A Word on Words; 4224; Dan Balz

And now, from Nashville Public Television's Studio A, celebrating authors, literature and ideas for more than three decades, this is a word on words with John Siganthal. Hello, I'm John Siganthal, a welcome once again to a word on words. Today, my guest is Dan Bolts. He's a well-respected journalist and author. He has been with Washington Post for 35 years and currently is Chief Casponant. In 2011, he received the White House Caspon Association's Merriman Smith Award for Political Analysis. He's the co-auth of two books, including The New York Times, Best Sull of the Battle for America 2008. He's here today to talk

about Collision 2012, Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America. It's an insider's view of how people in the campaigns were thinking. It underscores the unprecedented role of social media and data analysis in the race. And pleasure to welcome you back to the word on words. Thank you, John. It's great to be here. It's great to talk about this election, this collision in 2012. And early in the book, you give us a little profile to these two leading candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. After all that campaign, you're still wonder whether you understand them. And then as you get into the book, and it unfolds, and you get to see what's behind the campaign and behind the men who run the men who are the candidates. It becomes fascinating to grab the budget, pull it in, won't let you go. What would you say if I told you that I came

away from the book? I probably was convinced of it already, but hadn't really focused on the role the Republican primary debates had on the outcome. I get a sense after reading your book that it was virtually impossible for Romney after those debilitating debates that so galvanized the ideology of whoever that nominee was going to be. I think that's very true. I think this was a hard election for Mitt Romney to have one in almost any respect. We know the economy was weak, and so the president was vulnerable. There's no question about that. On the other hand, it's tough to beat incumbent presidents

unless things are really, really bad. So in a sense, Governor Romney was running in a difficult environment for himself, even against a em battled president. But Stuart Stevens, who was the chief strategist for the Romney campaign, made a comment to me when I was interviewing him after the election about the role of those debates. He said, it's a little bit like high school. He said, you are who you hang out with. I think by that, he meant that being on that stage, week after week, pulled Governor Romney to the right, exposed some of the divisions in the party and exposed some of the aspects of the Republican party that people were not particularly happy about. And coming out of that, there was perhaps a moment in which Governor Romney might have been able to move a little bit more toward the center, but for a variety of reasons was not able to do that successfully. Had he done that, would the election have been a little bit closer? It might have been. And he comes into that campaign with a rap, maybe a bad rap. The word flip flop is attached

to him. Now he survives those primary debates. And the back of his mind, wherever he is, he's got to be careful that he does not get hit with another rap for flip flopping again, having moved to the right. More to the right than his people wanted him to move. He's then stuck with it. Well, there are a couple of examples, John, from the primaries in which that flip flop label locked him into positions that, in fact, I think, in the general election were problematic. One was health care. He was under a lot of pressure as the campaign was starting to essentially renounce the Massachusetts health care plan that he had signed when he was Governor. And he decided he was not going to do that for a variety of reasons. But one reason, at least some of the staff didn't want him to

do that was if he somehow shifted on that and said, well, I made a mistake on that, it would expose him to the idea of another flip flop that he was just saying whatever he needed to do to get elected. Similarly, on immigration, he said some things during the primaries about immigration that I think were costly, particularly the line about self deportation, but also when he went after Governor Perry about a program that Texas has that gives the children of illegal immigrants in state tuition, if they're in prison, almost into a liberal humanitarian program for us. He told one to be right. And when I asked him about that, he said, well, I had taken that same position as Governor. He had opposed similar legislation in Massachusetts. He said, I couldn't very well in the 2012 primaries argue the other side of that, or he would have been accused of being a flip flopper. So he was stuck in a variety of ways. Let me take you in deep into the book now for a minute. Having said what we just said, there comes a moment when he is in a meeting and thinks he is speaking

to a room of friends without media and doesn't know that somebody's got their telephone open and the camera is rolling. And he makes this statement about almost half the people are on welfare, almost half the people have been bought and paid for, almost. Is that an extension of the debates? I mean, here he is in private. Here he is making a statement. And it's almost, it sounds almost ideological that he really believes this stuff about the welfare of state. And that's why I'm going to lose 47% of the vote no matter what's

