Romney’s rocky road
What really motivates his Senate run in Utah?
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, has announced that he intends to re-enter active political life, and the national scene, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Utah. If elected, he will be a freshman senator at the age of 72.
While Mr. Romney’s patriotism and sense of service are beyond dispute, his political judgement has always been a little off. It may be off in this instance as well, and on two grounds:First, it may not be as easy as Mr. Romney thinks to get elected senatorfrom Utah, where he has long had a home but has not lived full-time for more than two years of his life. Second, if elected, he may find he does notmuch like the job.
Mr. Romney and many others assume he will be a shoo-in for the GOP nominationand victory in the general election. The polls generally support both contentions. Mr. Romney is a devout Mormon and he famously “saved” the Winter Olympics when theywere held in Utah in 2002.
But GOP zealots are already trying to block him from the ballot, never mind nomination. And political comebacks often fail, even in states where a candidate had a long, distinguished and popular history — ask Walter Mondale or Bob Kerrey or EvanBayh.
Mr. Romney’s only consistency in politics has been reinvention — he was a conservative, then a moderate, then a conservative again, and he changed his positions on abortion, health insurance and even the strength of his allegiance to the Republican Party — which may be an issuewith the GOP voters of Utah.
It is true that Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater went back to the Senate after leaving it to run unsuccessful presidential campaigns. John McCain never gave up his seat, and was able to return to the Senate and be happy and productive there.
But that’s the point. These were veterans of the Senate — lions of the Senate. Mr. Romney has never been a senator; he’s never even been a legislator. In fact, he has only held elective offive for four years of his long public life — as governor of Massachussetts. He did run for the Senate in that state once and was beaten, decisively, by Ted Kennedy.
If Mr. Romney wants to go to the Senate simply to have a platform as the anti-Trump, that is one thing. But voters are apt to ask whether Mr. Romney would actually be good at the actual job. He should ask himself that too: Would he really like to be a senator, andwould he make a competent one?