Romney's family pushed for a softer, 'let Mitt be Mitt' image. Inside the campaign: The Romney rebellion

For months, Ann Romney and her eldest son, Tagg, were dutifully supportive of the political professionals running Mitt Romney’s campaign. All the while, their private frustration was mounting.

Shortly before the first debate, it finally boiled over.


What followed was a family intervention. The candidate’s family prevailed on Mitt Romney, and the campaign operation, to shake things up dramatically, according to campaign insiders. The family pushed for a new message, putting an emphasis on a softer and more moderate image for the GOP nominee — a “let Mitt be Mitt” approach they believed more accurately reflected the looser, generous and more approachable man they knew.

( See also: Where the polls stand)

Chief strategist Stuart Stevens — whom the family held responsible for allowing Romney’s personal side to be obscured by an anti-Obama economic message — has seen his once wide-ranging portfolio “fenced in” to mainly the debates, and the television advertising that is his primary expertise, according to campaign officials. Tagg Romney, channeling his mother’s wishes, is taking a much more active role in how the campaign is run.

The family rebellion, long building despite Mitt Romney’s initial reluctance to change, reached a climax in September, amid mounting evidence that the status quo was doomed to failure. The course correction came after internal polls showed him losing nearly every swing state and a loud chorus of second-guessing among prominent conservatives.

( PHOTOS: 12 hits on Mitt from the right)

At about the same time, top officials came to realize that they had become prisoners of the 24-hour news cycle, “preventing Mitt from painting a bigger picture of his presidency,” a Romney adviser said.

One result was Monday’s foreign policy speech at Virginia Military Institute. Aides are now considering following it up with a speech on jobs and the economy, and then one on debt and spending. Another one on energy has also been discussed. The economic speech is designed as a high-profile pushback to the Obama campaign’s attacks. One adviser, invoking the famous Bob Dole quote from 1988, said the gist will be: “Stop lying about my record.”’

Stevens, according to several Romney officials, objected to the national security speech, arguing, as paraphrased by one colleague: “We’re not going to win on foreign policy — we’re going to win on the economy.” He lost the internal fight.

( Also on POLITICO: Romney: Obama has made U.S. less safe)

This story is based on campaign sources with direct knowledge of the events. The sources insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal disputes and operations.

When the history of this campaign is written, the family intervention will be among the most important turning points in the Romney saga. Until the weeks before the first presidential debate, the candidate sided with Stevens over his family’s skepticism, accepting the strategist’s view that the best way to win was to point out President Barack Obama’s flaws and articulate generic promises to do better.

Even now, many Romney officials wonder whether the change can be sustained. In essence, Romney is trying to undergo a political metamorphosis — to shed an image of personal stiffness, and to emerge loose and willing to compromise. Romney, advisers concede, is at his worst when improvising — and this shift is the biggest improvisation of the campaign. Right now, Romney is described as going with the flow, trying to quickly grow into this new public persona, most notably with his decision to tell personal stories on the stump.

Campaign officials said any change will be confined by Romney’s own cautious nature. And they are candid that their electoral map still looks terrible: Romney is behind in nearly every vital state. Ohio still looks very tough to win and New Hampshire, once a possibility, looks very bleak, officials say.

But one big reason for hope inside the Romney campaign is that conservatives were so down on the campaign before the debate — and so rapturous during it — that they will give him a lot of maneuvering room to talk in more moderate ways.

With several polls showing Romney bouncing back nationally, his aides contend they are well equipped to keep the race close until Election Day. The polls show increasing Republican enthusiasm, which is driving Boston’s optimism. Romney aides hope they can then conjure that into momentum going into next week’s second debate, despite the setback of last week’s strong jobs figures, which helped Obama get off the mat.

“These rallies are going to be carried more on cable, on the [local] news, and people are now seeing him as a possible president,” a Romney aide said. “In that context, people who are undecided will be looking a lot more closely.”

The campaign’s close-the-deal playbook includes more personal portrayals of Romney in advertising and on the stump; the policy speeches, which are designed to give him a substantive, presidential aura; and a renewed fight to save Ohio, which now leans clearly to Obama, by copying President George W. Bush’s 2004 strategy of goosing sky-high Republican turnout in the state’s conservative west and south.