out. What's going on there? I think a couple of things, John. One is, as you say, he's among friends. He's had a fundraiser in Florida. This was in May of 2012. And it's probably at the end of the day of a long day of campaigning. And candidates are tired. Their guard is down. If you remember in 2008, Barack Obama made a comment at a fundraiser in San Francisco about people in Pennsylvania clinging to their guns and their religion. Similar kind of environment. You're among people who are like-minded and you shorthand things and you say things in a way that you can come to regret. And they reflect something about your real feelings. And I think that that was the case here. This was a combination of him expressing something that was both what he felt, but also saying it in a way that I think if he had thought about it for three seconds, he would not have put it that way. When I interviewed him for the book, and we talked about the 47% moment, I said to him, you made this comment that 47% of the country, they would never take personal responsibility for their own lives. And he

said, I didn't say that. Well, in fact, he did say it. He had said it. And I had the sense then that he was still unable to kind of digest that moment and understand, he knew how bad it was. He knew how much it hurt at that moment in the campaign. But I think he still in his heart didn't want to think that he had actually said those words. You know, I read the book. I watched the campaign. I watched almost virtually every debate. His survival instincts are phenomenal. I mean, he defeated, he defeated some very, very tough guys in that long string of debates that really ground at the soul. You know, he knocks off Huckabee, knocks off Herman Cain, he knocks off Donald Trump, he knocks off Newt Gingrich, he will name it. Paul Entie, followed by the wayside. It's just one after

another, after another. And then, after knocking them all off, he wins the prize and then loses the election. But you'd have to say he's got staying power. It was a tough ordeal for him. I think it's a very good point, John. And you know, you know, this better than most people. Candidates who lose presidential campaigns are considered losers. And so they're not thought of as having been good candidates. I mean, they think, well, they lost because they made a lot of mistakes. That happens to every losing candidate. But the point you make, I think is right, which is winning the nomination was not easy. And it was not easy in part because it was a different kind of nomination battle than we've seen, which is to say he was always the front runner, but never a dominant front runner. And it was never clear who his real opponent was going to be at any given moment. I mean, one candidate would rise and fall. And another candidate would rise and fall. And sometimes they fell in part because of what Mitt Romney was able to do. I mean, obviously Rick Perry on paper

was a very strong candidate, Southern governor. I think once he got in, I thought he was going to be a nominee. I think a lot of people did. And I know Governor Romney took him quite seriously, but he demolished him in those debates in September. And long before the famous oops moment that Governor Perry is most remembered for, his candidacy was on the rocks. And largely because of what Governor Romney had been able to do. I think there were only a couple of debates through the course of the whole year that you would say he had not been the winner or tied for the period. That's right. And you came away. I came away going into the election, feeling pretty much about the outcome that the Romney people felt. I mean, they were very encouraged that their crowds were terrific as you point out. It just seemed to be rolling in his direction. And but on the other side, you also point out that there was great self-confidence on the other side. They're reading those

polls. Obama, people are reading those polls. President's reading those polls. Your point of head, your two points ahead in key states. So on election day, our virtually up to election day, both sides think, you know, we're in pretty good shape here. Yes, that's right. When I talked to Governor Romney about this, I said you were very confident on election day. And he said I was confident. He said not 90% confident, but he clearly thought he was going to win. And he had written a victory speech. And he had not written a concession speech. I think he had tried at one point and just couldn't make it work. And so when he went out that day, he spent part of the day campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And he finished up in Pennsylvania with a spontaneous crowd that showed up at the airport to greet him. They were, they were across a chainling fence. So they weren't inside the airport. They were just spontaneous. And he looked at that crowd and he said to some of the reporters, this is when you know you're going to win. And they got back to Boston about 530 in the

evening. And they looked at those exit polls that were beginning to come out. And some of the other signs that the staff was seeing around the country. And they realized it was not to be. That oops moment. One of your chapters is called oops. And it reflects what happened to Governor Perry. What did happen to Governor Perry? I mean, I guess we all draw a blanks. At 86, I draw more than Rick Perry. I'll tell you. But it's beyond me to understand why he couldn't grasp the moment. When I talked to him about it, he was quite funny about that. And he said, you know, he said, I felt better going into that debate than any of the previous debates. As you know, when he's, he got in late, he had not done a lot of debating as a gubernatorial candidate in Texas. And this was, this was a tough stage for him. And he did not do well in those early debates. And they rearranged debate preparation for him. They got a more disciplined system. And he said he felt terrific going

