The Man and the Mitt
Eastland, Terry
The Man and the Mitt A Republican grows in Massachusetts. BY TERRY EASTLAND MITT ROMNEY isn't someone Democrats from the 50 states have traveled to Boston wanting to meet and greet. Yes, Romney...
...In the last statewide election, the party declined to challenge two-thirds of the Democratic incumbents...
...His father George was CEO of American Motors and then a three-term governor of Michigan...
...opposes same-sex marriage but votes against the Defense of Marriage Act...
...I'd be pleased as punch to be invited to Democratic functions," says Romney, a Mormon who, consistent with the teachings of his faith, sips nothing stronger than punch, which is assuredly not the drink of choice when the parties hold their quadrennial, week-long benders, also known as nominating conventions...
...Yes, Romney is governor of the Bay State, but he is also a Republican...
...He's in the toughest political state in the country [for a Republican], and yet he has succeeded as a tax-stopping conservative...
...I'm surprised he didn't choose himself to be his running mate," cracks Romney, his point being that you could balance the ticket with two different Kerrys...
...Held soon after September 11, the Winter Olympics were widely thought to be a possible target of terrorist attack...
...But here the GOP is too small for the system to work the way it is supposed to...
...Romney is not only rich but, by all accounts, richly generous...
...The gap is just too large...
...Romney, a youthful 57, has been the subject of speculation about 2008, and it's easy to see why...
...If I were spending money [on Bush ads], I wouldn't spend it here...
...But Romney also has worked down spending through government consolidation and reform...
...Agreement, but later decries the measure...
...My presence is not in big demand...
...You could say he was born to it...
...Not that Romney has succeeded in doing all he would like to streamline and improve Massachusetts government...
...On June 30 the state ended fiscal year 2004 with a $700 million surplus...
...He's taken a big-spending, liberal mentality and made the state more business friendly...
...Romney was asked to come in and fix it all, and he did...
...Knowing the obvious, that you can't win if you don't run, Romney has made candidate recruitment a high priority...
...In 1984 he began a venture capital company that invested in new enterprises and also acquired "troubled enterprises...
...Romney is a big supporter of school choice...
...It's hard to imagine that Massachusetts once was a strongly Republican state...
...Indeed, though he once ran for the Senate, losing to Ted Kennedy in 1994 by 58 to 41 percent (Kennedy's closest race since 1962), it's hard to imagine his doing anything other than the work of an executive...
...The state legislature is heavily Democratic: 33 Democrats and 7 Republicans in the Senate, and 138 Democrats and 22 Republicans in the House...
...Mitt Romney would do well governing a red state, but he stands out astride one of the bluest...
...Wants to make medicine affordable for all but won't rein in malpractice windfalls for the trial lawyers...
...Romney's vetoes are subject to override by a two-thirds vote, and few have stuck, though one did last week—a victory for charter schools...
...Romney talks about Kerry not as one pol might talk about another with whom he was jousting on the floor of the Senate or competing on the campaign trail, but as a constituent...
...Far from it...
...Argues for better intelligence, but attacks the Patriot Act, notwithstanding that it strengthens our intel capability...
...Soon after the games ended, Rom-ney decided to run for governor of Massachusetts...
...He has been my senator for almost two decades," says Romney, and yet "I do not know what he stands for...
...And his "biggest turn-around," he says, came with the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City...
...He quickly acquired a reputation for his turn-around skills, becoming a very highly compensated business executive...
...Especially notable was the effective security operation he ran...
...Nor, you can be sure, will his take on John Kerry be popular with the assembling Democrats...
...Most people expected tax increases," says Romney, who refused to go that route or to borrow funds...
...Interestingly, those are the qualities most apparent in Romney himself...
...Romney doesn't press further to ask whether the junior senator from Massachusetts might lack the executive qualities (such as firmness of decision) needed in a president...
...Wants better education, but won't take on the teachers' unions...
...But the state is probably the most Democratic there is...
...Both senators are Democrats...
...Votes for the North American Free Trade Terry Eastland is publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...When they did (clearing $40 million), Rom-ney took the three years' pay owed him—and gave it all to charity...
...So are the 10 members of Congress...
...The games were deep in debt (to the tune of $379 million) and beset by financial scandal...
...Romney says there is "a streak of fiscal conservatism" and "independence" in the state, noting that Massachusetts voted twice for Ronald Reagan...
...You'll notice the adjectives Romney uses: "trouble" and "troubled...
...An improving economy has helped turn things around...
...Most observers thought that whoever was elected would eventually be governing a state in deficit by as much as $1.5 billion...
...Upon taking office, Romney discovered a current deficit of $650 million and an anticipated one in his second year of $3 billion...
...After Harvard, Rom-ney stayed in Boston and joined a consulting firm, working with, as he puts it, "good companies and some in trouble...
...His senator takes "conflicted positions...
...Michael Murphy, a political strategist who has worked for Romney, calls him "a superstar...
...Democracy really works best when there are two strong parties," says Romney, "and the failings or excesses of the one are routinely pointed out by the other...
...Romney is under no illusion, however, that George W. Bush could win the Bay State...
...We didn't get a lot of time together in B-school," Romney recalls...
...Worse, he believes, contra the nationally unsettling decision of his own state's supreme court, that marriage consists only of the union of a man and a woman...
...Romney isn't shy about taking his case to the people, aware that the people do seem to like having a Republican governor, if only to avoid a unified government that might drive the state over the fiscal cliff...
...Romney also made a daring executive gesture by conditioning his acceptance of the offered $275,000 annual salary on the games' turning a profit...
...Romney is the fourth straight Republican since Bill Weld was elected in 1990 to serve as governor of Massachusetts...
...Earlier Romney had made a gift to the games of $1 million...
...Wants leaner government, but won't challenge the public employee unions that make it fat and sleek...
...A 1971 graduate of Brigham Young University, Mitt did the four-year joint business-and-law degree program at Harvard, where he met another student of executive mien, George W. Bush...
...Another turnaround job...
...He has been courageous in opposing same-sex marriage, and he's been an innovator in taking the 'hack-factor' down in state government...
...In the past eight presidential elections, no state has given the Democratic candidate a wider average margin over the Republican candidate (53 percent to 39 percent), and this time around the Democratic candidate is actually a son of Massachusetts...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 44
