Mitt Romney is referenced across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as a presidential candidate, a political ally of guests, and an example of campaign strategy. He never appears as a guest on the program. The excerpts in which he figures span 2011 to 2022 and touch on libertarian electoral politics, higher education policy, the Electoral College, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2012 California straw poll
In a September 2011 episode on free speech and higher education, Bob Zadek opened the show with libertarian news. He reported that in the California Republican straw poll, Ron Paul was the victor. According to Zadek, the libertarian Ron Paul substantially trounced Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and others, and was by almost acclamation the winner in the California Republican straw poll. Zadek framed the result as a possible sign that 2012 could be the moment when libertarians can walk in the sunshine finally Is Your Alma Mater a Soviet Gulag? (2011).
The straw poll reference is the earliest mention of Romney in the excerpts and establishes him as one of the establishment Republican candidates against whom Ron Paul was measured in libertarian circles.
Student loans and political pandering
A July 2012 episode on the student loan problem featured guest Arvin Vora, an entrepreneur and congressional candidate in Maryland’s fifth district. Bob Zadek introduced the topic by noting that the issue of increasing the interest rate on student loans from a meager 3.4% to almost as meager 6.8% was very much in the news. He stated that both President Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in pandering to the 18-year-old vote, both expressed support for a bill to keep the interest rate at an obscenely low below-market 3.4% in a way to get the 18-year-old vote America’s Student Loan Problem (2012).
Zadek went on to describe the practical effect of the rate increase, saying that on the average student loan, if the interest rate is allowed to go back up to where it belongs at 6.8%, the effect on the average student will be to increase their payments by about $1,000 a year, which he characterized as about the cost of a cup of coffee a week. He played a sound bite of a student who said some things probably ought to get pushed back, maybe like starting a family, and it’ll be more important to find a job quickly. Zadek responded with incredulity, comparing the statement to someone saying, should I start a family or have a cup of coffee America’s Student Loan Problem (2012).
The episode presents Romney and Obama as acting in parallel — both supporting the lower rate for electoral reasons — rather than as opponents on the issue. Zadek’s framing treats the bipartisan agreement as itself the problem, an example of pandering to young voters at the expense of sound lending economics.
Bain Capital and Ed Conard
In a February 2017 episode on income inequality, Bob Zadek introduced guest Ed Conard as a well-known author and economist who had published two New York Times bestselling books, including The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class. Zadek described Conard as one of the founders of Bain Capital, which he founded with his good friend and colleague and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney Debunking Inequality Myths with Ed Conard (2017).
The reference is biographical and establishes Romney’s business background through his co-founder’s appearance on the show. Conard’s discussion focused on income inequality, the productivity of America’s most successful workers, and the effects of trade and immigration on middle and working-class wage growth. Romney is not mentioned again in the excerpt after the introduction.
The Electoral College and battleground targeting
An October 2020 episode on the Electoral College and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact included a detailed discussion of how presidential campaigns target specific precincts. The host, speaking before guest Ray Haynes, described a conversation with Karl Rove in which Rove said there are basically 3,000 out of the well over 100,000 precincts in this country that really decide who becomes president of the United States What’s Wrong with “Winner Takes All”? Another Look at the Electoral College (2020).
As an illustration, the host recalled that in 2012, Virginia was a battleground state. There was a commercial done by the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, about a barbecue place that got shut down because of local zoning ordinances. That became an issue in a presidential campaign because those voters in that part of Richmond, Virginia, were important and they cared about what happened to that barbecue place What’s Wrong with “Winner Takes All”? Another Look at the Electoral College (2020).
The episode uses the Romney commercial as evidence for a broader argument: that presidential messaging and policy discussions are directed at persuading voters in a small number of swing precincts, and that this dynamic distorts both campaigns and governance. The host extended the argument with examples including No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and ventilator distribution during the coronavirus pandemic, all of which he attributed to battleground-state targeting rather than policy merit.
Justin Hart and the Romney campaign
Two October 2022 episodes featuring Justin Hart, author of Gone Viral, include discussion of Hart’s work on the Romney presidential campaign. In the first, Bob Zadek noted that Hart had mentioned being active in the Romney campaign and asked whether Hart had ever worked on anything that succeeded. Hart responded that the ones he succeeded at he could not talk about because they were kind of black ops, but that he picked the right horses still, and that Romney was the right guy for the job, even if he wasn’t the best candidate [[episodes/gone_viral__goes_viral|Gone Viral Goes Viral (2022)]].
Hart described his background as a data analyst who grew up in the Bay Area, attended BYU, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1996. He worked on the first dot-com boom and bust, building websites for Toyota.com, Dupont.com, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. He entered politics during the Tea Party movement, started his own consulting firm helping senatorial candidates including Chuck DeVore in California, and helped Sarah Palin. He said he ended up in the last few days of the few months of the campaign on the Mitt Romney presidential campaign doing some black arts technical stuff that was really, really fun, bringing them a whole bunch of fundraising money online [[episodes/gone_viral__goes_viral|Gone Viral Goes Viral (2022)]].
Hart expressed disappointment in how the campaign ended and said he high-tailed it back to California. In the second episode, the same exchange is repeated: Zadek asked whether Hart had ever worked on anything that succeeded, and Hart gave the same response about black ops, picking the right horses, and Romney being the right guy for the job even if he wasn’t the best candidate [[episodes/gone_viral__with_justin_hart|Gone Viral with Justin Hart (2022)]].
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in how Romney is treated across episodes. He appears in 2011 as a straw-poll loser to Ron Paul, in 2012 as a pandering presidential candidate on student loans, in 2017 as Ed Conard’s Bain Capital co-founder, in 2020 as the author of a Virginia campaign commercial, and in 2022 as the candidate Justin Hart worked for. Each reference is incidental to the episode’s main topic. No guest or host offers a sustained assessment of Romney’s record, ideology, or political career, and the excerpts contain no argument about him that is revisited or revised.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Romney’s positions on most issues, his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, his role in the 2008 or 2012 general elections beyond the references above, or his later Senate career. They do not include any interview with Romney or any extended discussion of his political philosophy. The sources also do not cover his relationship with the Libertarian Party or libertarian ideas beyond the straw poll result and the student loan pandering example.