But Ed Rollins, the Republican strategist who masterminded Mike Huckabee's run in 2008, said while he expected Romney to win, he predicted that lead to be eroded.
Ashdown, the former leader, masterminded the election strategy which promoted the party as a centre ground force that would give "heart" to the Tories and "brain" to Labour in a potential coalition government.
Smith, scoring his first IPL half-century, masterminded the Royals' run chase in useful partnerships with first Ajinkya Rahane, then the big-hitting Deepak Hooda – whose brief 13 raised the tempo of the innings – and finally the patient James Faulkner to guide his side to their target of 165 with five balls remaining.
While serving as commanding general of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the US combined arms training center there, Petraeus masterminded an update the army's field manual on counterinsurgency strategy – usually shortened to COIN.
Pleasant masterminded the concept and Chase, an heiress, bankrolled and managed the company.
Simon Crick, head of operations, has masterminded employees "taking more control" of the computerised "building management system" that controls the heating.
A less than convincing performance by the party during the 2005 general election is regarded as a career low point, although his reputation was salvaged the following year by a shock byelection victory (the 13th masterminded by Rennard) in Dunfermline and West Fife, which served as a boost for a party reeling from the fall of its leader, Charles Kennedy, and a scandal surrounding MP Mark Oaten.
But over the years it is the officials who masterminded what and how things happen, appointing advisers and moulding advice to the policies being driven through, with or without the backing of law, or indeed their secretary of state.
It confirms the former surgeon, who has masterminded bombings including in Nairobi and New York over the past 13 years, as the world's most wanted man, with a $25m US bounty on his head.
He was a great runner and masterminded a great Olympics.
And Mark Walhberg is a cop too, in a needlessly convoluted plot twist whereby two agents from different bureaus were set up to go undercover and rob a bank and then kill each other but, now that the plot has backfired, the two agents will be forced to work alongside one another to figure out who masterminded the set up despite their mutual violent mistrust of each other.
