CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention with campaign strategist Stuart Stevens.
With nearly two months until Election Day, the blame game has already started within Mitt Romney’s dragging campaign – with many fingers pointing at his top strategist Stuart Stevens.
A Politico report published Sunday night quotes an array of anonymous Romney aides, advisers and friends who blame Stevens for the campaign’s loss of momentum since the bumpy Republican National Convention.
According to Politico, Stevens was considered responsible for several stumbles during the high-profile final night of the convention – chiefly Clint Eastwood’s rambling performance with an empty chair and Romney’s failure to acknowledge U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Stevens reportedly trashed a draft of Romney’s speech written by one veteran speechwriter and requested a second version from another speechwriting team — which he then mostly rewrote with the candidate’s help. During the last-minute scramble, a salute to the troops wound up on the cutting room floor.
Stevens was also held responsible by many for allowing Eastwood to take the stage without a pre-approved script, Politico reported.
“I always have the impression Stuart must save his best stuff for meetings I’m not important enough to attend,” one Romney campaign insider complained to Politico. “The campaign is filled with people who spend a lot of their time either avoiding him or resisting him.”
Stevens worked on both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns as well as a string of winning U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns.
Some Romney associates, however, also save some blame for the candidate himself, who is said to have taken an active role in running his own race.
And one Romney official told Politico that the candidate is unlikely to make any major changes at this late date.
“Mitt is a sticker — he stays with you. He had a reputation at Bain for sticking with people. They made a bad investment, he hung with them,” the official said. “None of this is going to be fixed. This is the organization, and this is who Mitt is betting on to win. There aren’t going to be further changes.”
klee@nydailynews.com
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/romney-campaign-finger-pointing-aims-strategist-stuart-stevens-article-1.1161231#ixzz26jdYBt3n
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