Romney aide Myers describes running mate search as ‘methodical’

By Meghashyam Mali - 08/11/12 11:22 AM ET

Senior Romney adviser Beth Myers provided details of the campaign's vice presidential selection process in an interview with CNN taped earlier this week.

Myers, who was tasked with heading the VP search, praised Romney as someone who was "very methodical in making his decisions."

"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," Myers said in the interview released Saturday after the campaign announced the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as Romney's running mate.

"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 through and look through everybody's record to make sure that there was — you know — I didn't want to miss anything about them," Myers said.

The next step involved Romney studying the short list closely.

"Mitt took these candidate dossiers and he thought about them. He read all of them word for word," Myers said. "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."

She said that for the last step they did "an even more deep dive on them and then gave them the final product."

Romney's campaign announced Ryan as his running mate Saturday and welcomed the GOP lawmaker at an event in Norfolk, Va. at the USS Wisconsin.

Myers said Romney sought many people's advice before coming to his decision.

"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 said. "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."