On August 11, 2012, in Norfolk, Virginia, Romney announced that Paul Ryan, the long-time U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, would be his running mate for vice president.

[19] Before a slower start to the presidential campaign by all contenders than four years previous, on April 11, 2011, Mitt Romney announced by means of a video recorded that day at an athletics field at the University of New Hampshire that he had formed an exploratory committee as a first step for a potential run for a Republican presidential campaign, saying, "It is time that we put America back on a course of greatness, with a growing economy, good jobs and fiscal discipline in Washington.

However, Romney maintained a solid lead with wins in Guam, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

[106][107] In July 2012, Romney undertook an international trip as the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, visiting the United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland to meet heads of state, and also to raise funds.

[115][116] In Jerusalem, Romney discussed the possibility of a military strike against Iran with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.

He praised Poland for rejecting "the false promise of a government-dominated economy" and for seeking to "stimulate innovation, attract investment, expand trade, and live within its means".

"[143] According to the book Double Down, Romney's campaign narrowed down his list of potential nominees for vice president to former governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty, United States Senator from Ohio Rob Portman, eventual 2016 presidential candidates Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, and longtime U.S. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

The vetting team, led by experienced Republican operative Beth Myers, gave each member of the short list a fish-themed nickname: "Lakefish" for Minnesotan Pawlenty, "Pescado" for Hispanic Rubio, "Filet-O-Fish" for Ohioan Portman, "Fishconsin" for Janesville native Ryan, and finally "Pufferfish" for the stout Christie.

[150] Shortly after 7 a.m. on August 11, the Romney campaign officially announced Ryan as its choice for vice president through its mobile app titled "Mitt's VP".

[151] On July 13, 2012, Obama gave a speech in Roanoke, Virginia, that contained the phrase "you didn't build that":[152] There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back.

But they did not build this business.The Romney campaign followed with events with small business owners in multiple states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Nevada), along with an attack ad.

[175] In July and August 2012, Romney ran a recurring ad claiming that President Obama wanted to remove the work requirement for welfare recipients.

[176][177][178] FactCheck.org stated: "A Mitt Romney TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted 'a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.'

"[185] A poll by Pew Research Center taken in the days after the event found that a majority of voters were unaware that the comment had even been said, with a plurality of those that had heard of it saying that it had no effect on their opinion of Romney.

It showed a depiction of Romney with his facial features "shrunken" within an ordinary-scale blank outline of his face; the result resembled a Dick Tracy comic-strip villain.

Within its first four days it had garnered the attention of Gawker,[187] UPROXX,[188] CollegeHumor,[189] BuzzFeed,[190] PostSecret,[191] Mother Jones,[192] Funny or Die[193] and MSNBC's Alex Wagner.

[25][26] During the presidential campaign, he declined to disclose additional returns citing the matter as a distraction from more important issues, despite calls to do so by Democrats and several notable Republicans.

[206] Republicans who urged Romney to release his tax returns include former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, Michael Steele and Bill Kristol.

Controversy arose when it was revealed that the clip was edited to remove the portion which showed Romney relating the story of an optometrist he met, who had faced an extensive amount of paperwork from the post office to change his address.

On September 17, excerpts from a video recorded on hidden camera were published by Mother Jones showing Romney speaking at a private $50,000-a-plate fundraiser held at hedge fund manager Marc Leder's mansion in Boca Raton, Florida.

"[230] Several Republicans campaigning for seats in the 2012 election disputed or criticized Romney's remarks, including Senate candidates Linda McMahon (CT), George Allen (VA), Sen. Dean Heller (NV), Sen. Scott Brown (MA), and Gov.

"[246] Another part of the video shows Romney saying: If I were Iran, if I were Iran—a crazed fanatic, I'd say let's get a little fissile material to Hezbollah, have them carry it to Chicago or some other place, and then if anything goes wrong, or America starts acting up, we'll just say, "Guess what?

[249][250][251] Bloomberg News had reported on October 21 that Fiat, the majority owner of Chrysler (the maker of Jeeps), was considering restarting production lines in China that had been idle since 2009.

[249][251] Chrysler's CEO Sergio Marchionne responded, saying that the claim that production of Jeeps would be transferred from the U.S. to China, leaving U.S. factories idle, was completely false.

A GM representative denounced the Romney ad, saying, "We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days.... No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.

[280] Led by Chairman Mike Leavitt and Executive Director Chris Liddell, it consisted of a skeleton staff of four until August, when additional employees were retained.

[284] Activities undertaken by the Readiness Project included preparing policy briefings for civil servants at federal agencies, which would be delivered by "parachute teams" following the election; creating a list of candidates to fill the several hundred political appointments made by the president; coordinating with the Obama administration for the transfer of occupancy of presidential residences, including the White House and the Number One Observatory Circle; liaising with the United States Armed Forces for the assumption of National Command Authority and launch control of nuclear weapons; and developing a post-election communications plan, which reportedly included a 1,000-word victory speech Romney would deliver.

[286] In accordance with the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act of 2010, the project was provided with office space by the General Services Administration (GSA) beginning in September 2012, two months prior to the election.

In contrast, the Obama campaign repeatedly and exhaustively polled and directed the actual expressed day-to-day shifting opinions of the electorate through such technological mediums as Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

as the last guy to run a presidential campaign who never tweeted" to get out the vote and to elicit real-time electorate feelings from all ethnic groups, all gender persuasions, and from rich and poor.