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How Romney chose his running mate

Posted at 10:11 AM, Aug 11, 2012
and last updated 2012-08-11 10:11:10-04
Washington (CNN) — Beth Myers has long been Mitt Romney’s most trusted political adviser, so it’s no surprise that he tasked her with the job of helping him find the right running mate.

In an exclusive interview with CNN earlier this week, Myers described to CNN what the process entailed.

“He’s very methodical in making his decisions, and what he wants is a couple things. First of all, he wants all the information, and we went about a very thorough process in making sure we had a lot of information about a broad group. He also doesn’t like to rule anything out until he has to,” she said.

She described the first group of possibilities as “broad.”

“We got a good cut of information about a lot of people. He then narrowed it down, and we got even more information. We got personal information from each of the potential candidates. And at that point, again, we had some attorneys go thru and look thru everybody’s record to make sure that there was–you know I didn’t want to miss anything about them,” she told CNN.

Next step was for Romney to look at the information about each candidate and to make his analysis of them.

“Mitt took these candidate dossiers and he thought about them. He read all of them word for word. I had talked with each of the candidates personally. He had obviously been campaigning with a lot of the folks that he was considering. And he read the dossiers, and we narrowed it down once again. And we did, you know an even more deep dive, on them and then gave them the final product,” Myers explained.

Asked if he then solicited advice, Myers told CNN Romney would ask a wide range of people their opinion.

“He solicits the advice of a small group of his advisers, but then he asks I think everybody he meets ‘what’s your thought on this?'” She added “He listens. He asks, you know, sort of people you wouldn’t think that he’d ask about it. He talks to, you know, he calls friends from all walks of his life, all across the country, wanting to know what they think. He listens to that.”

While she knew the most about all of the candidates and their backgrounds, Myers did not tell Romney who she preferred for the job.

“I haven’t told him. I have not shared with him my opinion because I think it’s important that I’m objective.”

Myers said Romney being comfortable with the choice was very important as well as making sure the person was qualified.

“I mean obviously his first qualification is that the person is qualified to be president and perceived to be qualified to be president.”