The Week: Most Recent 2012 Elections:The Romney Campaign

Was Mitt Romney's Jeep ad really the 'lie of the year'?

By The Week Staff — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:55:00 -0500

You lie! That's the message Politifact sent Mitt Romney today in billboard-size letters, proclaiming the defeated GOP candidate's controversial Jeep ad the "lie of the year." The commercial claimed that President Obama had "sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China" — all at the cost of American jobs. The false claim was furiously refuted by the Obama campaign, numerous media outlets, and Chrysler itself. At the time, Politifact gave the ad a "pants on fire" rating. The Washington Post said it was worth four Pinocchios. Yet the Romney campaign — which...

Ann Romney's tears and other revelations from Mitt Romney's post-election life

By The Week Staff — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:48:00 -0500

In the weeks after the presidential election, some observers have seen signs that Mitt Romney is taking his defeat pretty hard. For what it's worth, a photo surfaced of him pumping gas, in which his famously sculpted hair flopped loose in un-gelled, disheveled glory. Then there was the Facebook photo of him and his wife, Ann, in which it appeared that the teetotaler had just woken up from a well-deserved bender (or, alternatively, was just tired). There were the comments he made to his wealthiest donors, in which he blamed his defeat on "gifts" that President Obama had showered on minorities and...

The embarrassing internal GOP polling that showed Mitt Romney winning the election

By The Week Staff — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:33:00 -0500

Mitt Romney famously did not write a concession speech on Election Night. There seemed little point, so supremely confident was he that he'd emerge the victor — based on late-in-the-game internal polling. Then came the actual results which, by all accounts, were a complete surprise to his campaign, even though they matched up with an aggregate of public polls. Team Romney had badly miscalculated the electorate's composition, and underestimated President Obama's ability to turn out his supporters. The New Republic's Noam Scheiber got his hands on some of the campaign's deeply flawed final...

Uncovered: Mitt Romney's presidential transition website

By The Week Staff — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:50:00 -0500

Mitt Romney reportedly wasn't prepared for defeat. He didn't even write a concession speech ahead of time. If he had won, however, Romney would have been ready to hit the ground running. The failed presidential candidate who started Tuesday with a well-honed, 1,000-word victory speech tucked into his pocket also had a transition website ready to go live under the title, "Mitt Romney Elected the 45th President of The United States of America." In fact, the site did go live, briefly and mistakenly, on Wednesday. It was promptly taken down, but not before Taegan Goddard at Political Wire got screenshots...

What should Mitt Romney do next?

By The Week Staff — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:30:00 -0500

Mitt Romney spent nearly six years making two straight bids for the presidency. But after coming up short both times, he finally threw in the towel for good early Wednesday, conceding that President Obama had beaten him and won re-election. "This election is over," Romney told supporters, "but our principles endure." Moving forward, where and how will Romney apply those principles, not to mention his mix of business and policy experience, now that his White House dreams have been dashed? Here, five theories on what the defeated GOP presidential candidate might do now:

1. He should become a...

Second-guessing Mitt Romney: 7 things he should have done differently

By The Week Staff — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:10:00 -0500

It's an old adage in presidential politics: When you win, you look like a genius; when you lose, not so much. And after being blown away in the Electoral College vote, Mitt Romney isn't winning any plaudits for his smarts. From a risky vice-presidential pick to deceptive ads aired in battleground states, analysts are questioning the myriad choices Team Romney made in the run-up to Tuesday's decisive defeat. Here, seven things they say Romney should have done differently:

1. Supported the auto bailout
For much of the race, it seemed as though it would all come down to Ohio. And on Election Night...

Everything you need to know about Mitt Romney's paths to electoral victory

By The Week Staff — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:40:00 -0500

With one day left before Election Day, both campaigns are "talking about how their man will prevail on Tuesday," says David Jackson at USA Today. The national polls are essentially tied, with President Obama enjoying the slimmest of leads. But the electoral college math is more encouraging for the president, as he seems to have far more paths to electoral victory than Mitt Romney. Still, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie argues that his team has successfully expanded the number of in-play states, notably Pennsylvania, where Romney held a large rally Sunday night. "When you look at where this map...

The case for Mitt Romney

By The Week Staff — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 09:15:00 -0500

So far, 28 of the 72 largest newspapers have endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Ten of them endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. (This year, nine of the 72 newspapers did not endorse anyone.) Here are some of the arguments they are making for the Republican ticket:

What the editorials said
Mitt Romney has been an "effective leader his entire career," said The Detroit News, both in the private sector and in government. As a venture capitalist with Bain Capital, he gained the "ability to make a deal" between warring parties — experience he put to use as governor of Massachusetts, where...

