Word: romney
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...appearances, Romney approached the problem of winning the White House with the same rigor of the "strategic audits" that allowed him to earn more than $100 million as a business consultant at Bain Capital. Beginning shortly after his victory as Massachusetts governor, he appeared to shift his more moderate stances on a number of hot-button issues. In each case, his new position lined up remarkably well with the conservative base of the Republican Party. Just years after courting the gay vote in Massachusetts, Romney became a national spokesman for the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. After running two campaigns...
...This provided easy fodder for his Republican opponents, who attacked him mercilessly, and often unfairly, as a candidate without convictions. At the conservative conference in 2007, Romney brought in hundreds of supporters to win a highly symbolic straw poll. But the press focused much of its attention on the detractors in the crowd - the supporters of Sen. Sam Brownback, who handed out "Mitt-flop" sandals and the person dressed as a porpoise in the hallways, introducing himself as "Flip Romney...
...Until the end, Romney persevered without any apparent faltering of enthusiasm or optimism, focusing enormous amounts of money and time on the earliest primary states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, with a travel schedule that constantly out-hustled his rivals. He also adapted to the shifting political terrain, most notably staking out a hawkish stand on illegal immigration, and remaking his central campaign theme at several points. Most of the time, he pitched himself as the one true conservative who could win the White House, appealing like no other candidate to national security hawks, tax cutting conservatives, and evangelical...
...evangelical pastor, Mike Huckabee, who proved to be Romney's undoing. Though Romney all but staked his candidacy on the first caucus state, Iowa, he lost there to the under-funded Huckabee by nearly double-digits. The Iowa loss weakened him in New Hampshire, where he has a vacation home. Then when he tried to establish himself as the conservative alternative to McCain in the south on Super Tuesday, Huckabee again rose to defeat him on a bare bones budget...
...Ironically, Romney's remarkable strengths as a corporate visionary and manager proved to be his weakness as a candidate. At his town halls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, voters often came away saying they were impressed with what he said, but unsure of him as a leader they could trust. As a candidate, Romney presented himself to voters as a product, branded as a conservative and proven as manager. But he struggled to move beyond the polished pitch to make a real connection with voters. Over the course of his tireless struggle for the presidency, he learned...