Lessons Learned from the Romney Campaign

With Romney's recent departure from the race we learned a few key points about political campaigns.

1. Money matters but not if it comes mostly from the candidate. Romney spent a lot of his money on the race and in fact outspent McCain in numerous states but still did not win. Why? Because despite raising a significant amount of cash a large portion came from his own wealth. It may be jealousy but most people don't like rich people trying to "buy the election". Michigan saw the same thing last year with Dick Devos. But more than jealousy I think it hurts the candidate's ability to relate to the middle class voter who doesn't believe the candidate understands their economic anxiety. For example, what does Mitt Romney know about struggling to pay a mortgage? Self funded campaigns also reveal an inability to get everyday citizens to buy into their campaign via writing a check. The amount of money matters less than the number of actual voters who are willing to commit to the candidate. That commitment is what keeps the campaign momentum going when times get tough not the money.

2. You have to be genuine because people can spot a phony. I wrote last summer that Romney should have run as a moderate pragmatic governor instead of a far right diehard. Anybody paying attention could tell he wasn't being genuine during most of the campaign. He may very well be conservative in his private life but his prior campaigns and public experience suggested he wasn't a conservative. What his experience did suggest was that he was smart, competent and accomplished. Unfortunately, these qualities got lost in the nonsense and double speak that plagued his campaign. Whether the issue was abortion or gay rights or even hunting, none of what he said seemed to add up to what he had done before running for President. The irony is that he if he had run as a moderate he would have taken all the winner take all Northeast states on Super Tuesday instead of McCain and would probably have the delegate lead. But by the time those primaries rolled around the people in the Northeast didn't recognize the former Governor from their backyard.

3. If you are going to be a momentum candidate you need to win either Iowa or New Hampshire but not both. Like it or not both these states matter a lot. Just look at the last two standing as they are the winners in these two states. You can't get people excited about coming in second place in both states. However you can tank in one state as long as you win the other one. The results also suggest that smart candidates figure out which state fits best and spend most of their time there. They have incredibly different electorates and a good candidate should be able to appeal to one or the other. For Huckabee it was Iowa and for McCain it was New Hampshire. Romney should have given up Iowa and focused solely on NH. Trying to win both set him up for failure and he never recovered.

4. Religion still plays an important role in Republican politics. One of many reasons Romney lost in Iowa and in the south on super Tuesday was because of his religion. Fundamentalist Christians were never going to support a Mormon candidate no matter how conservative he said he was. And secular voters weren't all that comfortable either. I know firsthand several people whose sole reason for voting against him was his faith. Call it prejudice if you want but to get elected you have to be from a denomination that mainstream Christians feel comfortable with.

5. Talk Radio endorsements are not effective. Rush Limbaugh has a huge audience as does Sean Hannity. Others have smaller but no less committed listenership. Yet when they all endorsed Mitt Romney in a last ditch attempt to derail John McCain, it didn't work. Romney is out of the race less than two weeks after their endorsements. The reason is that the people who listen to talk radio were already voting for Romney without their endorsements. They were essentially preaching to the choir and not attracting new converts. And while the talk radio crowd is big, it is only a small portion of even the conservative Republican electorate. To win the primary Romney needed to expand this narrow base and talk radio endorsements did not help him at all. Unless the person can give you access to a voting segment you can't reach on your own, the endorsement is only as good as the news cycle in which it was announced.