Can resurgent Romney take on Trump?
Mitt Romney’s long-anticipated announcement that he will contest Utah’s vacant Senate seat contained a veiled swipe at President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, confirming his intention to offer a conservative contrast to the White House. But his broader ambitions will be constrained by a Republican base that remains fiercely loyal to the president. In a two-minute announcement video, Romney attempted to establish himself as a respectable conservative option, rejecting Washington’s “message of exclusion” to immigrants and promising an administration which “treats one another with respect”.
Speculation is rife that Romney will use the Senate as a launchpad for a tilt at the Republican nomination in 2020, entrenching a civil war that has raged since Donald Trump seized the nomination and the White House. What’s clear is that Romney, former Massachusetts governor, presidential nominee and elder statesman in the Republican Party, has no intention of being merely a junior senator. He will re-enter American politics with more clout than his role suggests and wield significant influence within the party.
Utah is a deeply red state, having last voted for a Democratic nominee in 1964. In 2012, Romney carried the state with 72.8 percent of the vote. While in line with much of the president’s platform, many Utahans held their nose as they voted for Trump, a man starkly at odds with the state’s religious conservatism. A brash, thrice-married admitted adulterer and recent convert to many conservative principles, Trump bled votes to third-party candidate Evan McMullin to finish with just 45.5 percent in 2016.
Romney, by contrast, is tailor-made for politics in the majority-Mormon state. The first of the faith to secure a major party nomination, he boasts executive experience and is credited with saving the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics after a corruption scandal, a point emphasized during his announcement. Even should Trump plump for another primary candidate, a Romney victory looks a forgone conclusion.
Senator Lindsay Graham and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, amongst others, lambasted the president during the primaries, going so far as labelling him a racist, only to tone down their rhetoric once he assumed office. Their recent criticisms of the president have been targeted at specific incidents, rather than critiquing his fitness for office more broadly. Republicans have been hesitant to criticize Trump, even in the fallout from Charlottesville, fearing retribution from his supporters.
Many of Trump’s most ardent Republican critics, including John McCain, are not contesting future elections. As senator for Utah, Romney will be protected from the threat Trump’s base poses to establishment Republicans, but would not be so immune should he move against the incumbent in 2020. The challenge he faces on a national level will be translating the security of Utah into votes in areas where adoration for the president remains strong. Indeed, many of the factors that make him a fit for Utah - his religious credentials, executive experience, and temperament - may hinder him in areas disillusioned with business-as-usual Washington politics.
Inconsistent relationship
Romney himself has had an inconsistent relationship with Trump, labelling him a “fraud” during the primaries before flirting with the secretary of state role during the transition. He will need to re-establish himself in complete contrast to Trump to stand any chance in a presidential challenge. It is a risky move in a party that, for now at least, remains in the grip of the president. How firm that grip will remain long-term may become clear after this year’s midterm elections, where Republicans fear a voter backlash after a chaotic beginning to the Trump administration.
Romney’s best move may be a push to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader, teaming up with former running-mate Ryan to form an establishment bloc seeking to reign in Trump’s impulsiveness. But how willing Ryan, a man with possible presidential ambitions himself, would be to anger the base remains unclear. Of course, this is a crisis of the establishment’s own making. Republicans were content to stoke conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth, fears on border security and terrorism, to ride a Tea Party wave that wiped out the Democrat majority in 2010.
The problem with stoking such anger is that eventually it needs to be matched with action. It is one thing to imply that the man in the White House is a potentially Muslim, anti-American socialist allowing Muslims and Hispanics to take American jobs and attack American civilians. But to use that sentiment to push tax cuts for the top earners was never a long-term strategy to placate the base.
They had delivered a terminal diagnosis, but offered an insipid remedy. When Trump arrived on the scene, Republican voters were primed for drastic solutions. Taking the Tea Party template, he offered sweeping, simple ones: A border wall and a ban Muslims entering the country. Establishment Republicans watched in horror as Trump hijacked their base and drove off with their party. Now Romney, so long the embodiment of the Republican insider, will re-enter the party as an outsider, chipping away at its leader. Utah’s unique makeup will offer him a safe haven for the role, but the threat of Trump’s base lurks beyond its borders.
Romney will need to re-establish himself in complete contrast to Trump
NOTE: McHugh is an Australian journalist and writer