RE: What Can Candidates Learn From Romney’s Loss in 2008?

From the blog Caffeinated Thoughts, we examine a post from David Shedlock entitled What Can Candidates Learn From Romney’s Loss in 2008? Huckabee-supporter Shedlock reflects on why Romney lost that state’s caucus. This post is not so much a rebuttal of David’s points, but an alternate viewpoint, plus some reflection.

Volunteering for Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses is one of the most memorable events of my life. Wow, what an experience! We (my brothers Luke, Aaron, Zach, and myself) hit the road early New Year’s Eve in my mini-van, arriving 16 hours later at Romney Headquarters in Urbandale. For three very cold days we knocked on doors, posted signs, made phone-calls, and rallied. We were deflated when Romney lost, but still, the over-all experience was great.

David Shedlock is a native of Iowa and has an interesting viewpoint as to why Romney lost. I don’t agree with them entirely but will present a short summary of his four points:

1. Romney ran an excellent radio ad. The problem is that the same exact ad ran continuously for months. The ad became extremely well known and people tired of it.
2. Romney unwittingly introduced people to Huckabee, whom many never heard of, by doing negative a mailer about him. He might have done better to focus on himself than Huckabee.
3. Though Romney won the Ames straw-poll he had to bus people in and entertain them, whereas Huckabee supporters drove themselves.
4. At caucus time Romney brought in paid out-of-staters to speak for the campaign, and Huckabee had in-state real supporters speak for his campaign.

Points #1 and #2 might be true; I don’t know. If so, those two points can be easily remedied if Romney runs in 2012. The campaign landscape will be entirely different in 2012. For one, we have an incumbent Democrat in office who will more than likely be the primary target, rather than fellow GOP candidates.

Regarding point number 3: When you’ve been successful in fundraising, you use that money to be successful. That is the whole point to fundraising. The only ones that complain about it are the ones who can’t raise funds. Huckabee supporters drove because they had to. If Romney supporters didn’t have the transportation available they would have done the same. In 2012 my guess is that Huckabee will perhaps invest more into the event, and Romney perhaps a little less.

David’s fourth point is what actually spurred me to write this post because I have personal experience to refute his observations. From Caffeinated Thoughts David writes:

Finally, on caucus night, Newton, Iowa, the stage was set for our local caucuses. All precincts met at one school and then caucused in individual classrooms. After being appointed to a room, each of us listened to representatives of each candidate give a spiel. In our room, the spokesman for Romney had been brought in from Utah and he was apparently a politician from there. After he spoke, he left so that he could speak in other rooms. I spoke for Huckabee in our room (and of course, stayed, and cast my vote for Huckabee). Who are people more likely to vote for if they are on the fence? The guy who probably paid people to travel 2000 miles away (even if the spokespersons paid their own way, the impression left was otherwise) or the guy represented by your neighbor? I am quite sure this process played out in room after room, town after town, city after city.

Don’t be “quite sure” yet, David. You mention the spokesman had been “brought in” from Utah. It’s more likely he came in on his own volition. My brothers and I traveled in from Utah. Out of the several hundreds of volunteers we met from during those five days, we met exactly two who were from Utah, though there could have been a few more. We noted that on January 2nd, when we arrived at HQ, the parking lot was packed; there were many times more people than there were for New Year’s Day. We had to park way down the street and we arrived only half an hour after HQ opened. We particularly noticed the license plates. About half were from Iowa and the other half were from all over the country – several there were as far away as Washington. If their travel expenses were being paid for, I’m sure they would have flown instead of driving that far.

Again, we were not “brought in”, we just came. When the campaign asked for volunteers we responded that we would come and there was never any talk of compensation. Since money is tight for us, especially for my younger college-age brothers, we made it a budget trip – $1000. That was the total cost for the four of us to drive to Des Moines, four nights of staying in a hotel, plus food. Since we often worked in distant neighborhoods to go door-knocking, we also did considerable driving each day.

