Mitt Romney

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Governor of Massachusetts

2002 gubernatorial campaign

In 2002, Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift's administration was plagued by political missteps and personal scandals.[134] Many Republicans viewed her as a liability and considered her unable to win a general election.[138] Prominent party figures – as well as the White House – wanted Romney to run for governor,[136][139] and the opportunity appealed to him for its national visibility.[140] One poll taken at that time showed Republicans favoring Romney over Swift by more than 50 percentage points.[141] On March 19, 2002, Swift announced she would not seek her party's nomination, and hours later Romney declared his candidacy,[141] for which he would face no opposition in the primary.[142] In June 2002, Massachusetts Democratic Party officials contested Romney's eligibility to run for governor, citing residency issues involving his time in Utah for the Olympics.[143] That same month, the bipartisan Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that he was an eligible candidate.[144]

He again ran as a political outsider.[134] He played down his party affiliation,[137] saying he was "not a partisan Republican" but rather a "moderate" with "progressive" views.[145] He touted his private sector experience as qualifying him for addressing the state's fiscal problems[142] and stressed his ability to obtain federal funds for the state, giving his Olympics record as evidence.[128][130][146] He proposed to reorganize the state government while eliminating waste, fraud, and mismanagement.[137][147] The campaign was the first to use microtargeting techniques, in which fine-grained groups of voters were reached with narrowly tailored messaging.[148]emphasis added

To overcome the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people – a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.[147][149][150] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[149] received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, in polls as late as mid-October.[147][150] He rebounded with ads that accused O'Brien of being a failed watchdog for state pension fund losses in the stock market and that associated her husband, a former lobbyist, with the Enron scandal.[137][150] During the election he contributed over $6 million – a state record at the time – to the nearly $10 million raised for his campaign overall.[151][152] Romney was elected governor on November 5, 2002, with 50 percent of the vote to O'Brien's 45 percent.[153]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney