Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

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From governor's son to presidential contender, a look at the life of Republican Mitt Romney.

Launch slideshow

If Mitt Romney had won the presidential election, insiders say, it’s not hard to imagine what he and his number two, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, would have been tackling on this very day.

An extensive preparation plan dubbed the "Romney Readiness Project," pulled together by the GOP nominee’s team and no longer of any use, offers detailed insight into how ready he was to take the reins, the sources told NBC News.

Romney and Ryan each had office space set aside for them at a transition office in southwest Washington, D.C., where former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt led a team of hundreds of advisers tasked with crafting an ambitious agenda for the Republican’s first 200 days in office.

Insiders describe a well-prepared transition that was ready to hit the ground running on Nov. 7, and begin the work of fashioning a Romney government.

Leavitt was in Boston on Election Day, prepared to brief Romney if the GOP nominee proved victorious.

"We built a great ship, and regrettably, in my view, we didn't sail. I think it would have been a crisp transition," Leavitt said in an interview with NBC News. "I got up every morning from the day he asked me to do this — not naively — assuming that we would be elected, and we needed to be prepared."

Charles Dharapak / AP

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt is seen in this June 23, 2012 file photo.

The extensive and well-prepared operation resembled the inner workings of Bain Capital, the venture capital firm founded by Romney, according to multiple sources associated with the transition, who asked not to be identified to more candidly discuss the process.

“In many ways, it felt like the West Wing,” one transition official said in praise of the professional environment.

The preparations were enabled by a 2010 law, the “Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act,” which afforded Romney (along with any other future nominees) government support and office space to begin the arduous work of planning a handover of government. Officials in the transition team were allowed use of a government email address ending in “@ptt.gov.”

Romney was the first major party nominee able to take advantage of this law, and in June he selected Leavitt, who served as Utah governor while Romney headed the Salt Lake City Olympics, to lead the effort.

Sources described Leavitt as having taken seriously Romney’s mandate to prepare a new administration. The former Department of Health and Human Services secretary told NBC News that he reviewed books and manuscripts to prepare for his role, in addition to speaking to individuals involved in transitions from the Carter through Obama administrations.

The Romney transition was divided into groups that focused on specific areas of emphasis – the economy, foreign policy, education, for instance – to help shape policy for the early days of a Romney administration, as well as personnel.

Among the plans for the transition included the formation of teams that would begin immediately working with government agencies to lay the groundwork for the new administration.

There were “landing teams” prepared to go into government agencies two weeks after the election and begin the work of handing over to a Romney administration. Separate “beachhead” teams would then be deployed into those agencies immediately following the inauguration on Jan. 20.

“They'd obviously thought about structure and process,” said one transition adviser.

Additionally, plans included the crafting of an agenda detailing what actions Romney would take — mostly to follow through with campaign promises — beginning the Thursday after Inauguration Day. 

"We had the first 45 days of the administration scheduled," Leavitt said. "We felt there was a need for crisp and early action. We were literally writing executive orders. It was a federal government in miniature."

According to Leavitt, many preparations involved assembling a menu of options for Romney to enact his plans for government or to make good on campaign pledges, like labeling China a currency manipulator or allowing the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

But Leavitt also emphasized that no decisions were ever made.

The transition’s portfolio also included the early work of approaching potential candidates to head cabinet agencies, along with prospective nominees for other positions that would require Senate confirmation. Those candidates were also vetted at a very preliminary level.

The end result was a list of 10 candidates for each cabinet post, which was pared down by Leavitt and two other campaign confidants: Beth Myers, Romney’s former chief of staff who led the search for his vice presidential nominee, and Bob White, a longtime Romney friend and associate.

The hope was to have Romney name many of his top cabinet nominees by Thanksgiving – this week, in essence. But, according to one transition source, Romney was never made privy to these rosters of would-be administration officials. The former Massachusetts governor was busy setting about the work of campaigning for the presidency.

"To my knowledge, there were no conversations between Gov. Romney and anyone about cabinet positions," said Leavitt, who explained that he opted to exercise tight control of these deliberations once campaign outsiders sought information about the process. "The number of people who knew whose names were on the pared-down lists was probably about four people."

Romney tapped Leavitt at a point in the election cycle that was comparable to Obama’s selection of John Podesta to lead his transition project four years earlier. Podesta served as White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton.

