Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann

Author:Mark Halperin & John Heilemann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Elections, Political Science, Political Process
ISBN: 9781594204401
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Published: 2013-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

13

FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE MOTOR CITY

AGAINST A BACKDROP OF royal blue drapes, flanked by American flags, the Romneys stood before a swarm of reporters just off the lobby of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. It was February 2, two days after Florida and two days before the Nevada caucuses, and Mitt was there to receive a prize he had sought with ardor but also ambivalence: the endorsement of the Donald.

Since his decision to forgo a pursuit of the presidency in favor of his TV paycheck, Trump had played a noisy—and, in the view of many establishmentarians, noisome—role in the race. He had tried in December to moderate his own Republican debate, which fell apart for lack of interest. He had switched his political affiliation to independent and was fulminating about waging a third-party bid. But none of this had kept most of the GOP candidates, actual and potential, from queuing up outside Trump Tower to kiss his ring. Palin, Huckabee, Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Cain: all had called or met with the Donald in search of his favor.

And so had Romney, first paying a visit to Trump in New York in September and then staying in touch by phone. The Donald took a shine to Mitt, who struck him as looser and funnier than he came across on TV. And Romney liked Trump, too. For a man of such extreme squareness, Romney took curious pleasure in the company of oddballs and showboats. After encounters with Trump, he would say to his aides, “Isn’t he fun?”

Jollity wasn’t the only motivating factor in Romney’s romancing of Trump. The Donald was a Tea Party favorite and a potential fund-raising dynamo. (Some in Boston wondered whether Trump could be to Romney what George Clooney was to Obama.) He had also been endowed by the freak show with a puissant bully pulpit—and Romney preferred to see Trump bullying Mitt’s rivals rather than him.

But Romney was aware that hitching his wagon to Trump entailed political risks. The birther issue was nothing but trouble, Mitt thought: ludicrous on the merits, repellent to swing voters, and a needless distraction from Obama’s real vulnerabilities. (If we stay focused on the economy, we can beat this guy; shut up about Kenya, please.) And Romney knew that many New York donors and members of the mainstream media considered Trump a punch line. For the Mitt-Donald meeting in Gotham, Rhoades had Will Ritter fly down from Boston to execute one firm directive: “No fucking pictures.” So Ritter played decoy, holding court with the press outside Trump Tower—standing by the wrong entrance so that Romney could enter and exit through a different door, undetected and unmolested.

Boston tried to approach the endorsement itself with similar delicacy. When Romney learned he had won the Trump Primary, it was a few days before the vote in Florida. The Donald suggested he bestow the honor there, but Newhouse polled the matter and found that it made more sense to wait until Nevada; that Trump wasn’t popular in either place, but he was less unpopular in the Silver State.

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