Romney stands out, but doesn’t surprise, in Trump’s rebuke

Senator Mitt Romney was visibly angry. Hours earlier Wednesday, the Capitol had been violated by violent supporters of President Trump.

As he and his peers huddled in a safe part of the complex, Romney angered that the president and his facilitators in Congress were responsible for the attack on American democracy. Late in the evening, as Senators confirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Romney delivered a scathing speech exciting elected officials who put political ambition ahead of nation – the natural climax of a danger Romney was pointing to. has kept for more than four years.

“We are meeting today because of the hurt pride of a selfish man and the indignation of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed over the past two months and called into action this very morning,” Romney said, speaking in the Senate chamber about Trump’s baseless claims that the November election was rigged.

“I don’t know I’ve ever seen him so angry,” said Katie Packer Beeson, deputy campaign manager for Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. “But I also thought that I had never been so proud to be identified as a ‘Romney person’.”

This slightly disheveled hair, obviously furious, Romney was different from the cool, sometimes woody candidate Americans might remember from the 2008 and 2012 election campaign, a candidate who said “hell” or “damn” when he felt particularly passionate. Shortly before speaking, Romney was seated behind Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri who was among the most prominent supporters of an effort to overturn the November election results. Dressed in a face mask with only his eyes visible, Romney appeared to shoot daggers at the back of Hawley’s head.

People close to him, as well as non-partisan political observers who have followed his career for two decades, say Romney’s speech was the distillation of his life’s experiences, starting with looking at his father, a former GOP governor of the Michigan, facing the wrath of his party for his support for civil rights.

“You have to go back to his father, George Romney, who stood up for justice in the ’60s. He learned from that,” said David Kochel, Romney’s longtime senior adviser.

They also emphasize Romney’s Mormon faith.

After Romney was the only Republican to vote for Trump’s impeachment last year, he told a reporter he drew on his experiences growing up a Mormon among those who didn’t share or understand his religion.

After regularly facing small tests of conscience, when a bigger challenge looms, “you are not in a position where you don’t know how to defend something difficult”, he said, according to the Atlantic.

Romney’s allies also point to his experience as a two-time presidential loser, in the 2008 GOP primary and then in the 2012 general election.

“2012 was a really tough campaign. He conceded, and he did so with grace. He stepped out of the spotlight and didn’t criticize [President] Obama in the interim, ”said Lanhee Chen, former political adviser to Romney who now teaches at Stanford University. “All of these things are important lessons from the 2012 campaign.”

That’s not to say Romney has been a perfectly consistent politician. As governor of Massachusetts, he was centrist, but he swung hard to the right during the presidential primaries of 2008 and 2012, especially on immigration.

During this latest campaign, he actively sought the approval of Trump, who then was still pushing false “birther” Obama theories. This culminated in a squeaky scene where Trump supported Romney at his gold-crusted hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

“There are things you cannot imagine happening in your life. He’s one of them, ”Romney said at the time.

The 73-year-old multimillionaire, who tried to derail Trump’s 2016 nomination because he believed he was dangerous to the GOP and the nation, is helped by the fact that he is unlikely to run again in the presidency, nor probably will. face a major challenge in the Senate in Utah, a state where his family is popular and where Republicans have shown particular distrust of Trump.

“He’s at a different stage in his life and in his career,” Chen said. “But you see other people in relatively secure political situations who haven’t taken the measure of the risk he took.”

Romney faced repercussions; he was trolled by Trump when he spoke out against him. He was subjected to the wrath of Trump supporters; On Tuesday, some of them confronted him at the Salt Lake City airport and then chanted, “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! ”On a flight to Washington.

Still, Brigham Young University political scientist Quin Monson said he didn’t anticipate Romney would lose any notable support because of his speech on Wednesday.

“I don’t think Mitt Romney has done any harm politically,” he said. “People really unhappy with Mitt Romney were already unhappy. They were already outside looking for him.

But now maybe less vocally, said Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. “People who normally stand up and say Mitt Romney isn’t right – none of those voices are present,” Perry said Thursday of the political gossip in the state. “No one was defending the actions of the people who stormed the Capitol yesterday.”

Throughout his career, Romney has been defined by his seriousness, a trait widely mocked by his rival GOP campaigns and on “Saturday Night Live.” This attribute could even explain his changes in stance, Monson said, such as meeting with Trump about a potential Cabinet appointment after the 2016 election, although he sharply criticized him.

“I think he was seriously trying to be of service knowing he was dealing with the devil,” said Monson, whose Y2 Analytics company conducted polls for Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign.

Romney was a quintessential post WWII presence, before the counterculture that didn’t seem to fit the 21st century. He loved to sing a stanza from “America the Beautiful” at gatherings, and would light up when describing meeting his “sweetheart” Ann when she was 15.

Packer Beeson recalled the derision Romney received during his presidential campaigns as a trapped man in the 1950s and as “Mr. Smith is going to Washington ”guy.

“Sometimes I look at it and I think, ‘You come from a time when we were better than this,’” Packer Beeson said. “I think a lot of people don’t understand this character in ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ‘wasn’t weak because he wasn’t that big boastful big man.

“Force comes in many different forms and doesn’t always look like what some think it looks like today,” she said. “Certainly what we saw from Mitt Romney yesterday was strength.”

Some in Romney’s inner circle say that rather than a defining moment, Wednesday’s speech simply reflected the man they had known for a long time. And, they added, the fact that it sounds extraordinary says more about today’s politics than an elected official.

“What we saw with his speech … was not the product of deep soul-searching and steel-jawed integrity, but rather the result of establishing fundamental principles in his life and to live according to them, “said Matt Waldrip, the outgoing senator. chief of staff who worked with Romney most of his adult life. “If what Romney did last night was our measure of integrity, we need to raise the bar.”