Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


McKay Coppins has written a fascinating book that is a both a biography of Mitt Romney and a real important examination of the evolution of GOP politics over the past decade or so. How Mitt Romney fit into the new Republican ecosystem and his response to the changes makes this book so much more than a standard biography.

There was plenty of publicity about Coppins access to Romney’s papers, including his daily journal, and some of the rather unflattering observations that Romney made about Senate colleagues, and assorted other GOP grandees. Coppins had to have been delighted with the great material provided by Romney, and how some of those observations got some great book buzz going. In this case the negative observations Romney made were actually more than click-bait, as they were reflective of his deep discomfort with the path that the GOP was traveling down. As the Party moved closer to Donald Trump Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee for President in 2012, moved further away from the Party.

Coppins manages to engage Romney not only on his divergence from Trumpism, but on his own compromises over the years of his political involvement. Romney reflects, and acknowledges, that some of his own political decisions may have been made out political expediency, and that charges of hypocrisy against him may have had some merit. Coppins does an extraordinary job of getting Romney to engage on this front, and I have to give some credit to Romney for his willingness to discuss and give some ground in this area.

We get a good look at the Romney biography, including his reverence for his father George Romney, and his climb into business, where he made his fortune at Bain, and his ascent into politics, including his failed effort to unseat Teddy Kennedy in a Massachusetts Senate race. Coppins does omit Romney’s rather rough treatment of Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift, who Romney swept aside as he won the Massachusetts Governors office. RomneyCare, advocated for by Romney and passed with Democratic support in Massachusetts, ultimately became a political albatross for him. A precursor to ObamaCare, Romney’s health care package in Massachusetts was both effective and popular (in Massachusetts.) As he looked to go national he had to contort himself in the most ridiculous ways to explain to the ever changing GOP why RomneyCare was different than ObamaCare, even though the basis for some of Romney’s health care plan came from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. Along with his contortions on the abortion issue Romney garnered the reputation as a “flip-flopper” without an ideological core. Coppins forces him to address these inconsistencies.

Romney’s view of Trump has evolved over the years, but from my view that evolution is more understandable than some of the other highlighted inconsistencies. Romney admits in his journal that he found Trump amusing and actually had cause to enjoy some of their interactions (well before Trump became a dominant figure in the GOP.) As Trump engaged in some outrageous behavior (including birtherism) Romney became less amused. Romney’s acceptance of Trump’s endorsement in 2012 was one of those events that Romney candidly looks back on with some level of regret. The care and feeding of the Trump ego in the 2012 campaign is covered, as well as the campaign itself, with Romney’s opinions of some of the competition not very flattering. He scores Rick Perry hard (we need candidates that can complete a sentence) with former President George W. Bush joking of Perry:

“If they thought I was stupid wait until they see him.”

Romney: A Reckoning. McKay Coppins pg. 103

Romney’s 2012 campaign gave him some taste of what was coming. The rise of the “Tea Party” and Romney’s interactions with his own voters showed the potential for a huge realignment.

“The more he traveled, though, the more he sensed that his message wasn’t working on those Tea Party voters he’d hoped to win over with policy. They nodded along at his speeches and clapped politely when he finished, but there was no conviction, no animal energy. The lack of enthusiasm perplexed Romney. He was saying all the right things, after all. He had a plan to cut taxes, trim government spending, and gradually bring down the deficit. But when he talked about those plans at town halls or Tea Party rallies, he was met with impatience, sometimes even contempt. …..At an event in New Hampshire a man confronted him with an accusatory question. ‘Are you going to compromise?’ the voter asked. ‘I don’t want to vote for anybody who is going to compromise.’

Romney: A Reckoning. McKay Coppins pg. 103-104

Romney’s defeat eventually brought him to the Senate race in Utah, where he was recruited to succeed Orrin Hatch. But before that the antics of now candidate, and soon to be President, Donald Trump, simply repulsed Romney. (He wasn’t alone) Romney unloaded on Trump in a speech given at the University of Utah. And the bad blood between the two just boiled over and has never really gone away. Romney’s descent with the GOP base can be said to have started here. Despite the Romney distaste for Trump he agreed to consider, after the Trump victory, the potential for being Secretary of State in the Trump Administration. Coppins again highlights Romney’s willingness to bend principle to achieve a political objective. Was Trump toying with Romney? We don’t know, but Romney’s willingness to abase himself was not one of his shining moments.

Romney’s vote to convict Trump on the impeachment charge related to the call to Ukraine is covered quite extensively, with Romney’s real effort to be an impartial juror flying in the face of the demands from the base, and his GOP colleagues in the Senate, to deliver a not guilty for Donald Trump. If he had a chance to recover politically within the GOP this vote sealed his fate.

This book is an easy, and excellent read. We all have our views of Mitt Romney, as do I. The book gives a tip of the hat to the idea that Romney is at heart a technocrat. His “ideological core” is a belief that he is usually the person best suited to solve problems, which Coppins assigns to his hubris. Before his national ambitions took over he was willing to do things (like RomneyCare) that he felt best addressed a policy problem. But his constituents changed, and that changed cut hard against problem solving as a governing principle. His polite demeanor and even temperament are simply not suited for a large portion of the Republican base, who want hard combat against the opposition, and are not interested in compromise. Romney can safely be characterized as a conservative, but in the more traditional, Ronald Reagan style. In light of his strong opposition to Trump there has been an assumption by some on the Democratic side that Romney would overnight become more liberal, with disappointment and criticism of him when that turned out not to be the case. The reality is that those Democrats should value the idea that a contest of ideas fought out at the ballot box between conservatives and liberals could occur without all the vitriol and hate that we have seen since 2016. Mitt Romney is definitely not perfect, but who in political life is? This book is highly recommended.

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