Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America (58 page)

SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission,
172

Sperling, Gene, 289, 290

Spies, Charles, 172

Springsteen, Bruce, 13, 14, 119

“Stage” (ad), 324

Standard & Poor’s, 61

“Steel” (ad), 246–47, 251, 254, 259

Steinbrenner, George, 121

Stephanopoulos, George, 218

Stevens, Christopher, 296, 308

Stevens, Stuart, 247–49, 273, 285, 295

and ad campaign, 149, 259, 278

and ad media, 89, 247

and debates, 308, 311

and decision to run, 341

on nomination battles, 227

and Romney’s public appearances, 98, 286

and running mate selection, 273

and super PAC, 198

and 2012 campaign, 148–49, 207, 248–49, 343

Stewart, Alice, 137

Stewart, Jon, 145

Stewart, Mitch, 75, 80, 81, 322

Strauss, Bob, 291

Strayhorn, Carole Keeton, 143

Strickland, Ted, 288, 322, 325

Sullivan, Andrew, 303, 306

Sullivan, Ray, 146, 147, 152–53, 156, 192

super PACs, 185, 220

and Gingrich, 171, 172, 186–87, 188, 203, 233, 250

and Obama team, 277

and Romney, 171–72, 176, 186, 197–98, 203, 221–22, 233, 351

Super Tuesday, 221–23

and Romney campaign, 92, 220, 221

and voting patterns, 223–24

Supreme Court, U.S.:

and antisodomy laws, 212

and campaign financing, 172, 351

and health care, 94, 256–57

Tanenhaus, Sam,
The Death of Conservatism,
100–101

Tapper, Jake, 141, 170

Targeted Sharing, 78–79

Tea Party:

and Americans for Prosperity, 218

anti-Obama stance of, 102, 103, 136

and Bachmann, 136

birth of, 101

and Boehner, 47

and Cain, 159–60

and Congress, 42, 46, 47, 100, 104

and debates, 131

and debt ceiling, 46, 47

demographics of, 104

and the economy, 45, 72

and Gingrich, 200

and grassroots movement, 103, 105

and midterm elections (2010), 35, 112

and Occupy Wall Street, 70

and Palin, 106, 112, 113

and Paul, 173

and Pawlenty, 127

and Perry, 143, 152

political orthodoxy demanded by, 102, 103

public image of, 101–2

and Republican Party, 7, 35, 47–48, 62, 67, 94, 100, 101–5, 112, 127, 180, 199–200

and running mate selection, 267

and Santorum, 212

ultraconservative stance of, 102, 103, 105

Tennessee:

Romney’s loss in, 224

Santorum’s victory in, 222

Texas:

election results in, 334

and immigration issue, 228

primary in, 207, 224

Thaler, Richard, 352

This Week,
141, 218

Thompson, Fred, 93

Thune, John, 89, 91

Title X, 217

Todd, Chuck, 176, 256, 302

Tomasky, Michael, 303

Trump, Donald, 109–10, 139, 207, 220

Tsongas, Paul, 177

Tucson, Arizona, shooting in, 42, 62, 112

Tumulty, Karen, 110, 111, 166

Twitter, 301–5, 315, 335, 352

Tyler, Rick, 164, 165, 172

Tyson, Mike, 39

Undefeated, The
(movie), 113

unemployment, 3, 35–36, 189, 239, 240, 322, 340

Utah, midterm elections in (2010), 102

Van Susteren, Greta, 113, 162, 164

Vavreck, Lynn, 261

Ventura, Jesse, 129

Vermont, Republican contest in, 222

VFW convention, Las Vegas, 272

Vietnam War, and presidential politics, 29

Virginia:

as battleground state, 299, 319, 332, 333

election results in, 332, 333, 336

Obama campaign in, 75, 253, 319

polls in, 329, 330

Republican contest in, 222, 224

Romney campaign in, 224, 299, 329

Wagner, Dan, and analytics, 19, 76, 80, 81

Wake Up Wal-Mart, 75

Walker, Robert, 188

Walker, Scott, 319

Wallace, Chris, 150, 151, 160

Wall Street Journal,
48, 96, 97, 112, 232

Warfield, Nelson, 152, 156

Warren, Elizabeth, 71

Washington, D.C., dysfunctional government in, 5, 7, 23–24, 38, 48–49, 50, 56, 61, 62, 64, 69, 72, 239, 244, 349

