Public benefits from Romney in the Senate
Washington Examiner
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Republican United States Sen. Mitt Romney is on the fence about whether to run for reelection in Utah. He would do his state and country good with another term of public service.
Romney is a good man, a principled senator, and an example of patriotic integrity.
ROMNEY SAYS HE’LL MAKE HIS REELECTION DECISION BY THE FALL
The subject arises because Romney said several times in the past week that he has set a fall deadline to decide if he will campaign again.
“I’m trying to decide whether I can get some things done that I care about in another term. How productive can I be,” Romney said. “Our state deserves someone who can actually get things done, work across the aisle if need be, to accomplish things.”
In an age of not just hardball but oft-vicious politics, Romney is that rare officeholder who can rise above partisanship into statesmanship.
With the federal debt at dangerous levels and with both Social Security and Medicare facing insolvency within a decade, Romney already has had the courage to propose serious entitlement reform, and he has the gravitas to build a coalition to stave off disaster. A strong supporter of national defense, Romney has been right all along, where former President Barack Obama was dead wrong, to identify Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a preeminent adversary. As a longtime advocate of, and innovator regarding, family-first policies, Romney is pushing to reform federal aid programs from a confusing regulatory mish-mash into a streamlined grant that gives parents, not bureaucrats, more control.
Romney has also been a tower of strength in holding to account former President Donald Trump for myriad offenses against decorum, the political system, and perhaps the law. He has done so despite withering verbal assaults from Trump and MAGA fans. His stances have been brave and right. Presidents should be held to higher standards than the rest of the political world, and Romney is outspoken about Trump’s horribly low conduct.
Because Trump eked out a single election victory while Romney lost as Republican presidential nominee, Trump has labeled Romney as a “loser.” In reality, only some odd political vagaries make Trump look more successful. Indeed, Romney earned a larger share of the popular vote in his 2012 loss than Trump did in either his two runs. Trump benefited from the distribution of votes in the right places. But Romney earned his larger share of the vote against a far, far more popular politician, Barack Obama, than Trump managed even against Hillary Clinton.
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Before that, Romney was a successful conservative governor of one of the most liberal states, Massachusetts. Trump, by contrast, keeps losing ordinarily conservative states such as Arizona and Georgia.
Republicans would benefit from having Romney around to earn back some suburban voters that Trump has driven away. Utah benefits from Romney, because he gives the state an outsize voice in national councils. And the country should want Romney back because statesmanship is in short supply.