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By Root 81 0

for two years of running, and not seeing my kids. If I won, six years of not seeing them. If I won a second term, ten years of not seeing them. Missing my kids growing up is a big deal to me, and it was a big reason. The wife was the biggest. The children were the second. 3) I’m staying in New Jersey. I am not just going to quit halfway through my term. The people trusted me, and I feel like I owe that trust and faith some fidelity. 4) And fourth: Could I win? Could I really do it? I think I would win—not saying I would win, but I could win. I brought my oldest son today because, first of all, I wanted him to wake up early. [Laughter] And, second of all, to have to put on his one suit and tie. [More laughter] But I wanted him to listen because if I did run, which I’m not going to—but if I did in the future—it’s going to affect him. There’s six people in the family—I’m just one. I recognize that not all of you would immediately commit, but it certainly makes me realize that if I were to run, and had this group behind me, I certainly wouldn’t have any problem raising money.”

* * *

Until the fall of 2011, many of the big moneymen in the Republican establishment stood on the sidelines, reluctant to throw in with Romney. They hoped, vainly, for an alternative. But some of the significant financial types who gather checks and bundle them together into sizable campaign donations saw a different, more effective Romney emerging as a candidate. One of the fundraisers, an important Washington lobbyist—call him “the Bundler”—spoke with us (anonymously) about Romney 2.0.

The Bundler had not been a Romney insider. He had raised money for John McCain, the GOP nominee in 2008. But “early in the midterm cycle”—by late 2009—it was obvious to the Bundler that “Romney was going to run again because he was frenetically active and the [Romney] PAC was so aggressive at raising money.” The Bundler, in effect, decided to make an early bet on Romney. He saw weaknesses but, over time, real strengths as well that were not readily apparent to outsiders.

“Romney has greater self-awareness than any presidential candidate I’ve worked with since Reagan,” said the Bundler (who has worked with several). “Reagan, although people thought he wasn’t self-aware, was very self-aware. He was aware of the importance of how he dressed, how he looked, how he sounded, what he was conveying to people without opening his mouth as well as with what he said. And he was very aware of what people thought of him, an actor and a lightweight, and then thought after he was governor that he was too conservative. Mitt is a very self-aware person, and he takes criticism and suggestions of his style, of his campaign tactics and techniques, much more readily than most other candidates, who have a natural defensive reaction to that.”

The “biggest change,” observed the Bundler, was that Romney learned to be more disciplined and to have a clear message based on “things he truly believed in so he didn’t have to think about how he felt.” The Bundler pointed to the fact that Romney actually wrote his own campaign book. “You can tell if you read it because it has that tortured syntax that is characteristic of Romney,” said the Bundler (“characteristic of a lot of finance guys, by the way,” he added).

Romney learned to stay on message and avoid the tempting but pointless tit-for-tat squabbles that are the prime ingredient of cable TV news. “The Romney campaign of ’08, I can tell you from the McCain side, we would send them chasing off after all kinds of rabbits, and they chased every one of them. After a while it was a game,” said the Bundler, who was particularly impressed that Romney did not succumb to the temptation to swipe at Jon Huntsman’s campaign. The Huntsman and Romney families are rival power centers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Romney knew well enough to leave Huntsman alone—at under 2 percent in most polls, Huntsman was only a real threat if Romney made him one. “As much as Huntsman was a bee buzzing in his ear, he was told not to swat at it and