Huffington Magazine Issue 21 | Page 47

THREE DAYS IN OCTOBER A realistic town hall set, the Obama adviser said, “makes a huge difference for the mock debates.” “Obviously, you want the candidates to know how close their opponent will be, what the personal dynamic will be. On the town hall the movements are important,” the Obama adviser said. “Serious business! And ludicrous at the same time.” Pictures of the Romney mock set up, in a ballroom at the Marriott in Burlington, Massachusetts, revealed a striking level of detail. Romney staff built three-tier risers in a circle, put red hotel ballroom chairs on them, placed a moderator’s table at one end and two director-style chairs at the other end for the candidates, and draped what looked to be about 10-foot-high blue curtains around the entire thing. They set up TV-style lights on scaffolding that shined on Romney and Portman, who stood in for Obama, from three angles. There was a digital timer with red lights on the ground in front of the moderator’s desk. Perhaps most important, the Romney campaign set up video cameras exactly where they would be during the real town hall, so Romney could practice with that in mind. HUFFINGTON 11.04.12 It wasn’t perfectly identical to the real thing. The debate set at Hofstra University had six risers, compared to the Romney’s campaign’s eight. But it was very close. It allowed Romney and Portman to field questions while walking around and facing questioners sitting in the audience. The Romney campaign prepared their candidate for what to do if Obama invaded his personal space, like Al Gore did to George W. Bush in 2000. They were most concerned that Romney not be caught in a situation where he was seated on his chair and Obama was walking toward him or hovering over him, launching verbal grenades. If seated, and Obama approached, Romney was told, make sure to stand up to him, literally. It turned out Romney was more than prepared for physical confrontation. In fact, he came close to overdoing it when he essentially told Obama to sit down. All the adrenaline seemed to get the better of him when he tried to talk over the moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley. The atmosphere was so charged that Romney’s son, Tagg, famously joked a day later that he wanted to “take a swing” at Obama (a remark he apologized to