“The president asked me to do that in June after Sen. (Hillary) Clinton dropped out of the race, and I began organizing that with a group of people in early July. We had a fairly elaborate process working by late summer,” Podesta said of his experience. “By the time Election Day happened, we were fully engaged in the process of thinking through both the security transition and the economic crisis in fall of that year.”

Like much of Romney’s campaign, the transition team folded following his loss on Nov. 6. But future nominees — Democratic or Republican — might be well-served to study the work of the “Romney Readiness Project.”

Because of term limits, America will have a new president in 2016, and a transition of some kind will be necessary.

“I think it's highly appropriate,” Podesta said of the new transition process sanctioned by Congress. “It normalizes the transition, so you don't get all the political garbage about 'measuring the drapes.' It's a very complicated process, and having been on both ends of it, I think it's very important for the country to make it as seamless and professional as possible.”

Said Leavitt of the experience enabled by the new law: "One of the best things the law did was that it created an expectation that people would plan. Because you can't just become president of the United States in 77 days, and do it well."

While Mitt Romney has attributed his defeat, in part, to "gifts" President Obama was able to shower on key constituencies, a Republican National Committee report on the election points to other reasons -- like changing demographics, Hurricane Sandy, George W. Bush, and the failure to win over the middle class.

This RNC report of exit poll data, which NBC News has obtained and which RNC Chair Reince Priebus presented to GOP senators on Wednesday, states that "demographic change" in the United States "is real." It notes that the white share of the electorate has declined from 81% in 2000 to 72% in 2008. And it points out that "3 in 10 voters will be minorities in 2016."

(Click here to see the full report.)

In addition, the report (which Politico also has written about) includes data from the exit poll showing that voters -- by a 53%-to-38% margin -- blamed Bush for the state of the economy instead of Obama.

It also observes that Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy "provided a bump" to the president, with 42% saying it was either the "most important" or "an important" factor in their vote. Obama won those voters by more than a 2-to-1 margin

And the presentation observes that 44% of voters believed Obama's policies favored the middle class, versus 34% who said that of Romney's policies.

But the RNC report also notes the positives from the election:
-- Romney outperformed John McCain from 2008, especially in battleground states
-- Fewer than a combined 400,000 votes in Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia separated Romney from the presidency (though even fewer than that amount separated Al Gore and John Kerry from the presidency, too)
-- And Romney improved among whites and independents from 2004 and 2008.

At the end of this presentation, the RNC says it will conduct a fuller "deep dive" report into what worked in 2012 and what didn't. That will include conducting a post-election survey, meetings with party leaders, and getting feedback from volunteers.

As President Obama spent his first post-election press conference saying that he wanted to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans, he found himself debating two former GOP presidential contenders: Mitt Romney, who blamed his defeat in part on Obama’s “gifts” to supporters, and Sen. John McCain, who pledged to block a possible nomination of Susan Rice as secretary of state. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

For all the talk about how Mitt Romney and the Republicans lost when it came to demographics, the turnout, and the tactics, the exit polls also show that they lost when it came to the issues.

For years, the GOP has branded itself as the party that supports low taxes (especially for the wealthy) and opposes abortion and gay marriage.

But according to the exit polls from last week’s presidential election, a combined 60% said that tax rates should increase either for everyone or for those making more than $250,000. Just 35% said the tax rates shouldn’t increase for anyone.

What’s more, 59% said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

And by a 49%-to-46% margin, voters said that their states should legally recognize same-sex marriage.

Even on comprehensive immigration reform -- a subject that some Republicans (like George W. Bush) once supported, but most no longer do -- 65% said most illegal immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status. (And since the election, GOP senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain are now signaling renewed support for comprehensive immigration reform.)

The one bright spot for Republicans on the issues: A majority of voters -- 51% -- indicated that the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and  the individuals. By comparison, 43% said government should do more to solve problems.

That’s a reversal from 2008, when 51% said the government should do more and 43% said it is doing too much.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

Voters use touch screen voting booths to participate in electronic voting during the first day of early voting October 22, 2012 in Washinton, DC.

Leading Republican pollster Bill McInturff is cautioning analysts to not jump to the conclusion that voter turnout in Tuesday’s election was down from 2008.

As of Thursday about 119.4 million votes had been counted in the presidential election – compared to a total vote in the 2008 presidential election of 131 million.

But not all the votes cast in the 2012 election have been counted yet, McInturff said on Friday.

He pointed out that two days after the 2008 election, nearly 10 million votes hadn’t yet been counted. To put that in perspective, a total of nearly 8.4 million votes were cast in Florida that year.

