Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign
The 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney officially began on June 2, 2011, when former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney formally announced his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, at an event in Stratham, New Hampshire. Having previously run in the 2008 Republican primaries, this was Romney's second campaign for the presidency.
Mitt Romney for President 2012
Mitt Romney
70th Governor of Massachusetts
(2003–2007)
Paul Ryan
U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st district
(1999–2019)
Announced: June 2, 2011
Presumptive nominee: April 25, 2012
Official nominee: August 28, 2012
Lost election: November 6, 2012
585 Commercial Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Matt Rhoades[1] (manager)
Beth Myers,[2] Peter Flaherty[3] and Eric Fehrnstrom[4] (advisors)
Stuart Stevens (strategist)
Ashley O'Connor (director of advertising)
Rich Beeson (political director)
Lanhee Chen (policy director)
Gail Gitcho[5] (communications director)
Andrea Saul[6] (press secretary)
Spencer J. Zwick (finance chair)[7][8][9]
Kathryn Biber (general counsel)
Lindsay Hayes (speech writer)[10]
Neil Newhouse (pollster)
US$483,452,332 (December 31, 2012[11])
He filed his organization with the Federal Elections Commission as an exploratory committee and announced the organization in a video message on April 11, 2011. He became the party's presumptive nominee with his victory in the Texas primary on May 29, 2012.
On August 11, 2012, in Norfolk, Virginia, Romney announced that Paul Ryan, the long-time U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, would be his running mate for vice president. (Later, in October 2015, Ryan was elected Speaker of the House.)[12][13]
On August 30, 2012, in Tampa, Florida, Romney formally accepted the Republican Party's nomination at the 2012 Republican National Convention.[14]
Romney's campaign came to an end on November 6, 2012, upon defeat by incumbent President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.[15] Romney received 60,933,500 votes, or 47.2% of the total votes cast, winning 24 states and 206 electoral votes.
Had he won, Romney would have been the first Michigan native to serve as president (as Gerald Ford was born in Nebraska), the first Mormon president, and the second governor of Massachusetts to do so, after Calvin Coolidge. Ryan would have been the first vice president from Wisconsin.
Six years later, in November 2018, Romney was elected as U.S. Senator from Utah.
Campaign formation[edit]
Exploratory committee[edit]
Before a slower start to the presidential campaign by all contenders than four years previous, on April 11, 2011, Mitt Romney announced by means of a video recorded that day at an athletics field at the University of New Hampshire that he had formed an exploratory committee as a first step for a potential run for a Republican presidential campaign, saying, "It is time that we put America back on a course of greatness, with a growing economy, good jobs and fiscal discipline in Washington."[28]
Formal announcement[edit]
Romney formally announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination at an outdoor gathering in Stratham, New Hampshire, on June 2, 2011.[29][30] In his announcement speech, he pledged to make the U.S. economy the main focus of his campaign, saying "My number one job will be to see that America is number one in job creation."[31]
Fundraising[edit]
On May 16, 2011, the Romney campaign announced that it had raised $10.25 million "in connection with today's call day fundraiser in Nevada."[32] This was hailed in the media as "an impressive one day total."[33][34] Thereafter, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the amount actually represented pledges gathered earlier and tallied that day, not just funds actually taken in by the campaign."[35] Later, it was discovered that Romney had actually raised $2.403 million on May 16, about a quarter of the claimed amount.[36][37]
Media issues[edit]
First TV advertisement and questions about context[edit]
In his previous campaign, Romney had begun television advertising in March 2007. In the 2012 cycle, however, his first advertisement did not air until November 2011. The 60-second spot, which was broadcast in New Hampshire, was widely criticized for using a quotation from Obama out of context. It included a clip of Obama apparently saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." It did not disclose that Obama, speaking in the 2008 campaign, had been quoting an email from an aide to his opponent, John McCain, which concerned McCain's campaign strategy, not Obama's.[172]
The Romney campaign defended the ad. According to The Boston Globe, "Romney aides even said they were proud of the reaction and suggested that the ad was deliberately misleading to garner attention." Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom stated: "It was all very deliberate. We want to engage him on the subject he wants to avoid, which is his failure to create jobs and get this economy moving again."[173] In an article on the Romney campaign website, communications director Gail Gitcho wrote "Three years ago, candidate Barack Obama mocked his opponent's campaign for saying 'if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.' Now, President Obama's campaign is desperate not to talk about the economy."
Fact checking organization Politifact gave the Romney campaign a "pants on fire" rating for "distorting Obama's words, which have been taken out of context in a ridiculously misleading way,"[174] while another fact-checking organization, FactCheck.org, declined to assess whether that particular clip in the Romney ad was misleading, and instead said: "We won't quibble with the spot's main message, which is that Obama has failed to fix the economy. That's true enough." According to The New York Times, when the Obama camp put material on television that made "no effort to put any of Mr. Romney's statements into context", the Romney campaign responded by saying that Obama was trying to distract Americans from real issues such as high unemployment.[175]
Explanations for the loss[edit]
In interviews after the election, Romney said of his loss, "The president's campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift. He made a big effort on small things."[288]
Robert Draper in the New York Times Magazine summarized interviews with technology savvy young Republicans to conclude that the Romney campaign's inability to understand and use modern technology caused Romney to lose a winnable election. "Criticism begins with the candidate—a self described data-driven chief executive who put his trust in alarmingly off-the-mark internal polls." In contrast, the Obama campaign repeatedly and exhaustively polled and directed the actual expressed day-to-day shifting opinions of the electorate through such technological mediums as Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. "Romney's senior strategist, Stuart Stevens, may well be remembered by historians . . . as the last guy to run a presidential campaign who never tweeted" to get out the vote and to elicit real-time electorate feelings from all ethnic groups, all gender persuasions, and from rich and poor.[289]