Playbook 2012_ The Right Fights Back (Politico Inside Election 2012) - Mike Allen [21]
Carney was in a mischievous mood. His candidate had basically lost the “Washington primary”—the race for money and endorsements and the backing of the establishment. Perry might, with his great skill at retail politics, win voters one by one on the stump, working the small towns of Iowa. But what he really needed was for Romney to stumble. Perry needed to find a way to trip up his rival.
“Everybody knows the book on Romney is that it has to be his way or no way,” said Carney. “He’s very stubborn. He’s very thin-skinned … storms out of meetings when it doesn’t go his way. And people who are involved in debate prep in the last cycle”—here, Carney was apparently alluding to his mole from the 2008 Romney campaign—“basically told us that he would react badly to someone challenging his narrative. He just is incapable of acknowledging that there may be a different interpretation of something.”
Carney warmed to the subject of Romney’s allegedly volatile temper. “Unbelievably temperamental … in that [if] he thinks that it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, it’s three o’clock no matter what time it is.… He’s totally easy to get off stride, discombobulated.” At debate prep in 2008, according to Carney’s source, Romney would turn “beet-red. He’s known to get unbelievably flushed.”
The Perry team needed to find a way to crack Romney’s cool, to make him turn beet-red. They had an idea, which they rehearsed. Carney played down his own candidate’s debate prep, but apparently it had grown more serious and formal since Carney’s relaxed chats on the plane with Perry back in September. Now there was a real rehearsal, with someone playing Romney. “Who?” we asked. “Different people,” said Carney, ducking the question.
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Perry took his shot halfway through the GOP debate in Las Vegas on October 18. The debate had turned to immigration, and Perry wheeled to face Romney. “Mitt, you lose all your standing from my perspective because you hired illegals in your home. And you know for—about it for a year. And the idea that you stand before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is, on its face, the height of hypocrisy.”
Romney responded, at first, with his “hah-hah-hah” stage laugh. “Rick, I don’t think that I’ve hired an illegal in my life. And so I’m—I’m looking forward to finding your facts on that.” Perry just glowered at him. “It’s time for you to tell the truth.” The two men began talking at once, with Romney almost shouting, “I’m speaking, I’m speaking, I’m speaking! I’ve got thirty seconds …” When Perry plowed ahead Romney cried out, “Anderson!,” appealing to the moderator, Anderson Cooper. Romney seemed to hear himself—crying, as it were, for mommy—and stiffened into a scornful manner. Turning to Perry, he said, “This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick, and I understand that, and so you’re going to get—you’re going to get testy.”
The “truth” was a Boston Globe story from 2006. The Globe found that a lawn care company employed by Romney to cut his grass in Belmont, Massachusetts, had hired illegal immigrants. A year later, the paper discovered, the company still had illegals on the payroll. In the debate, Romney spluttered that he had remonstrated with the company. He said he couldn’t have anything to do with hiring illegals because, as he put it, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!”
The blogs had fun with that answer, and some pundits declared that Romney had appeared petulant and condescending. He had put his hand on Perry’s shoulder, violating an old debater’s rule against invading your opponent’s space. Perry had succeeded in his ploy to bait Romney, to break his rival’s cool facade. But nevertheless the audience had booed Perry for striking a low blow. Neither man improved his image. On the Romney beat, whenever minor frustrations