Matt Rhoades, Romney campaign’s under-the-radar chief (Flashback)

Wash Post ^ | 11/20/2011 | Jason Horowitz

[jimbo123]

Romney 2012 campaign manager Matt Rhoades keeps such a low profile that he once nearly made his career disappear.

-snip-

Rhoades is the organizing force behind Romney’s safe and smooth campaign. An expert at manipulating the news cycle with a coveted connection to the elusive media power broker Matt Drudge, Rhoades is particularly well suited to run a campaign that Romney himself characterized this weekend as employing a “confidentiality of strategy.”

-snip-

He then joined the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign as research director and ran its bruising rapid-response operation with communications director Steve Schmidt,

-snip-

Griffin, who was leaving the RNC, invited Rhoades to a steak dinner in Miami with Drudge. At that dinner, Griffin passed the torch to Rhoades as Drudge’s chief connection in the GOP. Exactly how that relationship works is a mystery, but Rhoades’s own stock rose as a result and insiders considered it a coup when Romney hired him as communications director for his last campaign.

Rhoades moved to Boston in January 2007 and expressed so much confidence in his relationship with Drudge that he laughed at rival Republicans who declared their intentions to court the page-view potentate. In this election, Romney again appears to be reaping the benefits of the connection. “Mitt Romney leads The Drudge Primary,” read a Politico article in June that documented positive coverage for Romney on the site.

[jimbo123]

Drudge/Rhoades Primary Flashback:

[Nifster]

The snitch did his job.....apparently his parents never taught him about SHAME

[blueunicorn6]

Ahhhhhhhh.....nobody made a cherry slurpee like Matt Drudge.

[cripplecreek]

Nothing but a smear monger. He was involved in the GOPe campaign against Tim Walberg here in Michigan’s 7th district. Lots of nasty rumors about Walberg came up but people here know him better than that. He’s just not a dirty guy.