By Beom Joon Baek
"President-elect Romney has a vision for an American century and has a strategy to secure our enduring interests and ideals. He believes that liberty, opportunity, and free enterprise have led to prosperity and strength before and will do so again. President-elect Romney knows many Americans are asking whether our country today—with our ailing economy, and our massive debt, and after 11 years at war—is still capable of leading. President-elect Romney believes that if America does not lead, others will—others who do not share our interests and our values—and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us. America’s security and the cause of freedom call for strong leadership. "
If you had visited Mitt Romney’s transition web page on the election night, you might have seen those words. An objective look at it would reveal all the article mistakes and its parallelisms that might be traumatic experience to some. However, grammatical point aside, that website shows American people the arrogance and egocentric nature of Mitt Romney. No presidential candidate in history had the confidence as much as Mitt Romney. He spent $25,000 on fireworks placed at Boston Convent in Center so after he would make his victory speech, he would go out and see, along with his wife and family, fireworks focused on the colors blue, red and white. Seemingly patriotic fireworks must have been a suitable way to begin his new stint as the President of the United States. Instead, he had to deliver a concession speech, a speech that he did not prepare for. Mitt Romney only wrote the victory speech. He thought that he would win, but he was wrong. Very wrong.
The 16-month long campaign to the White House was possibly the dirtiest one in recent years. The television ads were attacking Romney on his business records during his time at Bain Capital. In another ad, President Barack Obama was described as an “outsourcer-in-chief”. And after months of political bickering, on November 6th, ordinary American voters came out of their houses and voted Obama as their president.
Yet, Mitt Romney had possibly everything to become the 45th president of the United States of America, but he blew his chance. His disastrous campaign will be a good reference to any other future candidate on what it takes to become the commander-in-chief.
First of all, Mitt Romney needed an image. The primary election was political group-suicide for Republicans. It was essentially a battle between Romney and the other guys. Romney, during his run for the governor of Massachusetts, made comments that did not satisfy the Tea Party Republicans. For example, he advocated abortion. Also, he proposed the Romneycare, a government-run healthcare system that is the prototype of Obamacare. His actions were used by various candidates to paint Romney as a moderate, wishy-washy opportunist with a lot of money. The rule of thumb in American politics is that it is not good to be recognized as a rich guy, since other people will envy and hate you. The hostility towards Romney approached its apex when another candidate Newt Gingrich made negative documentary called “the King of Bain.” A collection of interviews from workers who lost their job because of Bain Capital, it was not actually true, but convincing enough to spread the image of Romney’s sinister ego. The Republican Party knew that Romney did not possess the qualities needed to defeat Obama. Senator Rick Santorum, during his run for Republican nominee, said that any other candidate could win against Obama, even Rick “Oops” Perry. Romney, on the other hand, could not. To counter these malicious comments, Romney had to aim to please the hardcore conservatives.
However, after Romney secured his role as the Republican nominee, he needed to lean more towards central ideas, in order to get the votes from the independents. Unless Donald Trump or Sarah Palin came into the election as a third-party candidate, it was sure that the conservatives would pick Romney over Barack, though with less intensity and interest. It was obvious that he would hold a firm grip within Republican mainstream voters; after all, he was the only eligible candidate. The Romney campaign started to be friendlier to the Latino and black voters, willing to show that Romney actually cared for minorities as well, and that he actually is not a white rich guy caring only for white rich guys.
That’s where the second reason comes in. His image-making campaign proved to be a futile effort as it started to run out of money. No kidding. Mitt Romney is the richest man ever to run for president, even if you consider inflation. And that guy needed money bad. Although political pundits and comedians have made fun of Romney’s fortune for the last few months, Romney’s campaign spent so much money in the Republican primary election that during the battle between Barack Obama, Romney could not get his point made. For example, Obama also attacked Romney on his actions at Bain Capital. This time, under the assistance from a former Bain executive Bob White, the Romney campaign team made an effective documentary delineating the benefits that various workers and business owners had under the so-called “Mitt Romney” business strategy: firing and rehiring. The documentary was convincing enough to shut that argument down for good. It was only that they had no money to air it. Team Romney used social media and internet to promote their documentary, but nobody watched it, and the argument against Romney raged on.
Lack of funds inhibited Romney’s campaign trail, as he had to visit states like California and New York to host a fundraiser. California is without doubt the most liberal state in America, with more percentage of registered Democrats than any other states. New York City might have Wall Street bankers and businessmen, but New York State is mostly under Democrats’ control as well. In a nutshell, Romney raised money but he wasted valuable time that could have been used in swing states like Ohio. Actually, his fund raising rallies aimed to help Romney win the election did the opposite. It was during a private fundraiser event in Florida that Romney made that “47-percent” remark.
The final blow to Romney occurred as he tried to flip the tide through the televised debates. At Romney’s Vermont estate, a panel of debate experts gathered and trained Romney on the basic rules of presidential debating. They told him to keep his answer under 2 minutes, get the facts straight, and always be confident. The training seemed to have worked as Romney crushed Obama in the first debate. The president was virtually unprepared. However, Team Obama struck back in the next few rounds, with Vice President Joe Biden being more aggressive than ever. During the second and third debates, Obama gained the upper hand as he had both the rhetoric and humor to undermine Mitt Romney. Romney was unprepared in the second one and nervous on the third one.
With the polls being neck and neck, Romney needed to reinvent himself. It looks like he failed, for good.
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