Why Mitt Romney thinks he can win true-blue Pennsylvania

By The Week Staff — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:45:00 -0400

Mitt Romney is heading to Pennsylvania to campaign this weekend, the most visible evidence to date that his campaign thinks it has a shot at winning the reliably blue state. In addition, the Romney campaign and its affiliated super PACs are flooding Pennsylvania's airwaves with new advertisements, forcing President Obama and his allies to play defense with new ads of their own. GOP candidates have long made noise about competing in the Keystone State, but Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic candidate in the last five presidential elections (the last GOP winner: George H.W. Bush in 1988)....

Did Mitt Romney get away with keeping his tax returns secret?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:55:00 -0400

Ever since the GOP primaries, Mitt Romney has been under heavy pressure from Republicans and Democrats alike to release more than two years of tax returns, in keeping with a precedent of financial transparency begun by Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney. It sometimes seemed that not a day would go by without Newt Gingrich blasting Romney's secretiveness or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid making some wildly unsubstantiated claim about Romney paying zero taxes. There were widely disseminated reports about his tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, and the pressure mounted to such...

Did Chris Christie destroy Mitt Romney's new message of bipartisanship?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:17:00 -0400

Mitt Romney "once delivered partisan-tinged zingers about how President Obama takes inspiration from socialist Democrats in Europe," says Michael Barbaro at The New York Times. "There are no such traces of such barbs in the dwindling days of the race," as the GOP candidate "promises to make personal outreach to the rival party a signature of a Romney presidency." The new approach appears to be paying dividends: 47 percent of voters think Romney has a better chance of breaking Congress' partisan gridlock, compared with 37 percent for Obama, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. David Brooks...

Will Mitt Romney's grossly misleading Jeep-to-China ads help him win?

By The Week Staff — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:46:00 -0400

Mitt Romney has been pilloried by fact checkers, auto executives, and Democrats for releasing campaign ads claiming that President Obama's auto bailout is helping Chrysler ship Jeep jobs to China. Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne issued a company-wide email telling workers that Romney's ads were "inaccurate." Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, said the widely debunked ads "reek of desperation." Bill Clinton called them a "load of bull." Several newspapers in Ohio, a key swing state and home to Jeep plants, called the ads misleading — the Cleveland Plain Dealer said in an editorial that...

Is Mitt Romney making inroads into blue states?

By The Week Staff — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:50:00 -0400

Mitt Romney's campaign and affiliated super PACs are going up with new ads in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico — all blue-leaning states that have long appeared to be in President Obama's win column. The Romney campaign insists that the push is an extension of the momentum it has built up for the past several weeks, allowing the GOP candidate to expand the electoral map to compete in Obama's strongholds. The Obama campaign says Romney is bluffing big time, and senior adviser David Axelrod has even pledged to shave his distinctive, shaggy-dog mustache of 40 years if Romney...

Hurricane Sandy: Is Chris Christie throwing Mitt Romney under the bus?

By The Week Staff — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:15:00 -0400

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), one of Mitt Romney's most vocal surrogates, has been loudly commending President Obama for his handling of Hurricane Sandy, calling the Democrat's storm response "outstanding." Christie, who slammed Obama in a major speech at Romney's nominating convention, said he spoke with the president three times on Monday, the day the storm hit, and thanked the president for promptly declaring the state a federal disaster area so it could get federal help without the "normal FEMA mumbo jumbo." On Wednesday, Christie and Obama will inspect storm damage together...

Mitt Romney's flip-flopping: The key to a bipartisan D.C.?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:25:00 -0400

In the world of politics, being branded a brazen flip-flopper can be a death sentence. (See: Kerry, John.) Since Mitt Romney's recent emergence as a more moderate candidate — as opposed to the "severely conservative" posture he adopted for the GOP primaries — President Obama has been hammering him for being two-faced. And the Obama campaign received fresh ammunition today when a prominent Romney surrogate, former Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, told a group of voters in the all-important swing state of Ohio that Roe v. Wade would not be overturned under a Romney administration. (Romney...

3 ways Hurricane Sandy complicates Mitt Romney's path to victory

By The Week Staff — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 10:44:00 -0400

Mitt Romney canceled several campaign events Monday and Tuesday "out of sensitivity for the millions of Americans in the path of Hurricane Sandy," his campaign said. The GOP presidential nominee was scheduled to attend a Tuesday event in Ohio dedicated to hurricane relief, but he has to walk a fine line, say experts, keeping his campaign going while avoiding any suggestion that he's scoring points off the storm (which is no longer technically classified as a hurricane). "It's a very difficult situation for the challenger to strike the right note to not look too political but to also [be] empathetic...