Mitt Romney has announced that he will not run for a second term in the U.S. Senate. This is more an admission of defeat than a renouncement.
Mr. Romney’s path has been winding and restless. He was not as pure and noble as he might have had us, and himself, believe. But his surrender is too bad — for the country. For, bottom line, Mr. Romney was capable, decent and got one big moment right. He evolved from a calculating Ken doll into something like a statesman.
A statesman and a dilettante
Ambition is deeply embedded in Mr. Romney’s DNA. He will never quite outgrow the young man on the make. There has always been a strain of the poseur and the dilettante.
He was for abortion rights before he was against them. He was for Obamacare before Barack Obama. And then against it. He was forever tacking left or right depending on the political winds of the moment, and then abandoning his post when things got tough, or he got bored, or the most recent mask failed him.
All in pursuit “the big brass ring,” as Orson Welles dubbed it — the presidency. Mr. Romney’s entire political career was a lover’s pursuit of the presidency. He wore perennially the lean and hungry look of the obsessed.
I watched him most carefully when he was governor of the Bay State (I lived in New England at the time) and when he ran against John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination. As governor he was serviceable, and affable. A moderate. A pro. The Irish pols liked the WASPY Mormon just fine. He pretty much let them have their way.
And then he was off again. Done after one four-year term. Off in pursuit of the White House.
Running against McCain in 2008, he gave no reason for voters to pick him over a guy who had earned the nomination and, though himself as ambitious as any politician, a guy who put the country first and last when it counted.
Romney on Trump
Of course, Mr. Romney was even of two minds, or postures, about Donald Trump. He roundly and eloquently denounced him in 2016, but did nothing to help any anti-Trump candidate. In 2012 he’d sought Mr. Trump’s endorsement. And, after Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Romney publicly interviewed for the job of secretary of state.
Did ambition win again?
The idea of Romney going to the Senate from Utah (his third state) was that he would assume the role of the great Un-Trump. The Senate would be a national platform for him and he would also write groundbreaking legislation.
Neither thing happened. His party didn’t care. His fellow senators gave him the old smile and nod. His Senate experiment failed.
And I’d bet that has more to do with his renouncement than family consideration or age. If he had become a giant of the Senate, like McCain, or Ted Kennedy, he would be staying. But in one respect Mr. Romney did become McCain.
Two brave votes
When the ultimate test of his courage and conviction came, he did not flinch. He voted, not once but twice, to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trials.
Mr. Romney agonized over both votes, took his oath as a juror seriously, and concluded that he had no choice: Mr. Trump had violated his oath. His deeds were impeachable.
Mr. Romney has now concluded that Mr. Trump is a clear and present danger to the constitutional order and that our democracy is at one of its most fragile states. But those were two brave votes. For Mitt Romney knew Mr. Trump would not be removed from office and he knew that his votes would finish him in the Republican Party. And, in fact, he became completely isolated politically and even socially.
So what now for Mitt? He still has a choice between the small man and the large one; between ambition and service.
A new biography on Mr. Romney has him settling some scores – revealing, for example, that most senators loathe and laugh at Mr. Trump privately and that Mr. Romney warned Mitch McConnell about the January 6 rioters.
But I think he is capable of more. I think he has one more chapter left, and it might be his finest.
Romney’s new party
Mr. Romney wants to start a new party. If he truly thinks the GOP is dead, he should try — not with a candidate for president in 2024, but a few candidates for the Senate and governorships. Build it slowly. But build it.
Mitt Romney changed. As opportunity and ambition receded, he became more thoughtful and dutiful. And he is, genuinely, a man of faith and family. All political lives end in failure and no politician is a man for all seasons.
But “serviceable and affable” sound pretty good don’t they? And courage echoes through time.
Keith C. Burris is the former editor, vice president and editorial director of Block Newspapers: burriscolumn@gmail.com. His previous article was “Movies aren’t only an escape.”
First Published: September 25, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
