Thanks to conservative columnist Dennis Lennox for
providing these excerpts from the new book by Dan Balz of The Washington Post, “Collision
2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America” which is out
today.
Balz, one of the top field reporters in the business of
covering campaigns, writes in detail about the Michigan primary contest and the
near-panic within the Romney camp for fear that the Mitten State could become
the candidate’s Waterloo.
Page 214: Describing the GOP primaries leading up to
Michigan, Balz writes:
Nerves were on edge in Boston. “They were saying
[Michigan] was Waterloo,” Matt Rhoades recalled. “Mitt Romney’s Waterloo. We
thought everything was on the line in Florida. But then it seemed like
everything was on the line times two in Michigan.”
Romney had good reason to be nervous. A public poll of
Michigan (continues on page 215) Republicans taken at the weekend by Public
Policy Polling showed Santorum leading Romney by fifteen points. The campaign’s
internal poll taken a few days later put Santorum’s advantage at eight points
— enormously troubling to his team for a state where he had deep family roots
and had won in 2008. Katie Packer Gage, who was directing the Michigan effort,
was deeply worried and during one morning staff meeting let her emotions get
the better of her. “I felt like nobody thought we could win Michigan,” she
later said. “And I believed that if we lost Michigan that our campaign could be
over. Pretty tough to explain to our donors how he would lose a state he won
the time before and a state where his dad had been governor and a state we had
always sort of said we were going to win.

We were very committed to that.”

Page 216: Romney’s team went to work to prevent a
potentially devastating defeat. In the words of one adviser, “We built a
fortress around Michigan. Mitt was there. Ann was there. We were in every media
market. We were in every corner of the state.” Another adviser described the
strategy this way: “Campaign hard, campaign real hard. I mean, just campaign as
much as we could in Michigan. Upped our media buys some. Really worked our
local surrogates, our talk radio surrogates. Worked out endorsement networks.
But just to try to flood the zone as much as we could.”

Page 219: On the Sunday before the primary, Romney’s team
decided to send him to the Daytona 500. It would be a way to show his affinity
for cars and for a constituency important to the Republican Party. But the
weather was rainy enough to wash out the race, and Romney managed to commit
another of his verbal gaffes. As he was having his picture taken, someone asked
him about his connection to NASCAR racing. “I have some great friends that are
NASCAR team owners,” he replied. By the time he returned to Michigan, Romney
was in a bad mood, believing he had wasted the day when he could have been
campaigning in Michigan, where it counted.

Page 343, Romney reflecting on the primaries to
Balz:
Meanwhile, Santorum had taken the lead in Michigan, the
next important contest which caused another moment of deep concern. “I looked
and said, ‘Look, if he wins Michigan, it may be over.’ I mean, this is a state
where I’m supported to win, because I was born there, my dad was governor
there. If he wins, what’ll happen to Ohio? He’ll win Ohio. If he wins Michigan
and Ohio, I’ve probably lost ….”
Just as a reminder, Romney squeaked out a win, 41-38 percent, over Santorum and the after-the-fact reaction from pundits was basically, “Well, of course he won Michigan …”

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