a mistake about Joe Biden. He doesn''t believe in free speech and fairness for everyone, anymore than Clinton, Dodd and Obama do. The proof is now going for over $851,000 on Ebay. I can''t believe they did that. Well, that leaves Richardson and Kucinich.

[niemsters]

Who is John Galt? it''s Mitt Romney.

[guysdigdirt]

It is interesting that so much is made of his religion, mostly by people who do not seem to know what his realigion is about. Humans are naturally negative about those things they know nothing about.

It is further interesting that he is very popular in those states he has spent time in, those who get to know him for who he is, not what his realigion is think very highly of him and think he would be the best person for the job.

Those who do not like him seem to dislike him for his religion or for his party. So do you vote based on religion? Party? Beliefs? Ability to do the job better than others?

[hofheins1]

I have come to believe that Mitt is the only hope of the Republican Party to beat Hillary. To be honest I do not want Hillary or Rudy to be our next President. I Met Mitt at an event a few weeks ago, and have since come to the conclusion that he is the most competent candidate that has a great family, great values, great experience, and a great resume. It is critical that we surround Mitt with our support to ensure his nomination. Rudy will not defend traditional marrage, nor elect judges that will over-turn Roe vs. Wade. We Need Mitt!

[hofheins1]

I have come to believe that Mitt is the only hope of the Republican Party to beat Hillary. To be honest I do not want Hillary or Rudy to be our next President. I Met Mitt at an event a few weeks ago, and have since come to the conclusion that he is the most competent candidate that has a great family, great values, great experience, and a great resume. It is critical that we surround Mitt with our support to ensure his nomination. Rudy will not defend traditional marrage, nor elect judges that will over-turn Roe vs. Wade. We Need Mitt!

[beachroses]

I forgot to mention that I think Gov Richardson and Sen Biden are the best candidates on the Democratic side, if anyone is in the least bit interested. They are the most experienced and intelligent, did not get where they are by riding their husband''s coattails to victory or smooth talking people, did not participate in trying to stifle free speech of the opposition by violating Rush Limbaugh''s or anyone else''s Constitutional Rights, and our lives are at stake out here, people!! This is not American Idol we''re voting for, you know? And poor people do not have money in hedge funds, maybe someone should tell that joker Edwards. He''s not half as smart as Romney and Cheney creamed him in the VP debate. Women are not the dimwits the press is making them out to be... well, not all of us, anyway. :)

[beachroses]

Romney seems like a very nice man to me, if he is too good looking, successful or decent for some of you young men to identify with, then maybe you should look at yourselves and ask why.

I actually wasn''t inclined to vote for him at first, but the more this goes on, the more sympathy he is getting from the public because he''s a lot more capable and competent than most and does not deserve this abuse. It is really getting to be shrill and not the least bit impressive. Another Southern evangelical threw his support to Romney yesterday. See? I told you.

People in BOTH PARTIES seem only to care about who wins and not who would make the best president. I did thank people from NH, but must also say that you are not voting the way most of us would down here. Neither Giuliani nor Clinton are well liked and, once again, you are ignoring the most capable Dem candidates for a famous face or charismatic personality. I''m a moderate and lean liberatarian, but Ron Paul is a little too extreme for me and he''ll never get his agenda passed. He is generating interest around here, though, but if he is worthy of leadership, it''s up to him to be sure his supporters stop breaking the law while claiming they are being stifled, when they get in trouble. Howard Dean''s supporters tried to pull that, all it got him was BLOWBACK, as Dr. Paul would say. Behave yourselves, if you want to help.

[bot14]

Mitt%u2019s church, the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) has been often misunderstood by Evangelical preachers in the past . . Some accused the Church of not believing in Christ and, therefore, not being a Christian religion . .


http://MormonsAreChristian.blogspot.com/ helps to clarify such misconceptions by examining early (First Century) Christianity''s theology relating to baptism, the Godhead, the deity of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Mitt%u2019s church believes in the Jesus of the New Testament, who prayed to his Father in Heaven in the Garden of Gethsemene, not the Jesus portrayed in the creeds of the 4th Century.


The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) adheres to Early Christian (New Testament) theology more closely than other Christian denominations. . Perhaps the reason Evangelical preachers promoted this mis-representation was to protect their flock (and their livlihood). It is encouraging to note that Evangelical preachers appear now to have a moral president as a priority..

[quatrops]

Interesting, well-written article. But the strength and weaknesses of the various Republican candidates won''t make any difference in November 2008. Whoever the Democrats put up is going to win the election thanks to the incompetence of George Bush and the hubris of Cheney.

The absurdity of the Iraq war as a vehicle in the "War on Terrorism" would be enough. But add to that the hundreds of "signing statements" engineered by Cheney & staff that were clearly intended to render useless the legislation passed by our elected representatives. Add to that the clearly unconstitutional actions in the areas of spying and secrecy. Add to that the unwillingness to define torture so that the electorate can clearly understand what the administration is doing in its name.

Since no Republican candidate can afford, politically, to disavow the horrors of the current administration, none of them has a snowball''s chance.

[beachroses]

I live in the South and the religious bigotry aimed at Romney isn''t impressing anyone I know. Thanks for the insight into NH and thanks to the people of that state for all they put into the primaries with reason and fairness, whoever they vote for. We get a lot out of it, too. I hope they stay Number One.

Great article, I really enjoyed it.

[random_radar]

This was an interesting article. Thanks to Noam Scheiber for a view of New Hampshire that I can never get myself.