Double Down

Democrats still smarting from the 2014 midterms would do well to bask in the nostalgia of the 2012 election by reading Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's gossipy and sesquipedelean account of the contest, which begins almost the minute after the 2008 election, with Republicans sharpening their knives, and ends after the 2012 results, crying into their beer. Although this is a largely an even-handed book--Barack Obama comes under close scrutiny and there's lots of faults on display--the book is largely the story of an inept campaign run for one Willard Mitt Romney, who is the centerpiece of the text.

After a short prologue following Obama's disastrous debate in Denver, the story proceeds chronologically. The authors, in discussing the Republican race, basically frame it as a hunt for "anyone but Romney," which fails. They go over four would-bes who were won't-bes: Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, and Hailey Barbour. At times it seemed like no one wanted in: "With a vulnerable Democrat in the White House and a winnable election on the horizon, many of the GOP's most adept and accomplished potential candidates had decided not to bother."

They then cover the slog up to the primaries and beyond, as several candidates go up in flames, like Herman Cain, Rick Perry (who couldn't remember the three cabinet posts he would eliminate), and John Huntsman, who gets an entire chapter, despite his irrelevance. I think he gets more ink that Rick Santorum, who actually ended up finishing second. There is also a lot of fun stuff about Newt Gingrich, an egomaniac who actually thought he could win, even with his affairs and suggesting we build a colony on the moon.

On the Democratic side, there's far less drama, although we do get some choice stuff about VP Joe Biden, whom the authors call "Uncle Joe": "Joe was perfectly aware of the widespread caricature of him as a clownish gasbag. He understood that the image was largely self-inflicted but hated it all the same, and he was intensely concerned that being vice president would only exacerbate the problem. Biden even had a name for the trap that he was determined to avoid: the Uncle Joe Syndrome, which would leave him looking not only buffoonish but irrelevant."

But most of this is about Romney, and is almost preternatural ability to make mistakes. "From Bain and his tax returns to his array of Richie Rich gaffes, Romney's public image had taken a hellacious beating. His campaign had shown itself to be capable enough, but also insular and thoroughly tactical. His fund-raising operation was impressive but spent, and the campaign was running on fumes. The Republican base was wary of him; independents thought far worse. Maybe most problematic, the man who set out to run as Mr. Fix-It on the economy had saddled himself with far-right positions on a panoply of social and cultural issues that put him in a bad way with critical voting blocs: women, Latinos, young voters."

Outside issues also plagued Romney. Clint Eastwood's bizarre performance art at the convention in Tampa made heads spin--it made Romney's campaign manager, Stuart Stevens, vomit. Then Hurricane Sandy, like some divine intervention, made Romney disappear from the news a week before the election, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie's bear hug and high praise for Obama made Republicans gasp with horror. Some were sure that the storm cost Romney the election.

I think the most fascinating part of the book is the debate section. It really is interesting that debates, which only began being de rigeur about 36 years ago, are now such an important part of the election. Obama did bomb in Denver, giving the Romney team a huge boost. I found it interesting how Obama, who to the world seems like a cool cucumber, hated debates, and his team bent over backwards to try to get him to loosen up. At one point he told his staff, after a bad mock debate, "I can't do this." But the second debate, at Hofstra University, turned the tables,as Obama wiped the floor with Romney.

There are a lot of fun facts in the book, such as that Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, was known by a code name ("Fishconsin") and that Christie was considered for the job but wasn't forthcoming with certain documents. Like flies on the wall, the authors come up with juicy tidbits, such as Tim Pawlenty's view of Michele Bachmann and vice versa: "(Bachmann considered Pawlenty a weak-kneed fraud; he disparaged her as 'dangerous' and 'insane.')"

A surprise character in all this was "The Big Dog," Bill Clinton, who ended up working harder than anyone thought for Obama's re-election. He knocked 'em dead with his speech in Charlotte at the convention, and had lots of wisdom: "Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line." Or, about Romney: "Romney's ineptness staggered Clinton. After the release of the 47 percent video, he remarked to a friend that, while Mitt was a decent man, he was in the wrong line of work ('He really shouldn't be speaking to people in public.')"

The authors also employ a kind of smart-ass, tongue-in-cheek style that makes the book seem more trivial than it might be. There are books about the election written by serious journalists, but they don't have great similes like: "Four years earlier, the idea of McCain standing behind Romney--unless he was preparing to slit his throat--would have seemed as likely as a terrier reciting Tennyson."

In the end, of course, Obama prevailed, by a larger margin than anyone predicted (except Nate Silver, who gets no mention): "The size and sweep of Obama's victory staggered the Romneys and their people. Twelve hours earlier, they had been convinced that Mitt would prevail--or, at worst, that the race would be a nail-biter. Instead, the Democratic incumbent was on his way to an emphatic 51-47 percent win, in which he carried all but one of the battleground states (North Carolina), pocketed 332 electoral votes, and outdistanced Romney by five million popular votes out of 129 million cast."

I'm sure that Halperin and Heilemann are already compiling notes on their 2016 book, and with potential candidates like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, there should be lots of laughs and gaffes. I probably will only be able to read it if it has a happy ending, though.