Come caucus day, HQ was in a flurry of activity as usual. About two hours prior to actual caucus time, we were approached by a staffer and asked if we would represent the campaign at four different precincts which were about one hour drive time, East on the I-80 freeway (for the closest one). The staffer had a list of various precincts through out the state. He showed us seven locations that did not have a “precinct captain”. The campaign had done a thorough job of contacting at least one supporter in virtually every precinct. From what I saw, the campaign sent out about 20 people, including us, to represent the campaign at various precincts where they did not have a designated captain. Twenty people may seem like a lot, but perhaps it’s not so much when you realize there are 1784 precincts in Iowa. Yes, there were out-of-state precinct captains, but they were not in as many precincts as David presumes.

So, when my brothers and I got the request to represent at four precincts we jumped on it! We had no more than five minutes to gather our stuff, get addresses and maps for our locations and split. They gave each of us a Team Mitt Staff t-shirt which we still wear proudly and frequently to this day. I was surprised that they had detailed precinct info and vote goals for each of us. They basically had attendance count info from previous caucuses, and from that they determined what it would take to win 50% of the votes in that group to ensure the win. For instance, Zach’s precinct only had an attendance of 16 last time, and his goal for votes was eight.

Where we went:

• Luke: Mayflower Community (rest home) in Grinnell, Poweshiek County (goal: 8 votes)
• Zach: Fairview Elementary in Grinnell, Poweshiek County (goal: 8 votes)
• Aaron: County Courthouse in Montezuma, Poweshiek County (goal: 17 votes)
• Nate: Iowa Valley Junior-Senior High School in Marengo, Iowa County (goal: 23 votes)

For my own fun, I made my own google map of the locations here.

What happened at our individual precincts may be what interests you the most. Each campaign representative was allowed three minutes to speak to our respective groups. We didn’t find this out until we got there, which flustered me a bit because I had planned for a little more time than that. My precinct had one representative for Ron Paul, Aaron’s had a rep from Fred Thompson’s campaign, and Luke and Zach’s precint had no other reps. Of our four precincts, Romney only won Aaron’s, and by only two votes. Aaron was fortunate enough in his precinct to have a full 15 minute Q&A, rather than the limited three minutes the rest of us got. My precinct lost by four votes to Huckabee, and Luke’s was close as well. Zach’s was a totally different story. Zach’s precinct goal was eight votes based on a turnout of 16 people. Zach lost his with 12 votes for Romney and 88 for Huckabee. It turns out that a pastor turned out with his whole congregation to caucus for the former minister.

Zach’s experience may be indicative of what happened on a larger scale in Iowa. I’m not accusing them of bloc voting against Romney because he’s Mormon, but more likely they voted for Huckabee because he was a former Pastor. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. I know Huckabee supporters will dispute that it was a rare sectarian effort to promote Huck, saying it’s more likely that they supported him because he was more in-line with their ideals than Romney was. Well, if that were the case, did this same congregation turn out for Dole in ’96, or Bush in 2000? I seriously doubt there was a similar sudden uprising of religious support.

I must take care to ensure that I don’t think Romney lost because he’s a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Did it have an effect? Sure, some at least. But it’s very likely he would have lost anyway. Romney lost because he received less votes than McCain in the end. Period.

If Romney runs in 2012 I think odds are against him on winning that particular caucus, but there is no way he will skip it all together. He will put up a good fight. If he loses, he’ll move on to victories in other states. If he wins…. well, it’ll be clear sailing from there (relatively speaking). The Gunderson brothers will be back in Iowa in February of 2012. We hope to see many of you there!

~Nate Gunderson

Videos from our trip:
Part 1B:

Part 2:

You can see part 1A here. I didn’t include it because it’s mostly us being silly on our drive out to Iowa (though it does have a cameo of the Mitt Bobble-Head). I created the videos originally just for personal memories.

More pictures and recap from the Iowas trip can be found here and here.