The Realist in Romney Saw a Path Too Steep

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Romney Halts Presidential Campaign

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney dropped his bid for the GOP nomination following a disappointing Super Tuesday. Romney was speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington.

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But in positioning himself as the only true conservative in a race that didn't appear to have one, Romney decided to abandon the moderate bearing that had served him well as a can-do GOP governor of liberal Massachusetts. That choice prompted months of attacks by his rivals, who took to calling him a flip-flopper with no principles.

Romney early on assembled an all-star team of consultants to sell himself as a product, offered to the public with scores of highly targeted television commercials. He was telegenic and looked and sounded presidential, and he had the money to fund the sort of extended effort on television that none of his rivals could match. But the scores of ads took over his campaign, providing no clear message for the voters to see.

And soon the massive team of consultants -- known as the Midnight Riders in homage to another Bostonian, Paul Revere -- were feuding among themselves. The idea had been to re-create the sort of synergistic approach to television commercials adopted by President Bush in his two successful national bids; several of the Romney media gurus had been part of that team. The initial group was Alex Castellanos, Curt Anderson, Brad Todd and Larry McCarthy. Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer, who served as the lead media consultants for McCain's effort until July, signed on in August.

But the newcomers feuded with the others about the proper direction for the campaign, according to several senior advisers, with Castellanos and Anderson arguing for Romney to run an ideological race based on his conservative beliefs, and Stevens and Schriefer pushing for a focus on Romney's r¿sum¿ and accomplishments.

Even as the media team argued, others in the organization felt that too much time and money was being spent on television ads and not enough on the ground game in key early states. "They had a chokehold on strategy," one adviser said of the media team. "It was a deadlocked panel of advisers who were pulling in different directions about where the resources had to go."

In the end, the millions of dollars spent on television did little but raise expectations for Romney. For months last year, the polls rewarded the fact that he was the only candidate on the air in Iowa, New Hampshire and the other early-voting states. But his leads evaporated once the others arrived.

One Romney adviser described a "play it safe" strategy that was a result of the months-long fight among Romney's highly paid consultants: "Part of this gridlock was the inevitable byproduct of a terribly divided strategy team."

'Huckabee on Our Flank'

Aug. 11 should have been a banner day for Romney.

Months of organizing and millions of dollars spent on campaign commercials in Iowa had put him in the top spot heading into the Ames straw poll -- the first key test of the Republican nomination fight.

Throughout the day, signs of Romney's largesse were apparent. Children played in huge blow-up jungle gyms. Supporters wore canary-yellow T-shirts with "Team Mitt" emblazoned on them. A sprawl of white tents provided much-needed shade -- temperatures neared triple digits -- and unending plates of barbecue and bottles of water.

By nightfall, the campaign had packed Iowa State's Stephens Auditorium with cheering supporters. The results confirmed Romney's victory: He won 4,516 votes -- 2,000 more than his nearest competitor. But in a surprise, Huckabee, not Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), claimed second place.

Some on Romney's staff were thrilled. Brownback had attacked Romney repeatedly in the days leading up to the straw poll, and his third-place finish signaled that the end was near for the senator. Others in Romney's inner circle were worried. Huckabee's unexpected showing -- the result of a patchwork coalition led by home-school advocates, "fair tax" supporters and evangelical Christians -- was a sign that trouble was brewing on the conservative right, a key voting bloc.