War room stories: Inside the Romney campaign

Ragan.com debriefs Kevin Madden, the former national press secretary for Republican candidate Mitt Romney

Lots of professional communicators watch presidential campaigns with a mixture of envy and vicarious horror, wondering what it must be like to communicate with such urgency, for so long, for such high stakes (see video below!).

Kevin Madden recently rejoined the ranks of those on the outside looking in, and he’s willing to be our guide.

Mitt Romney’s national press secretary since December 1996, Madden is currently unemployed and trying to remember what people do on Sundays if they’re not poring over newspapers, drinking coffee in front of four TVs, waiting to spring into action in reaction to the morning talk shows.

Sitting amid still-packed boxes in the Washington home he returned to shortly after Romney bowed out of the race for the Republican nomination, Madden reflected on his long, strange trip, and what he thinks he learned along the way.

The first thing to know about a communication post in presidential campaign is that it isn’t as busy as you think it is—it’s busier.