Eric Fehrnstrom

Eric P. Fehrnstrom (born August 26, 1961 in Boston , Massachusetts ) is an American political advisor and election campaign official. He was best known as the communications director of various election campaigns of the Republican politician Mitt Romney , to whose closest confidante and adviser he is counted.

Life and activity

Training and activity as a journalist

After attending school, Fehrnstrom studied at Boston University , which he left in 1984 with a degree in journalism. From 1983 to 1985 he worked as a reporter for the Waltham News Tribune newspaper . Then he was from 1985 to 1994, the media empire of Rupert Murdoch owned newspaper Boston Herald act for which he act as rapporteurs from the Massachusetts House of Representatives took ( State House reporter ).

During his time with the Boston Herald , Fehrnstrom made a name for himself for his brutal journalistic style, which essentially aimed at "dismantling" Democratic Party politicians as his political opponents in front of the public. For example, during the 1988 presidential campaign, Fehrnstrom launched numerous compromising articles about Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis . And in 1989 he traveled to Florida, where Dukakis' Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy was on vacation, to photograph her jogging in unfavorable clothes. The unflattering photos helped ruin her chances of being elected to succeed Dukakis. Fehrnstrom himself compared his activity as a journalist with that of a hunter who "shoots ducks".

Worked as a political functionary from 1994 to 2002

In 1994 Fehrnstrom was appointed Assistant Treasurer to the State Government of Massachusetts as an employee of the Treasurer of Massachusetts Joe Malone . He held this position at least until 1998.

When Malone applied for the Republican nomination as governor of Massachusetts, he took Fehrnstrom into his campaign team, in which his main task was to take political fire on his main competitor, Paul Cellucci , by highlighting unfavorable aspects of Cellucci's political career and from dragged his private life into the public eye, Cellucci's alleged gambling debts and alleged ethical missteps. After Cellucci was nevertheless able to assert himself against Malone, Fehrnstrom was initially outside of the Republican political circles in Massachusetts for a while. Instead, he worked for several years as a senior vice president for the consulting firm Hill Holiday.

Has worked for Mitt Romney and other Republicans since 2002

In the 1990s, Fehrnstrom came into contact with Mitt Romney. At least since his candidacy for the governor of Massachusetts in 2002, Fehrnstrom has been a permanent member of Romney's political staff. According to press reports, he is one of his closest personal confidants and advisers in political matters as well as one of the leading strategists of his election campaigns: Romney's adviser Kevin Maddon told reporters that Fehrnstrom had such a close relationship with Romney that he was “in his brain,” as it were “Nested. Another Romney confidante described Fehrnstrom's role in Romney's inner circle with the words: "Eric has a more permanent place at Romney's table than anyone else whose last name is not Romney." Conversely, Fehrnstrom is considered an unconditionally loyal and devoted follower of Romney who does it internally should even have called it an honor to work for Romney. Reporters have compared Fehrnstrom's position on Romney's team with that of George W. Bush's factotum Karl Rove and characterized him as Romney's "man for the rough" who uses rabid tactics to knock out Romney's political adversaries. Because of this task of equipping the rather mild Romney with the tough bandages for the political competition, Fehrnstrom has also been described as "Romney's backbone" and "Romney's eggs". He is also notorious for using his body to push reporters who come too close to his candidate or ask uncomfortable questions.

In Romney's election campaign in 2002, Fehrnstrom served as communications director and public spokesman for the campaign team. After Romney's election, he was brought into the Romney-led government of the state with the specially created position of Director of Communications with the same tasks as in the election campaign. With a salary of 150,000 dollars, he received the highest salary of a staff member at the time. During Romney's governorship, Fehrnstrom acquired the reputation of being Romney's constant shadow, for example Romney is said to have refused interviews with press representatives without Fehrnstrom's presence ("I can't talk to you without Eric here.").

In Romney's applications for the presidential candidacy of the Republican Party in 2007/2008 and 2011/2012, Fehrnstrom acted again as Romney's communications director and spokesman.

In addition to Romney, Fehrnstrom also worked for other Republican politicians during the election cycle from 2008 to 2012: in 2009 he managed Scott Brown's election campaign for the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy , whose chief political strategist he has since remained.

Activity in the presidential election 2011/2012

On the occasion of the election campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2011/2012, Romney brought Fehrnstrom back into his team in which he is considered the most important man alongside campaign manager Matt Rhoades and head of campaigns Stuart Stevens .

Fehrnstrom is considered to be the designer of many aspects of Romney's campaign, including the decision to persist in remaining silent about his Mormon beliefs and simply ignoring related questions.

Fehrnstrom attracted more public attention in March 2012 with a statement he made in an interview with the news channel CNN about the campaign strategy that the Romney team had in competition with the Democrats in the regular presidential election, as opposed to their strategy in the party's primary election Nomination as the Republican candidacy, envisaged, submitted. When asked whether Romney is the US presidency - an old political rule of thumb in the US states that in order to win it, it is necessary to address in particular the politically independent middle-class voters, who prefer moderate candidates and who prefer radical positions and tones, as they do in large part fallen to the party base of the two major US parties, are unsympathetic - could still win after he had moved massively to the right in his positions in the fight for the Republican presidential candidacy in order to secure the support of the arch-conservative party base of the Republicans, which decides over the Republican candidate , Fehrnstrom explained that this was a completely new race that one would lead with significantly different positions than the primary campaign:

“We're pressing the reset button for the election campaign against Obama. Everything is back to zero, almost like a magic tablet. You shake it briefly and just start again. "

Romney's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich , as well as numerous media representatives saw this statement as evidence that Romney was a man without political convictions of his own and, in particular, was not the staunch conservative when he joined the Republican party base in the primary campaign had presented. Rather, he is a senseless political opportunist who always takes the position that appears to him to be most advantageous for his personal advancement in the short term. Speculation in some media that Fehrnstrom would be dismissed for exposing Romney and damaging his candidate's campaign efforts by his statements has not come true. In parts of the US press and among his political opponents, however, Romney's unflattering nickname stuck, he was an "Etch-a-Sketch candidate", which is based on the American name of the children's magic boards, whose contents are shaken or that Pushing back a puller can be removed immediately so that it can be rewritten.

After Romney was able to prevail de facto as a candidate for the Republican Party in April 2012, Fehrnstrom figured as communications director of the election campaign team of the de facto Republican presidential candidate.

Fehrnstrom is married and has two children.

Web links

• “Mitt Romney's Dark Knight”, portrait of Fehrnstrom in GQ Magazine from May 2012
• Portrait of Fehrnstrom at the Washington Post
• Eric Fehrnstrom's moment portrait in the Huffington Post August 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Massachusetts Political Almanac , 2004, p. 258.
2. ^ Center of Leadership Studies: The Massachusetts Political Almanac , Vol. 2, 1998, p. 49.
3. ^ Massachusetts Political Almanac , 2004, p. 258.
4. ↑ Portrait in GQ Magazine In the original it is said that Fehrnstrom is “someone who's inside Romney's brain”.
5. ↑ Portrait in GQ Magazine The original quote is: "Eric has a deeper shelf of institutional knowledge on Romney than anyone else whose last name is no Romney."
6. ↑ Der Spiegel issue 13/2012, (= edition of March 26, 2012), p. 91.