Book: Jeb Bush 'shock and awe' campaign kept Romney out of '16 race


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SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney's plans to run a third time for president fell to a "shock and awe" campaign launched by another Republican already in the race, Jeb Bush, according to a chapter of a new book obtained by the Deseret News.

In the book "The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House," McKay Coppins writes that Romney was convinced he could win the 2016 GOP nomination.

But after "a rattling glimpse at how vicious and driven Jeb could be," Romney ended his efforts to put together another campaign on Jan. 30, despite having told former donors three weeks earlier, "I want to be president," the chapter says.

The account detailed in the book set to be released Tuesday was dismissed by longtime Romney supporter Kirk Jowers, the former head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics.

"That could not be further from the truth," he said. "When Mitt finally decided not to run, it had nothing to do with Jeb Bush."

Instead, Jowers said, Romney chose not to get in the race for the same reason he gave publicly at the time, that "it was probably time for a younger generation of Republicans to start to make their mark."

Another likely factor was Romney's understanding from losing the nomination in 2008 and the presidency in 2012 is that there's a "horrific amount of work and there's no guarantee" of success, he said.


There is, I think, zero truth to the fact that Jeb deterred him by any kind of shock and awe.

–Kirk Jowers, Romney supporter


"There is, I think, zero truth to the fact that Jeb deterred him by any kind of shock and awe," Jowers said. "I don't think Mitt or any of the people on Mitt's team had any fear of Jeb Bush."

Leavitt: 'Somebody is kidding themselves'

A top adviser to Romney in the 2012 campaign, former Gov. Mike Leavitt, also said Romney's decision had nothing to do with Bush.

"Mitt decided not to run for exactly the reasons he stated," Leavitt said. "At the time he concluded not to run, he had a towering lead on everyone. It was a principled decision."

And Leavitt, who stepped down in his third term as governor to join then-President George W. Bush's administration, said the source of Coppins' information was questionable.

"Somebody is kidding themselves about their impact on the world," Leavitt said, suggesting it was "some campaign operative that was trying to convince Mr. Coppins that he impacted Mitt's decision."

Leavitt said he doesn't believe Jeb Bush, the son of one president and the brother of another, would see the race that way.

"I know Jeb well enough to know he wouldn't talk like that personally," the former governor said. As for the chapter's description of the tactics employed by the Bush campaign, Leavitt said, "I guess we didn't notice the shock and awe."

In this Nov. 18, 2015, photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, gives a speech on foreign policy and national defense on the campus of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. Photo: AP Photo
In this Nov. 18, 2015, photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, gives a speech on foreign policy and national defense on the campus of The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. Photo: AP Photo

While Jowers said Bush didn't keep Romney from running, he acknowledged that Bush's earlier than expected entry into the race prompted Romney to seriously consider a third bid.

"It did give some credence to people's' pleas to Mitt to at least look at it because there was a fear that if he didn't look at it, people would start going over there (to Bush)," Jowers said.

Bush is described in the chapter by Coppins, the senior political writer for BuzzFeed, as forcing Romney's hand just as he was beginning to consider another run for the White House amid renewed popularity, despite his loss to President Barack Obama.

Since his defeat, Romney was being praised for his seemingly prescient stands, including viewing Russia as the nation's top enemy, while "the public was finally getting to know him at a human level," the chapter says.

However, Bush's announcement ended Romney's attempt to quietly weigh the possibility of being able "to skip the daily grind of the campaign trail and lock up the nomination" just through debates, speeches and ads, according to the chapter.

Romney responded to Bush getting in the race by meeting privately with a group of former donors in New York City on Jan. 9, telling them he, too, was considering a run for president — news that quickly became public.

Bush was ready, Coppins wrote, with a strategy his campaign labeled "shock and awe" after the show of overwhelming force that Bush's brother, then-President George W. Bush, deployed at the outset of the Iraq War.

"The goal was to crush Romney's spirit and scare off any other potential challengers who were on the fence," the chapter said, by rounding up big donors and key political operatives as well as pushing negative stories about Romney's efforts.

The much-publicized Jan. 22 meeting between Romney and Bush at Romney's Deer Valley home, planned for months, was described as a "last-ditch" try by Romney to use private polling data to justify his bid but Bush remained undeterred.

The polling, according to the chapter, was commissioned by a former donor and showed widespread support for Romney and "serious vulnerabilities" for Bush among thousands of respondents in 20 states.

Romney's Utah supporters had downplayed his meeting with Bush, insisting it wasn't a showdown. Leavitt said at the time they merely wanted "to make sure there's good communication."

According to Coppins, Romney was "demoralized" and "now realized it was a fantasy to think he would win the nomination by gliding above the fray; the 2016 primaries were going to be a bloodbath."

FILE - In this Jan.28, 2015 file photo former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Starkville, Miss. Photo: AP Photo
FILE - In this Jan.28, 2015 file photo former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Starkville, Miss. Photo: AP Photo

So Romney, Coppins wrote, determined he couldn't justify dragging his family "back into a political war zone" that would leave him "so bruised and bloodied" that he couldn't defeat likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Still, Romney's announcement last January left "a bit of rhetorical wiggle room" at the behest of those closest to him, the chapter said, by stating then that it "seems unlikely" there would be any circumstances that could change his mind.

Coppins wrote that an unnamed Romney 2012 fundraiser told him months later that "there are bitter-enders who have read that statement a hundred times, and they think it's going to happen — maybe on the floor of the (Republican) convention."

Some Romney supporters "even began to devise the crude outline of a strategy to jump-start a 'draft Mitt' movement from the floor," an effort that "would involve flipping the delegates in Mormon-heavy states like Utah, Wyoming and Idaho."

Longtime Romney friend Kem Gardner told the Deseret News in late December 2014, weeks after Bush announced he was exploring a presidential run, that Romney was eying the race and would get in if he didn't like the field.

Gardner said then that Romney was waiting to see how well Bush and other moderates would do before making a decision because he didn't want to cost them support. That changes, Gardner said, "if it doesn't look like they can do it."

Times have changed for Bush. Back in January, the chapter said, Bush was seen as a GOP "juggernaut," able to recruit even once-loyal Romney strategists by claiming to be "the Death Star, and you're either on it or you're not."

Since then, Bush has trailed in the polls for months behind so-called political outsiders Donald Trump and Ben Carson, both seen as a serious threat by establishment Republicans to the party's chances of winning next year.

And a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters gave Romney a 2-1 lead over Trump even though at this point Romney could only be a write-in candidate.

Romney has said repeatedly since January he's not interested in reconsidering a run. At his annual Deer Valley retreat that brings together his donors and presidential candidates, he said he was not second-guessing his decision.

Coppins, however, wrote that Romney exited the race with the "rare peace of mind afforded by political flexibility. Yes, he was withdrawing from the race for now — but if, come summer of 2016, his party needed a savior, Mitt Romney would be ready."

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