Matt Rhoades

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Matt Rhoades (born February 3, 1975 in Saratoga Springs , New York ) is an American political functionary. He was best known as manager of the campaign team of presidential candidate of the Republican Party , Mitt Romney , in the presidential elections in 2012 .

Life and activity

Rhoades is the son of the merchant Paul Rhoades. After attending Saratoga Springs High School, which he left in 1993, Rhoades studied at the Maxwell School of Citizenship of Syracuse University ( BA 1997) in Syracuse (New York) , and the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University ( MA , 1999) in Washington, DC

In the late 1990s, Rhoades began working as a functionary for the Republican party organization. The later Congressman Tim Griffin from Arkansas , who is considered his mentor , had a decisive influence on his formation .

Rhoades first excelled during the 2000 presidential election . In particular, he stood out as a Republican analyst during the controversial vote recount in Florida . After the Supreme Court decided to end the recount and George W. Bush was named President , Rhoades took Rhoades to the White House . He received a leading position in the department for the administration of the presidential personnel ( associate director for presidential personnel ).

During the election campaign leading up to the 2004 presidential election , Rhoades served as head of opposition research on George W. Bush's campaign team. In this position, Rhoades scoured the biography of Bush's Democratic rival candidate for president in 2004, John Kerry , for contradictions and weaknesses. With the substantial participation of Rhoades, Bush's election campaign team put together the set pieces that Rhoades and his colleagues had compiled into a - from the point of view of the US voters - devastating narrative of Kerry as a flip-flopper with a constantly changing position and an insane snob with Francophile inclinations portrayed who was not acceptable as commander in chief. In the following years Rhoades worked again for the Republican National Committee .

Around 2006 Rhoades came into contact with the Republican politician Mitt Romney, who eventually drew him in as a political collaborator. During Romney's campaign to run for the Republican Party nomination for the US presidency for the January 2009 term beginning in 2007 and 2008, Rhoades served as Romney's communications director. He held this position until Romney officially announced in March 2008 that he was no longer able to win his party's nomination, and then withdrew from the race for his party's presidential nomination.

From 2007 to 2010, Rhoades was Vice President of the DCI Group, a communications company in the capital Washington. In 2010 Rhoades became head of a new presidential nomination for Romney's preparatory political action committee Free & Strong America .

After Romney's decision to apply again for the Republican Party nomination in the 2012 presidential election , Romney brought Rhoades back to his campaign team in 2010 and entrusted him with its leadership by making him campaign manager. From summer 2011 to spring 2012 conducted into Rhoades from the headquarters of the Romney campaign in Boston ( Massachusetts ) from Romney's efforts in party primaries internene Republican against a number of other candidates for the presidential nomination to enforce. After Rhoaedes candidate had succeeded in securing the de facto presidential nomination of his party in March 2012 and the Romney campaign had practically advanced to the Republican presidential campaign, Rhoades took over as manager of the Romney campaign so the leadership of the election campaign organization of the Republican party in the competition for the presidency.

Besides Eric Fehrnstrom , Rhoades is considered to be the most important member of Romney's campaign team for the 2012 presidential election. His old friend Griffin said that "the intense focus on the intended goal and the intense discipline of the Romney campaigns clearly reflects the handwriting of Matt Rhoades" recognize.

Rhoades is considered a gray eminence : shy of publicity, taciturn and closed. He rarely accompanies his candidates in public appearances. He practically never gives interviews, so journalists often emphasize that despite his important position on Romney's staff, they hardly know his appearance and would not have recognized him at press receptions. Rhoade's career has its roots in opposition research . H. that sector of the American election campaign organizations that is concerned with uncovering information - especially that of a compromising nature - about the candidates of the respective opposing side in order to be able to use them as ammunition in the election campaign against the opponents of their own candidate. According to the Wall Street Journal , Rhoades' specialty is "digging up dirt [on his opponents]."

The Washington Post described Rhoades as the organizational force behind the scenes of Romney's cautious and polished election campaign "

Private life

Rhoades has been married for the second time since summer 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Campaign officials credit him with doing more than just about any other staffer to define John Kerry as weak, wimpy, French and flip-floppy - an unacceptable commander in chief."
  2. ↑ "When you see the intense focus and discipline of the Romney campaign, you are seeing in large part Matt Rhoades."
  3. ↑ "Rhoades hasn't given a single on-the-record interview this entire cycle, and never goes on television."
  4. ^ "The organizing force behind Romney's safe and smooth campaign".
personal data
SURNAME Rhoades, Matt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American political functionary
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd February 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Saratoga Springs , New York