into that. And he said it was just a brain lapse. It's just something that happens. And his feeling was, my guess is our audience won't forgive me for repeating what he called it, which was a mind fart. Let me just say for those of you just joining us. I'm talking with Dan Bolts about collision 2012 Obama versus Romney and the future of elections in America. It was almost sitting there watching him. I had great pain for him. I really, I really felt, I guess we've all had a moment like that. I think everybody has. But never on that with stakes like that. I don't remember being in the press filing area. I've blown a few here, you know? But I can always do it over. Poor Perry is stuck with it for the rest of his life. And it plays on and on and on. That's right. In the, you know, we were in a gigantic gymnasium, all the reporters sitting at these long tables. And when that happened, it was like this collective kind of everybody was just tensed up. You know, you feel for

a person when they're going through that. But he said, you know, he went into the, he went into the spin room right afterwards and made a nice self-deprecating comment. And he said, after that, he said, you know, I slept fine that night. He said, I didn't agonize about it. They, you know, nobody on his left. Well, no, the rest of them were up all night trying to clean it up. What are you doing with the Republicans? We need to focus on the, on the successes and flaws in the Obama campaign too. But what do you make of Donald Trump as a political figure? I mean, I, he almost, you, I thought he came off in the campaign pretty much a joke. And the book confirms that. I mean, you don't dwell on poor Trump at much length. But to the extent that you do, it was a bit of a joke. It was every, every person who runs for president has a combination of ego and

ambition that is beyond probably most normal human beings. That said, I think that, you know, for Donald Trump, ego always trumps everything else. And I think that there was a lot of that in that. And the sort of swashbuckling nature, the bravado and the focus on the birther issue with the president. I think, I think exposed him in a way that said, this is not somebody who is serious about this. He's out here because he wants to grab attention. And he's, you know, he's a master at that. But in the context of running for president, you have to have more than that. You sure do. So let's talk about Obama and the successful campaign. There were moments of doubt. There were moments when his staff worried that it was getting a little rocky. Everybody says, you know, he didn't have to go through that bits of primary opposition. He goes to the convention. It's a, it's a plus forum. But it's

amazing to me how candidate like this president was having a very, very tough time winning the country to his administration's goals. How, how adept he was they were at winning the election. I mean, you know, it almost tempts you to say, my heavens, they know how to run a campaign. And then to ask the question, do they really know how to run the country, ran it. It's a very, very tough environment for him with, with, with the Republicans as negative as they are. But, but that campaign was, I don't know that it was flawless, but

close. Yeah, no campaign is flawless. And, and we always tend to give the winner more credit for the success than perhaps they deserve. It's, it's never as, it's never as smooth as they want you to believe afterwards. The lowest moment for, for the president and for his team was two years ago around this time. And in, in August of 2011, after the debt ceiling negotiations had collapsed in, in a heap and they had come out with a very messy solution to try to kick the can down the road, if you will. And the president had hoped that if that was the outcome, the Republicans would draw most of the blame and he'd be, he'd be, he'd escape it. And in fact, the public judged this as just a mess in Washington and a box on both your houses. And he decided at that point that there was, there was nothing to be gained from then forward in negotiating with Republicans in, in Washington that he had to take this argument to the country. And they made a pivot around Labor Day of

2011 to go from operating inside and, and in essentially governing to carrying the political argument forward and to figuring out how to frame the election in a way that would avoid November 2012 becoming a pure referendum on the president's stewardship and the, the state of the economy at that moment. And I think they did a good job in reframing the message around this, the focus on the middle class, which put Romney on the defensive. And had they not been able to do that, I think that the campaign might have been more difficult for them. How do you explain, and this may be too strong a word, there is one debate where there is something close to a collapse. On the part of the president as a performer, totally out of character, I had never seen him before when I thought he was at a loss for words, or that, that, that he lost, his sort of sense of posture and, and self-confident. But

that night, he allowed himself to be buffeted about, about Romney, and by the questions, and by the audience, and never seemed to gain any traction that night, came out of it knowing he had not done well. What happened? Well, the, the first thing that happened is that incumbent presidents running for re-election often struggled with the first debate. There's a, there's a moment just before the debate when Romney gets a call from George W. Bush. And the former president says to Romney, you're going to do just fine in this debate, because I know from my own experience, President Obama is probably not going to be ready for this. In incumbent presidents, think they know the issues, which they do. They, they don't want to prepare as hard as they have to. His preparations were never particularly good. The mock debates were, were anywhere from sort

