G.O.P. Packaging Seeks to Reveal a Warm
Romney
TAMPA,
Fla. — They hail from the Broadway stage, the control rooms of NBC and the
design studios that created sleek sets for Oprah Winfrey and Jon Stewart.
Their
craft is slick packaging and eye candy that audiences consume by the millions.
Their
latest project? Selling the Mitt Romney story in prime time.
Working
from makeshift offices at a hockey arena here, a team of Romney advisers,
producers and designers have been staging and scripting a program for the Republican
National Convention that they say they hope will accomplish something a
year of campaigning has failed to do: paint a full and revealing portrait of
who Mitt Romney is.
Instead
of glossing over Mr. Romney’s career as a private equity executive, they will
highlight it in convention videos and speeches as the kind of experience that
has prepared him to be the economic steward the country needs.
And
rather than shy away from Mr. Romney’s faith, as some campaign aides have
argued he should, they have decided to embrace it. On the night Mr. Romney will
address the convention, a member of the Mormon Church will deliver the
invocation. On Sunday, this new approach was apparent as Mr. Romney invited
reporters to join him at church services.
The
campaign aides are determined to overcome perceptions that Mr. Romney is stiff,
aloof and distant. So they have built one of the most intricate set pieces ever
designed for a convention — a $2.5 million Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired
theatrical stage. From its dark-wood finish to the brightly glowing
high-resolution screens in the rafters that look like skylights, every aspect
of the stage has been designed to convey warmth, approachability and openness.
Conventions
no longer command the kind of public attention they once did, and their very
slickness can conspire against addressing the kinds of perception problems Mr.
Romney faces. So one recent morning as Mr. Romney’s image makers — a team that
includes many people who have never worked on a political convention before —
scurried around on the sawdust-covered floor of the Tampa
Bay Times Forum, they said an essential part of conveying who their
candidate is will depend on making the four days of programming feel nothing
like a convention at all.
“Usually
the convention is so straight and staid and symmetrical, even-Steven,” said Eddie Knasiak, one of the convention co-designers whose
credits include projects for Ms. Winfrey, Martha Stewart and MTV. “We were
conscious of trying to make it not seem grandiose. We wanted it to seem
inclusive, warm. It’s not like anything you’ve seen at a convention before.”
The
convention hall will have two musical stages — one for surprise acts and
another for the house band, which will be led by G. E. Smith, the former
musical director for “Saturday Night Live” and guitarist for Hall & Oates.
To serve
as executive producer, the Republican Party brought in
Phil Alongi, a former politics producer with NBC
News. Mr. Alongi has helped the Romney campaign
fine-tune its programming so it fits neatly into the tight, one-hour block that
the broadcast networks have dedicated to airing the convention in prime time.
He has advised them on how to avoid certain pet peeves of producers, like
running long at the top or bottom of the hour, when the networks have to cut
away for commercial breaks.
Mr. Alongi, with his knowledge of what cameramen and producers
will be looking for, has also ensured that Republican Party branding is placed
in camera lines of sight. “When they’re flipping through the channels at home,
I want them to know this is the Republican National Convention,” he said.
The most
ambitious element of stagecraft, however, will be the podium — which features
13 different video screens — the largest about 29 feet by 12 feet, the smallest
about 8 feet by 8 feet and movable. All the screens will be framed in dark
wood.
“Even the
frames are designed to give it a sense that you’re not looking at a stage,
you’re looking into someone’s living room,” said Russ Schriefer,
one of Mr. Romney’s senior advisers who is running the convention planning for
the campaign.
From the
six-feet-high podium, staircases slope into the audience. The intended
symbolism: Mr. Romney is open and approachable, not distant and far above.
Along
with other props — including a digital clock mounted to one of the arena’s
upper rings that will show the national debt ticking
ever-higher — the video screens will help augment whatever messages a speaker
is trying to convey, be it images of woeful-looking Americans to convey that
President Obama has mismanaged the economy or pictures of the Romney children
that speak to the candidate’s deep bonds with his family.
Mr.
Romney, who as the planner for the Salt Lake City Olympics has experience
coordinating large-scale events, has had a direct hand in shaping some major
aspects of the convention, from the podium design to the theme, “A Better
Future,” which he personally approved.
When his
aides showed him an early proposal for the set, a more modern stage with
features like steps that would light up, he told them to go back to the drawing
board.
Not
everything in the convention hall will be to Mr. Romney’s tastes, however. The
concession stands will serve alcohol, which observant Mormons do not consume.
How to
approach his religion, a topic that he usually avoids speaking about beyond the
most general terms, is a question that has long divided his campaign staff. But
in the end, they decided to confront it head on. In addition to the invocation,
Mr. Romney’s work as a bishop in the Mormon Church will be on display.
Despite
concerns that his religion might alienate evangelicals and other conservatives,
Mr. Romney and his advisers hope that his faith ultimately will be seen as a
sign of strength of character, and his time as bishop as an example of his
willingness to serve when called.
There is
still the question of whether four nights of slickly produced biographical
videos, elaborate staging and gushing speeches can change the dynamics of the
presidential campaign or alter impressions of a man who has been a national
figure for most of the last decade.
Still,
Mr. Romney’s advisers see it as a chance at a fresh start.
“This is
an opportunity for us to tell the Mitt Romney story in a way that people might not
have seen,” Mr. Schriefer said. “This is our chance
to lay out the arguments for why Barack Obama has failed and why Mitt Romney
would do better, and to do that using a platform where 39 million people tune
in to hear him speak, a lot of them for the first time.”
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