The New Yorker has an interesting piece about the invention of political consultancy.

It sprang immediately to mind when I read this quote from Mitt Romney, in a transcript of a secretly recorded video at a fund-raiser:

I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highly successful consultants, a couple of people in particular who have done races around the world. I didn’t realize it. These guys in the US–the Karl Rove equivalents–they do races all over the world: in Armenia, in Africa, in Israel. I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see which ads work, and which processes work best, and we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I’d tell them to you, but I’d have to shoot you…

Interesting to see which processes will work best after this.