Washington Post,
72, 103, 227, 245, 255–56

Wasserman, David, 332

Weaver, John, 179–80

Weber, Vin, 134, 195–96

Weeks, David, 153

Wehner, Pete, 152, 286

Welch, Jack, 131

welfare reform, 206–7, 277, 278, 324

Westen, Drew, 62–63

White, Bill, 143

White, Bob, 20

and Bain, 89, 250–51, 256, 259

and debate preparation, 308

and election day, 338

and Romney’s public image, 251

and running mate selection, 273, 274

White, Ginger, 162

White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, 46, 110, 180

Wicks, Buffy, 75

Will, Mari, 156

Williams, Brian, 149, 201, 272

Williams, Juan, 188, 190, 192

Williams & Connolly, 108

Wilson, Scott, 24

Winning Our Future, 185–87

Winston, David, 188

Winter Olympics (2002), 31, 201, 217, 271

Wisconsin:

as battleground state, 319

collective bargaining as issue in, 319

election results in, 333

Republican nomination contest in, 224, 233, 247

Ryan campaigning in, 263, 319

WMUR-TV, 183

Wofford, Harris, 211

Wonder, Stevie, 12

Woog, Doug, 128–29

Wright, Jim, 193

YouTube, 118, 204, 294, 352

Zeleny, Jeff, 139

Zwick, Spencer, 89, 234, 274, 285, 338

Dan Balz is the chief correspondent of the
Washington Post
and has covered American politics and government for four decades. A native of Freeport, Illinois, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois and spent three years in the U.S. Army. He joined the
Post
in 1978 and served as national editor, political editor, White House correspondent, and Southwest regional correspondent before beginning full-time work as a national political reporter. He has won numerous awards for his coverage of politics and the presidency. He is coauthor of two previous books,
Storming the Gates: Protest Politics and the Republican Revival
with Ronald Brownstein, and
The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election
with Haynes Johnson. A collection of his columns about the 2012 election,
Obama vs. Romney: “The Take” on Election 2012,
was published as an e-book. He is a regular panelist on PBS’s
Washington Week
and on MSNBC’s
Daily Rundown
and appears frequently on many other public affairs programs.

*
Iowa senator Tom Harkin held an annual steak fry, which Obama and all the other 2008 presidential candidates attended in the fall of 2007. His supporters marched together into the field where the event was held.

*
Plouffe had long predicted a comfortable victory. He told me in June 2011 that he thought Obama would win more than 300 electoral votes, with a popular vote margin of two to three points.

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Among those also under consideration for the job was Jon Huntsman Jr., a former diplomat, the son of one of Utah’s richest and best-connected businessmen, and a future governor and rival to Romney.

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As a new senator, Obama had voted against raising the debt ceiling as a symbolic protest of rising deficits.

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DeMint announced his resignation from the Senate in December 2012 to become president of the Heritage Foundation.

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David Broder died on March 9, 2011.

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Many of these donors eventually became fund-raisers and bundlers for Romney.

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Kissinger’s office did not make the former secretary of state available for an interview for this book.

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In Tampa, he also came under attack for having supported mandatory vaccinations for teenage girls to prevent the spread of human papillomavirus, better known as HPV, a common sexually transmitted disease. Had Bachmann, who led the charge, not made a post-debate misstatement of her own, that line of attack might have hurt him more.

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Some super PACs also established separate entities that were regulated by the Internal Revenue Service and were not required to disclose the names of their donors.

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A week later, a Gingrich spokesman admitted that the candidate’s claim had been false. The campaign had offered only his two daughters to rebut Marianne Gingrich’s allegations, not several other people as Gingrich had said.

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“Earned media” is a term used by campaign strategists to describe their efforts to produce coverage by the media favorable to their candidates or harmful to their opponents.

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At the time of the 2012 campaign, the Santorums had seven living children.

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As it turned out, a decision that looked risky in May turned out not to be risky at all. Fund-raising began to surge again in August and never slowed. The campaign had all the money it could spend in the final weeks.

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Christie recalled that Romney’s team wanted twelve years of tax returns. This was at a time when Romney had agreed to make public only two years of his own returns.

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Rivera lost his bid for reelection in November 2012.

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Romney told me later he paid little attention to the ongoing debate in his campaign about whether the election would be a referendum or a choice. He said he also thought it was as much a choice as anything else.

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The Obama campaign had a similar breakdown with similar technology on election day 2008. An Obama official told me after the 2012 election, “That’s not why they lost. It was never going to be a reason they were going to win either.”

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The
Washington Post
’s Fact Checker said the Obama ads were a distortion of an article the
Post
had run describing companies in which Bain had invested as “pioneers” in outsourcing and offshoring.

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Organizing for Action pledged transparency by making its donors public.