A big win in Illinois

LITTLE ROCK — THERE WOULD have been a big story out of Illinois after its presidential primary Tuesday if only Mitt Romney had lost as big as he won. It would have meant that the Republican front-runner wasn’t the Republican front-runner any more, which has happened before in this up-anddown-and-up-again race for the GOP’s presidential nomination. Instead, he won by double digits rather than just squeaking past Rick Santorum as he’d done in Michigan and Ohio.

Mr. Romney’s impressive showing in the Land of Lincoln might not prove a decisive win, but it’s as decisive as it gets at this stage in a strange, twisting and turning presidential race that crawls on and on like some kind of political anaconda. No doubt Mitt Romney will suffer another setback or two on his way to the magic number of delegates (1,144) required to seal his party’s presidential nomination and end its long, long trail a-windin’ to Tampa.

Meanwhile, more obstacles await. Louisiana’s primary is tomorrow, and what are the odds Republicans there will go for somebody who has to force his y’alls and speaks of “cheesy grits”? No matter how hard Mitt Romney tries to pass himself off as just a good ol’ boy from Wall Street, his bland, generic executalk may not be Louisiana’s cup of roux.

Whatever bumps and gaffes are still to come, and they will, the Romney organization grinds on in its methodical way, collecting delegates, endorsements (Florida’s Jeb Bush finally came through with his after the results from Illinois were in), and still more campaign contributions. You can almost hear the Romney bandwagon creak out of low gear—but it’s certainly not in high yet.

ILLINOIS was a victory to celebrate, and the candidate did his best to, but something’s still missing. He’s a turtle, not a hare. A long-distance runner, not a sprinter. His strength is that of the party’s establishment, but so is his weakness: a failure to connect with the true believers. The intangible magic that makes a great campaigner has yet to make an appearance in all his wellprogramed appearances.

What’s he missing? We think we know. It’s what the great communicators, the Ronald Reagans and FDRs, had: a storyline. A gift for narration. A mastery of the media they had to work with at the time. Nobody’s going to be elected president of the United States on the strength of a spreadsheet, or because he’s a great data miner. Mr. Romney has the skill set of a corporate executive, but the American people aren’t likely to be touched, moved and inspired by a profit-and-loss statement. We yearn for something more—an aura. An aura of greatness, a presidential aura, the aura a great story casts.

Abe Lincoln was known for telling rustic stories long before he became a legend himself. Of course a B-movie actor like Ronald Reagan, a master at melodrama, would know a great story when he heard one, and even adopt it as his own. Even the creepily awkward Richard Nixon, in accepting a presidential nomination once, told of listening to a lonesome train whistle in the night when he was a boy in Whittier, Cal., and dreaming of the places he might go someday. We live and believe by stories. No wonder the Bible is full of them.

And no wonder the one and maybe the only affecting television commercial the Romney campaign has produced on behalf of its candidate relates how he reacted when a fellow executive at Bain Capital called him one summer day in 1996. As the executive, Robert Gay, tells the story:

“My 14-year-old daughter had disappeared in New York City for three days. No one could find her. My business partner stepped forward to take charge. He closed the company and brought almost all our employees to New York City. He said, ‘I don’t care how long it takes. We’re going to find her.’ He set up a command center and searched through the night. The man who helped save my daughter was Mitt Romney. Mitt’s done a lot of things that people say are nearly impossible. But for me, the most important thing he’s ever done is to help save my daughter.”

The story is indeed a riveting one: The head of Bain Capital moved his corporate headquarters to the LaGuardia Airport Marriott Hotel. He brought the company’s whole staff down from Boston and enlisted volunteers from other big-name firms—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Price Waterhouse—and sent them out searching. Lawyers, accountants, suits of all occupations were soon prowling New York’s parks, nightclubs, waterfront. Coordinated with New York City’s police department, the search was as organized, efficient and thorough as his business operation. A hot line was set up, and after three television stations picked up the story, a call came through. It was traced to a house in New Jersey, where the girl had been taken after a Rave concert. And she was reunited with her family in a matter of hours.

WE DON’T know about you, Gentle Reader, but that sounds like the kind of determined, effective, single-minded chief executive we’d like to see as president of the United States and commander-inchief of its armed forces.

This story is certainly more compelling than Mr. Romney’s 59-point economic program or the disconnected series of soundbites he employs in the place of thought on the campaign trail.

No amount of PowerPoint presentations will ever be able to compete with one good story when it comes to letting voters actually know a presidential candidate. The way FDR’s fireside chats gave a whole nation the feeling he was talking to each one of us. Maybe that’s why, Mr. Romney, at this point in your campaign, we get the feeling we hardly know you. Or maybe never will. And why it takes more than talking points to wage a successful presidential campaign.