Yesterday, U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney announced that he would not seek reelection in 2024, noting in a deft and apt slap at both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, “Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders.” As all who care are aware, Sen. Romney has consistently stood, at times virtually alone in his party, against the malign behavior wrought upon our nation by Mr. Trump and his sect. Throughout his life, Mr. Romney has been an active member of his church; however, unlike large segments of Christian Evangelicals, he has not found his opposition to abortion incompatible with a repugnance at Mr. Trump’s abhorrent behavior. As long ago as a March, 2016, speech, Mr. Romney called Mr. Trump “a phony, a fraud … He’s playing members of the American public for suckers.” Mr. Romney was the only Republican Senator to vote to remove Mr. Trump following the former president’s first impeachment in the House of Representatives for seeking to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to assist him politically against Mr. Biden, and the Senator voted to remove Mr. Trump following the former president’s second House impeachment for inciting the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mr. Romney was handily defeated by then-President Barack Obama. I think highly of Mr. Obama personally; I voted for him in 2008 and 2012. I think he did a good job in his first term. That said, a case can certainly be made that Mr. Romney would have been the better choice in 2012. In a March, 2012, CNN interview, Mr. Romney called Russia, “Our number one geopolitical foe,” and was widely derided by Mr. Obama and his surrogates for his “dated” views. At the time, I agreed with Mr. Obama and his team. We were wrong. Mr. Obama was, in my view, a poor foreign policy president in his second term. The strong impression remains that Mr. Romney would have done better.
In the 1970s Mr. Romney joined Bain & Company, ultimately became its Chief Executive Officer, and helped lead the company through a financial crisis. In 1984, he led a spin-off, Bain Capital, which became a highly successful private equity investment firm. He later successfully led the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The Senator’s announcement made me reflect upon his impressive career in both the public and private sectors and to contrast it with the behavior of so many of our officeholders of both parties; Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, currently groveling before the House MAGA Freedom Caucus by instituting an impeachment inquiry against Mr. Biden despite a seeming lack of evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Biden’s part, comes most immediately to mind. It reminded me of comments by another storied Republican:
“Almost immediately after leaving Harvard in 1880 I began to take an interest in politics. I did not then believe, and I do not now believe, that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and his whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office. A man should have some other occupation – I had several other occupations – to which he can resort if at any time he is thrown out of office, or if at any time he finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably result in his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his conscience.”
- The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt, Sagamore Hill, October 1, 1913
Whether or not one agrees with Mr. Romney on every substantive issue, he has repeatedly shown himself a man of honor and conscience, unwilling, in Mr. Roosevelt’s words, “to barter his convictions” to appease his party’s prevailing sentiment. He will remain as estimable upon leaving office as he was in office. His departure will not be his loss; it will be ours.
McCoy's Noise 