By Michael Brendan Dougherty
February 19, 2018
Mitt’s back. The former governor of Massachusetts and
occasional native son of Michigan has a new persona: Mr. Utah. He’s going to
bring Utah conservatism to the whole Republican party and to the country at
large. Wholesome, efficient, industrious, faithful. “Utah has a lot to teach
the politicians in Washington,” he says in announcing his Senate campaign.
Maybe.
There’s always been something unstable about Mitt
Romney’s political identity. In fact, Romney could give Trump a run for his
money on political inconstancy. In his first run for the Senate, against Ted
Kennedy, he tried to stake out a position on abortion to Kennedy’s left. Then
Romney debuted his “severely conservative” persona in 2012. The political
transformations reflect Trump’s own: Trump used to defend late-term abortions
but started talking about the violence of abortion when political expediency
demanded he do so.
Conservatives have also been on and off again when it
comes to Romney. Back in 2006, a man wearing a dolphin suit would stalk Romney
around CPAC. Flipper was popular with conservatives then. But two years later
at the same convention, Laura Ingraham and other conservatives despaired at the
capitulation to John McCain when Romney announced his exit from the race.
Some political observers are hoping that Romney will save
the Republican party from Trumpism. He was the man who tried to torpedo Trump’s
2016 campaign, calling Trump “a con man” and a “fake.” Romney has a real
fortune and real grace in his deportment. Others point out that it was Romney
who helped to legitimate Trump by dropping everything but his wife to receive
Trump’s endorsement in 2012.
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What is constant about Romney is his civic-minded desire
to serve in office and his confidence that he can do a good job. He is probably
right that he would do well in office. He is
wholesome, efficient, industrious, and faithful. But he combines all this with
a barely concealed panic; he has no idea how to make a majority of voters
choose him for the job. And so each new persona seems like a new attempt to
condescend to us.
Romney’s severe disability is found in the Constitution:
“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.” Romney looks,
acts, and thinks like an American noble, one who tragically cannot be made into
a duke or earl. If America gave out titles, surely the Romneys would have
received one or more by now. In such a world, Romney’s sense of duty, and the
sense of deference in the public to excellence like his, would have provided
him with suitable offices. Romney belongs to an extremely exclusive Mormon
subculture of successful families. These are the men who built Huntsman
Chemical, Marriott International, JetBlue Airways. Like the ancient families
with titles, Romney is subject to confusingly personal feuds within this group
— namely with Jon Huntsman Jr. — that have no real political content.
Donald Trump has most of Romney’s political faults, and
many more of his own. But unlike Romney, Trump has a fundamentally democratic
personality and bearing. Months after the death of Princess Diana, Howard Stern
asked Trump if he could have “nailed her.” Trump gave the quintessentially
democratic answer: “I think I could have.”
Trump’s oblivious and crass confidence is part of what
made him electorally viable in America. Americans grade integrity on a curve,
and they assess Trump as a genuine liar and scoundrel — with a heavy emphasis
on the genuine part. Romney’s presidential aspirations suffered from bad
timing. But they also suffered from his fear of being genuinely himself, an
American Mormon scion who outdid Dad on the wealth front and wanted to build a
bigger political legacy as well. A man who has put maximum effort into building
a successful career and a huge, loving family.
Comments
He should drop “Mr Utah” and just be himself, a man who
excels at every endeavor other than being a regular Joe.
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