Could Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, win the presidency in 2016? We will never know. After briefly contemplating the notion of running for president, Mitt Romney decided that it was not worth it. In this essay, I will address how he came to that decision and what indicators he used in making his decision. Using the framework found in Gartner’s Strategic Assessment In War,[1] I will look at how Governor Romney made decisions using the information that he had, specifically the three weeks he contemplated running.
After indicating that he would not run again after losing the 2012 presidential election, early in 2015 he expressed his interest in running. In the short time frame that he was contemplating a campaign, the USA today reported that he was leading Republican competitors Jeb Bush and Ben Carson in early polls.[2] Despite leading in polls and learning of the public support for him by fellow Republicans, he announced that he would no longer consider running and felt that it was in the best interest to let someone else run.
Gartner’s Strategic Assessment In War employs a diagram knows as “The State of Nature Game Tree.” In the diagram, nature has placed the actor in either a position of “W” or “L.” If at position “W” decision ‘A’ results in a victory and decision ‘B’ results in a defeat and vice versa for position “L.” The catch being that the actor is unaware of his or her location. He or she must use indicators to draw conclusions of their current position. Indicators can update the actor’s assumptions of his or her positioning.
Mitt Romney’s decision was influenced by the three-week period he contemplated running. This short time period was how he updated his assumption of where he was at on “The State of Nature Game Tree.” Those three weeks were a taste of the burden/political toll of what another presidential campaign would include. He was able to update his assumed positioned by seeing that the indicator burden was too high and he was better off not running.
It was assumed that Governor Romney was testing the waters to see if there was support for him to pursue the presidency. That apparently was not the reason because, despite leading, he still backed out. Others claimed he backed out because some of the donors from the Republican base were expected to fund fellow Republican Jeb Bush. This fails to adequately explain his decision because he could self-fund if needed. If the indicator that he was going off of was potential support (which he found) and financial means (which he has), the rational choice would have been to purse the nomination. Instead, I claim not running was a strategic decision based on the indicator I label as burden and the political toll of winning the nomination.
I suggest that after three weeks of investigating if the support was there (which he found out it was), it was enough time to realize the burden of a fierce drawn out campaign would prove too much; it would be too costly to get the nomination. After suffering such political costs, he would be less likely to defeat the probable Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. The cost would be too much; not the economic costs, but the toll of suffering through a twenty-month campaign with almost as many candidates as months until Election Day.
The dominant indicator for Mitt Romney’s decision not to run for president was not support or financing, but burden. He also realized that if he were to gain the nomination it would be such a difficult, costly fight, his image would not be equipped to take on a politically fresh Hillary Clinton who is anticipated as going unchallenged on her path to the Democratic nomination. The dominant indicator approach, burden, helps us explain his decision not to run, which is outlined by the red arrows in the diagram below. It is fascinating to study decision making because choices have to be made today that will effect tomorrow, but as you are trying to make decision today, you not only do not know about tomorrow, you are unclear where you are today. This is where indicators are useful, but they are a simplification and you are unaware if the given indicator is accurately capturing reality.
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