Among those votes still to be tallied from Tuesday’s election are absentee ballots and provisional ballots cast, for example, by voters who went to the wrong precinct. (Some of those provisional votes may ultimately be invalidated and would not be counted, however).

“Turnout as a percent of citizens-of-voting-age population will be down this cycle, but, there’s still a chance the total vote cast will be as large or slightly larger than in 2008,” McInturff said.

The pollster also said that 42 percent of the drop in voter turnout on Tuesday is coming from three states hit hard by Hurricane Sandy last week: Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. All three are predominantly Democratic states which President Barack Obama easily carried both in 2008 and on Tuesday.

Voter turnout was up from 2008 levels in eight battleground states. For example, turnout was up by more than 8 percent in Colorado, which Obama won, and by 5.5 percent in North Carolina, which Republican candidate Mitt Romney carried.

Florida’s struggle to quickly report a winner of the 2012 presidential election has again made it the target of criticism that brought to mind the 2000 recount.

The presidency doesn’t hang in the ballot, as it did 12 years ago during the recount between George W. Bush and Al Gore, but that hasn’t saved the Sunshine State from scrutiny.

On Thursday in Florida, absentee ballots are still being counted in three populous counties. (Under state law, counties have until Saturday to report their total vote, including absentee ballots.)

Here are the snarls and wrinkles in Florida -- some of which, of course, were not unique to the state this year:

A reduction in the number days on which Floridians could vote early
This was changed from 14 days to 8 days, even though the number of early voting hours (96) remained static. The state legislature and Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, enacted this change, which sparked furious criticism by Florida Democrats.

“The lay of the land had changed and we needed to change with it if we were going to win. To that end we instituted a very aggressive program to both increase the number of absentee ballot requests by Democrats and the number of absentee ballot returns. And we were extraordinarily successful,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party.

Litigation over voting hours
The Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit last Sunday to ensure that in-person absentee voting was offered on Sunday and Monday in three predominantly Democratic counties: Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County.

In their filing with the federal district court in Miami, the Democrats complained about  “the prohibitively long lines at certain early voting sites within these counties. These extraordinary lines ... have required voters to stand in line for many hours to exercise their right to vote -- and in some cases have deterred or prevented voters from casting their ballots ... The lines and delays at certain early voting sites in these counties were substantially longer than elsewhere in the state.”

 “That lawsuit more than anything else drew a considerable amount of attention to that (in-person absentee voting) process,” said Chris Cate, a spokesman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “I think it caused lot more people -- rather than go to their precinct -- to go vote absentee at the (county) supervisor’s office. When you’re counting these absentees, it’s a much more extensive process because you’re having to go through and make sure the person who’s voting absentee has not already voted and you have to look at the signature and do a signature match with the signature that’s on file ... .”

University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus, an expert on Florida politics, agreed with that analysis. “That extra volume was really unusual but it came as a clarion call by Democrats who felt that early voting hours had not been extended enough.” This resulted in long waiting times before Election Day at some county supervisors’ offices for in-person absentee voting. 

A reduction in the number of voting locations on Election Day
It is increasingly difficult for county voting supervisors to find suitable voting locations, MacManus said, because many places are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act “and a lot of places are worried about liability. Schools are now out for the most part” -- school administrators are concerned about the potential presence on Election Day on school property of sexual predators among the voting population.

This was one factor that led to delays on Election Day in some places.

The Palm Beach Post reported on the afternoon of Election Day that a pregnant woman and her husband stood in line at a voting location in West Palm Beach “for more than two hours before she passed out and was escorted to the hospital by ambulance. The woman, witnesses say, was overwhelmed by the crowd and humidity.”

The sheer length of the Florida ballot itself, with 11 constitutional provisions for voters to mull over
“It was going to take anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to vote and the amendments were part of the reason,” MacManus said. “There were 11 amendments and they were very wordy. I think the longest one was 700 words. Normally if citizen petitions put an amendment on the ballot, the ballot summary is limited to 75 words. But because all 11 of these were placed on the ballot by the Florida legislature they were unlimited in the number of words they could use. People knew about them (before they voted) and a lot of people prepared, but the bottom line is: it still took a while to get through this ballot.” 

The lengthy counting of absentee ballots after Election Day
Cate said the increase in the number of absentee ballots in this election was a “very significant” reason for the prolonged tallying process.