Behind the scenes, the high command has changed with the candidate. Senior adviser Ed Gillespie, for instance, has rising responsibility for the campaign’s broad message. Campaign manager Matt Rhoades is commanding the stagecraft, the insiders said. And Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), originally brought in as Romney’s debate sparring partner, has become a close and trusted adviser.

But the biggest change in the ecology, according to the insiders, is the more assertive role of Tagg Romney, who has been “making sure that his father’s environment is such that he’s relaxed when he goes up to do things, and making sure that he’s not over-programmed, and is protected from the cacophony of advice,” a family friend said.

“Romney gets buffeted by all this advice because Romney takes everybody seriously,” the family friend said. “He thinks, ‘Well, gee, I’m talking to businessman X or C or Y. They’re really smart. That’s something I need to factor into my thinking.’ Tagg has been aggressive in saying: ‘There’s no more factoring stuff in. Your thinking is yours. Be who you are! And you’ve got to communicate that to people, and don’t be embarrassed by it.’”

The eldest son has been around the campaign’s Boston headquarters more often and keeps his own heavy schedule of media and campaign appearances. His involvement increased gradually in the two weeks before the debate, according to the insiders, after focusing on fundraising for much of the 2012 campaign.

“Unlike anybody else,” the friend said, “Tagg will basically call people out when they have something stupid to say. Because he’s the son, he’s in a different position to be able to really question people’s advice and question the decisions, but — more importantly — to drive them to make decisions, which is one of the problems in Romneyworld. They’re slow to react, in part because of the campaign’s organizational ambiguity. Tagg has helped resolve some of that.”

His advice reflects the views of Ann Romney, according to the friend: “She wants the man she knows to be shown, to be seen.”

In public and private, Ann Romney made no secret of her frustrations. Candidates’ spouses often think the husband or wife is getting a raw deal, and that they are better than the political caricature being drawn. But Ann Romney’s agitation was palpable: She felt the Obama campaign had dishonestly made her husband out to be something he is not, and was eager to see a more forceful response, especially one that played up his humanity. She wanted to humanize her husband; play up his charity; and showcase how in politics, business and life, he has tried to do the right thing, even when it was not popular.

A top Romney official offered a lengthy, passionate defense of the campaign’s strategy to date. The official said Romney added more emotional anecdotes during his Florida swing this weekend as “a personal choice,” and defended the more reserved approach of the past.

“You have to do it when you’re comfortable with it,” the official said. “Otherwise, it would seem forced.”

The official said the decision to use early advertising to stress what Romney would do, rather than to introduce his life story, was based on polling, focus groups and anecdotal evidence that people were most interested in what he would do as president.

“When we meet each other, we don’t immediately say, ‘Let me show you the pictures of my grandkids,’ and tell you how great I am,” the official insisted. “We talk about mutual interests, and what it is that you’re doing. If he’d said, ‘I’m Mitt Romney. Let me tell you about my life,’ people would have said: ‘Yeah, but what are you going to do for me?’”

The official admitted, however, that it “would have been nice to do both simultaneously,” which was impossible because the Romney campaign was being outspent on the air by the Obama campaign and the GOP-friendly outside groups were running a mostly anti-Obama message rather than a pro-Mitt-one.

“When you’re getting outspent like we were, it’s just been difficult to do as many things as the other guys. These are hard choices. They’re like scheduling decisions. Someone says we should be in Des Moines, and someone says we should be in Richmond. They’re both right — you should be. But you can’t do them at the same time.”

Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said Romney’s more personal approach might have made a great difference a few months ago, but added: “It’s late now to be introducing the ‘real’ you to voters.”

“He had a good performance at the debate, but he also gave us some openings, and we’ll take advantage of them,” Cutter said. “He has temporarily changed his narrative from being the candidate who couldn’t shoot straight to one that’s a good debater. Now, that’s great. But 30 days out from an election, it doesn’t mean that you’ve changed any critical dynamic in this race, like convincing middle-class voters that they can trust you.”

One top Republican strategist said Romney aides need to be even more creative and aggressive about adjusting the campaign “to fit the guy we saw in the debate better.”

“That was the Massachusetts Romney — that was the Romney that can win this election,” the strategist said. “Go meet some swing voters, maybe do some PowerPoint shows. Buy hourlong ‘Meet Mitt’ shows in markets like Orlando, Tampa, Denver, Las Vegas, Des Moines, Richmond, Columbus and Cincinnati.”