of adequate to mediocre to, to bad. He never really had a really good mock debate with John Kerry as he was preparing. And the other thing is about a president, for four years he's been in environment in which people are respectful. His aides are all respectful. He may get some conflicting advice or different advice, but it's done in a respectful way. You get up on a debate stage against your opponent, particularly an opponent who's done 20 debates. They're not going to treat you with respect. And that can be a little jarring. And the other thing that happened, John, is that his staff came up with a new strategy just before the debate that was counter to what they had been telling the president he should do from the beginning. Initially they had said, you know, you have to take the fight to Romney, you have to be aggressive. This is a competitive election. This is a close election. You have to go out and just, you know, go after him. After the 47 percent video happened. And the polls seem to open up a little bit for the president. They said to him, you know what? Romney's in a bad spot right now. He's not particularly likable.

Stay above it. Don't get down in the mud with him. And the president's reaction, according to one aid, was, are you sure about this? This doesn't sound quite right. But they said, no, no. Stick with this. And so I think, I think he was in conflict himself as to what his tone and posture and level of aggressiveness ought to be. And so, as you say, I mean, it was a total mismatch in that first debate. He comes back though, redeems himself next time around. I think everybody thought he was back on track. And, and quite aggressive. And quite tough-minded. Interesting thing to me is how he came back from that low point. And I don't mean how he got support back. You know, it must do something to you to go on and know that you lose as badly as he seemed to know that he lost. I mean, it was not just that others told him. He knew he had not won that debate.

But it took him a little time to figure that out because immediately after the debate, you know, if you're on the stage, you never, you think you've done not so great, but you don't quite know how bad or good it is. And, and it's time to spend and spend and spend. Right. And so, as he came off the stage and went back to his hotel, one after another of his advisors gently broached the subject with him. And, and then the next morning he talked to somebody and who he trusted and said, what did you think? And she said, it was not good. You should watch the video of it. And he got a copy of the debate and he watched it. And it was at that point, particularly when he saw the split screen and could see his own reactions when Governor Romney was talking, he realized what had happened. And I think one of the things about the president that's probably sometimes overlooked is he's a very competitive person. I mean, he may appear to be kind of have a laid back style sometimes. He is very competitive. No, he can be all elbows in that in that environment. And he knew what had happened and he knew what it had done to the morale of Democrats.

And he knew he had to perform. And one of his people said to me, had it not been for his performance in the first debate, he would not have had as good a performance in the second and third debates as he had that he just he tuned up after that. Was there a major difference in the impact of new media in this campaign? Well, I don't think I've ever seen as big a change from one cycle to the next as we saw between 2008 and 2012 on that front. I mean, technology technology always changes. We know that. But the difference between the impact of social media in 2008 and 2012 was enormous. Facebook, the Obama team had done a Facebook like thing with their campaign in 2008, but it was at a more rudimentary level. They went way beyond that in 2012. The role of Twitter, Twitter did

not exist in 2008. And Twitter decided the first debate in Denver within 15 or 20 minutes. You could just see that, you know, that that became spin alley, watching that Twitter feed in Denver. And you could see in 20, 20 minutes that Obama was losing this debate badly and it never changed. And campaigns have learned a lot both about how you deal with the communication challenges of a world in which Twitter becomes a principle means of communication within the political community. But also how you can exploit social media to reach voters in a much more personal way than you'd ever been able to do before. You know, we have just a minute left. Time flies by. Let me ask you, you've done this twice now. You are identified as the heir to the legacy of Theodore H. White, making of the president books, grabbed us, held us, and now they're saying Dan Bolts is the

new Teddy White. You're going to do this again? Well, first of all, I'm no Teddy White, but you're kind of even suggested. That's one of the questions I have. You know, I get to the end of every campaign and I think, all right, is that the last one I'm really going to do? And I certainly got to the end of this one with that in mind. But 2016 looks like it could be an awfully interesting year. Fascinating. Yeah. So I may well do another. Well, I don't know if I'll be here, but I'm planning on it. And if you do it, I look for you to come back. I'd be happy to do that. Thanks, Dan. So nice to have you here. Thank you, John. Thank all of you for watching. I'm John Siggand-Thuller for a word on words. Keep reading. Thank you.