It’s vital to put the balloting in its full political context. In no state is voting ever going to be a purely neutral mathematical exercise of tallying up numbers. But in a state that both Republicans and Democrats desperately tried to win, and a state Republicans did win in 2010 – giving control of the legislature, the governor’s office and the choice of chief elections official to the Republicans -- everything about voting tends to become highly politicized. 

Asked whether Detzner has recommend any changes in voting procedures based on what the state experienced in the past few weeks, Cate said, “Not yet, but we’re going to be taking a hard look at this election and see where we can make improvements and find efficiencies. We want to make sure that as many voters as possible are able to vote, and in an efficient process. I don’t think that anybody thinks that waiting in line until midnight is an efficient process.”

BOSTON -- From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.

Don Emmert / AFP - Getty Images file

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives on stage to concede the election to President Barack Obama on November 7, 2012 in Boston.

"Fiscally conservative," sighed one aide the next day.

In conversations on Wednesday, aides were generally wistful, not angry, at how the campaign ended. Most, like their boss, truly believed the campaign's now almost comically inaccurate models, and that a victory was well within their grasp.

(Outside Republicans and donors are another story. Some are angry over what they felt was an overly rosy picture painted by the campaign, and at what amounts to the loss of their investment.)

Yesterday afternoon, campaign manager Matt Rhoades thanked the staff in one last meeting at the campaign's Boston HQ, as did Romney and his wife, Ann.

Romney was stoic - thanking the team for their hard work and telling them he did not plan to disappear. (Aides to Romney said they were optimistic he would be receptive to a sincere offer from the president to work together)

Ann Romney's remarks brought several staffers to tears as she told the assembled group that they would always be part of the fabric of the Romney family.

After their speeches, Tagg Romney drove the former candidate and his wife home to Belmont.

The office at 585 Commercial St. was largely packed up by the close of business Wednesday (one aide said it looked like it had been sacked by Visigoths), but some staffers will return today to remove their things.

The Mitt Romney for President financial entity survives for as long as two more years, as bills are paid and FEC documents are filed.

Thousands of hours of campaign and family videos stored on a server will soon find a home for safekeeping for the family.

Many Romney aides borrowed from the Capitol Hill staffs of other top Republicans, like John Boehner and Paul Ryan, return to work this week.

Most everyone else takes a break and starts looking for work again -- with vacations planned in the mountains of Colorado, rounds of golf booked in Florida and rental vans on hold to move lives back to D.C. and other parts unknown.

By Wednesday evening, campaign staffers noticed a dramatic drop off in email traffic, as the campaign's prolific "war room" email system, which blast out reporters stories and tweets of note to the campaign, fell silent. 

It's dry season for campaign operatives though, and a few aides said they expect it to be January before they're re-employed. Some said they would be quitting politics, at least for now.

In the meantime, lots of Marriott points will be cashed in.

MADISON, WIS. -- Mitt Romney made a serious play here – not surprising, given his running mate was a native son and the state recently re-affirmed its support of its Republican governor in a recall election. 

But despite the Paul Ryan appearances and the millions spent in third-party ads, the state still proved elusive – one reason, perhaps, that became apparent just hours after polls closed in that contentious June recall.

Related: Romney never overcame bailout opposition

Of the 53 percent of voters who supported Gov. Scott Walker over Tom Barrett, who opposed the governor’s curbs on collective bargaining, 18 percent said they’d still vote for President Barack Obama over Romney.

And that was among the 2.5 million people that voted in the recall – half a million less than voted Tuesday for president. 

“Even if the electorate didn’t grow at all, Republicans needed to worry,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said, “because that’s enough of a flip to make the state go for Obama.” 

In a state where voters take pride in voting for the person, not the party, Burden said that some voters felt similarly about Obama and Walker. 

“They’re both incumbents, they’re both presiding over a kind of mediocre economy... But in both cases, voters are willing to give the incumbent credit and give them time to finish the job,” Burden said. 

Plus, the fact that the Obama campaign turned out the voters they needed to put them over the edge, even if the resulting 53-46 percent result was far less than Obama’s 14-point margin in 2008. 

In the important blue counties of Racine and Milwaukee, Obama got 51.4 percent and 67 percent of the vote respectively. As with elsewhere in the country, demographics were a key part of his victories there: Milwaukee County’s population is 27 percent African American, versus 6.5 percent of people statewide; Racine's is 11.5 percent. 

Steven Senne / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets people during a campaign stop at a Cousins Subs fast food restaurant, in Waukesha, Wis., Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

But while Obama won decisively here, Republicans said they are far from ready to cede this perennial purple state to the Democrats. 

“I think we have a fantastic ground game and we’ll continue to grow,” said Wisconsin Republican party spokesman Nathan Conrad. 

Republicans did win the super-swingy Brown County, which voted Obama in 2008, Walker for governor in 2010 and 2012, and gave Romney a narrow 50.4- 48.5 percent win Tuesday night. Green Bay, located in Brown County’s Fox Valley, is a particularly important bellwether, given its high concentration of white male working-class voters who frequently swing between parties. 

But the margins there were meaningful – smaller than they had to be in order for Walker to win, some Republicans conceded. 

Another bright spot for Republicans in Wisconsin was in the statehouse - Wednesday morning Scott Walker was quick to note that his party eked out a new 17-15 majority in the state Senate, the body’s third party switch in two years after it went to the Democrats during the recall. 

“What that tells me is that voters in this state are independent. They listen race by race to what the candidates have to offer,” Walker said to reporters Wednesday in Milwaukee.

And that is one of the reasons this state will continue to be a key battleground in future presidential races, Burden, the University of Wisconsin professor, said. 

“It’s just volatile enough and has just enough electoral votes that neither party really wants to walk away from it,” he said. 

As Republicans sort through what went wrong for former Republican nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday, they might look back ruefully at four words that became forever associated with the GOP nominee: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

There are varied reasons for President Barack Obama's re-election to a second term, from changing demographics to superior campaign organization and beyond. And Obama's broad margin in the Electoral College meant that no single state was responsible for his victory over Romney.

David Goldman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives to his election-night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 7, in Boston.

But as Republicans begin to pick through the aftermath of Romney's loss, Romney's struggles to address his opposition the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler stymied an effort to gain a foothold in Obama's Midwestern "firewall," and turn his attention to other key battleground states.

Related: Romney's chances in Ohio tied to softening auto bailout stance

It was an issue with which Romney struggled for the duration of the campaign, as Obama traipsed across Midwestern states, hammering away against his Republican opponent on the issue, while touting the resurgence of GM and Chrysler following the billions in aid provided to the companies.

A strong majority - 60 percent - of voters on Tuesday in Ohio said that they had approved of the auto bailout, and Obama beat Romney among those voters by a healthy 73 to 25 percent difference.

In Wisconsin, another state that composed Obama's firewall (along with Iowa), a majority of voters - 53 percent - said they had approved of the bailout. Obama bested Romney among those voters, 79 to 20 percent.

Those numbers suggest that Romney's effort over the past year to recast his opposition to the bailout, put bluntly, failed.

Romney's New York Times op-ed opposing then-President George W. Bush's efforts to extend aid to the troubled automakers came just weeks after the 2008 election -- four years ago next Saturday, to be exact.

And while it's unlikely that the former Massachusetts governor himself wrote the provocative headline that would stick with him through his 2012 campaign, he wrestled and struggled with the issue throughout his battle with Obama.

Even in the primaries, Romney's conservative challengers argued it was callous for him to have supported the Wall Street bailout while opposing the auto rescue, especially as a native son of Michigan whose father ran a car company when Romney was young.

Romney reasoned that the managed bankruptcy endured by GM and Chrysler was actually his idea in the first place. And then he pivoted to argue that bondholders and dealers were shortchanged in that process, to the benefit of autoworkers' unions, which had backed Obama in 2008.

But neither of those arguments seemed to resonate in the long term, prompting Romney in the closing weeks of the campaign to address his deficiency with a deeply misleading pair of radio and TV ads stoking fears that Jeep was planning to move production from the U.S. to China.

Those ads were ostensibly an effort to make gains with swing voters in the outlying areas surrounding Toledo, the home to a major Jeep production facility.

But Obama carried Lucas County, which includes Toledo, last night by the same margins as 2008. The president also carried nearby Ottowa and Wood Counties (albeit by a slimmer margin than '08), despite Bush having won both in 2000 and 2004.

Courtesy of Obama campaign

UPDATED 3:22 a.m. ET - Twitter records fell. The New York Times released a sneak peek at its Wednesday front page. Ohio remained a battleground. Captain America saluted. And somehow, the Obama girls grew up.

Here's a look at the social media reaction to President Barack Obama's re-election victory and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's defeat. 

Related: Election Day across the Web