February 5, 2020: Your Father's Romney, From The Shadows, His Father's Son

“Romney wrestled with his conscience and his conscience won”.

           ----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

It was a desperate struggle, and by all accounts a close thing. But in the end, the inner soul of the Mormon from Utah finally pinned 'Mitt' to the mat. Mitt Romney then rose and stood in the well of the senate and announced that he would be the first Senator in the history of this republic to vote to convict a sitting president of his own party. At long last, the well-greased weather vane had found true truth, and it was a majestic sight to see.

Willard 'Mitt' Romney is the former Governor of Massachusetts and now Republican Senator from Utah. He is also the son of former Governor of Michigan, George Romney. George came to national prominence as the Chairman and CEO of American Motors which, in the late 1950's, was the third largest manufacturer of automobiles in the United States. He parlayed that profile into a political career, first leading the convention that re-wrote the Michigan constitution and then becoming Governor of the state by defeating the Democratic incumbent in 1962. By 1968 he was serving his third term when he announced that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination. At the time he was considered to be the most serious challenger to former Vice President Richard Nixon. He had the backing of Nelson Rockefeller and the 'eastern establishment'. He was rightly seen as a heavyweight contender for the nomination.

Then, a reporter asked him about Viet Nam. He had growing doubts about the war and didn't see it ending soon. He didn't accept that the 'corner had been turned', that there was 'light at the end of the tunnel.' He responded not with the stock soundbites of assurance, nor the call for greater military action but instead told the nation that he had been misled; that he had been 'brainwashed' by the war hawks, diplomatic establishment and the pentagon. The remark, genuine and true, provoked a firestorm of ridicule and drove him from the national stage. But in the aftermath, there has always been this nagging doubt that weren't we all brainwashed?

George Romney always had the courage of his convictions. He knew when he said it what the response would be. The country lifted the word brainwashed from it's context and a firestorm of ridicule ensued. His best defense was that it was an unfortunate choice of words, but what other words would have sufficed? Had he said that he was misled made any difference? For the nation asked, incredulously, how can a man who has been brainwashed be president? Asking the same question by substituting the word 'misled' would hardly have made a difference.

You see, George Romney knew that to speak the truth required that the truth be confronted. There is no way to sugarcoat it. One must recognize when mistakes have been made. There are political risks involved, especially on the high wire of presidential politics. But George decided, in the wake of The Tet Offensive, to do the honorable thing. He declared that he had been misled.

George's son Willard, now known as 'Mitt', witnessed the calumny visited upon his father's head. He saw up close the cost of principle. He knows the vituperation and abuse that will almost certainly follow.  He had  watched the firestorm consume his father's career; he watched helplessly as his father was driven from the forum. Nevertheless, George has cast a long shadow, for as the din of battle receded a nagging doubt emerged that perhaps all of us were misled, perhaps we all had been brainwashed.

For each of us it is a long journey to emerge from the shadows cast by our fathers, to stand outside the comforting shade of convention, to find ourselves alone in the sunlight.

At long last, 'Mitt' has emerged from beneath the shadow of his father: a man who refused on principle to embrace the madness of Aynn Rand fictions and throw his arms around Goldwater; a man who campaigned on principle against the troglodytes of his own party in order to fashion a platform upon which he could govern his home state of Michigan; a man who could on principle admit a mistake and further admit that he could be and was misled on Viet Nam knowing that ridicule awaited; A man who could on principle put the interests of the polity ahead of personal ambition. George Romney was a statesman, his son a mere politician.

Until today. As Mitt struggled with himself his conscience whispered “what would your father do?” and therein Willard knew his answer. Today, 'Mitt' found his bearings and moved out of the shadow. Today, 'Mitt' became his father's son.

It is and will remain an act of extraordinary valor; an act for which he should and will be long venerated. To date we have had three impeachments and hundreds of votes for and against removing a president from office. Mitt Romney stands alone as the only Senator to oppose his own party and vote to convict. In a process wherein the Generation of Swine once again vandalizes our constitution and the institutions that it created, Mitt Romney stands alone, a true profile in courage.

Willard is your father's Romney. It wasn't the voice of his conscience or his god that he heard as he struggled. It was the voice of his father whispering in his ears.  George would be proud of his son.

August 4, 2012: Raising Lazarus, In Service of a Villain, Not Your Father’s Romney

Seventeen years ago, in August of 1995, a movement was born in Ionia County Michigan calling itself the “Ethics in Good Government”, or EGG for short.  It was headed up by a lay preacher named Cliff Lazurus and funded by Ionia County’s most nefarious slum lord.  Brandishing the usual right-wing platitudes about government tyranny and black helicopters about to be sent by the U.N. these would be reformers organized a recall effort against nearly every elected township official not in line with their agenda, be they Democratic or Republican.

This movement emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in which members of a Michigan Militia were implicated.  In a rehearsal for what would be repeated in 2009 by the so-called “Teabaggers”, township halls were flooded with irate citizens shouting down town meetings, many protesters dressed in the camouflaged garb of Militiamen uttering dark threats to township officials. It was pure brown-shirt tactics carried out at the local township level with the predictable effect.

I happened to hold the position of Democratic Party Chairman at the time, and was also employed at the local radio station as an account executive.  As the local scene was reaching a crisis, it so happened that the head of the Ionia County Republican Party, who happened to also be the elected county prosecutor, was making his monthly appearance on the radio station’s daily “Viewpoint” program.  I decided to put off making sales calls and wait and speak with him when the program ended.

When the program was over I went into the studio and sat down.  “Ray”, I said, “we have a problem.”  I then suggested that the parties join forces and publicly announce that we would, both parties, support any township or county official so challenged by this group whatever their party affiliation.  “Can you get your group to go along with it?” he asked.  ‘I’ll resign if they don’t” was my reply.  So we agreed to each of us go to our respective parties and get motions passed to the effect that we would support elected members of the opposite party if challenged by this group.

The respective meetings, were both tumultuous, for such action was unheard of in this jurisdiction.  The Republicans had a tougher time of it since most members of the EGG group were libertarians and more closely aligned ideologically to their party.  Indeed several of the chief organizers were at the Republican affair.  But, as the majority party holding nearly all the county-wide offices , they were, as I pointed out to the Republican Chairman, in a position where they had much more to lose.  On our side I made the point that if we wanted to be players on the county level we needed to stand up and take a position in defense of sound local governance.  After previously securing the support of several of the local party chieftains the motion was introduced at our monthly meeting and, after much haggling, and with more reticence, it was passed.  On the other side, a much more heated ordeal produced an identical result.

Accordingly the way was cleared for me to meet with Mr. Vogt, the County Prosecutor and hammer out a joint press release in which we came to the defense of our elected representatives.

It made front page in the Ionia Sentinel-Standard and touched off a howl of protest from the EGG group to the effect that we were silencing them with strong-arm tactics, violating in the process their constitutional rights to free speech.   

Working weekends on a second job at the local dollar store, I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon composing a letter to the editor in which I took the would-be Adams’ and Madisions’ to task, informing them in no uncertain terms that they have never been restricted from speaking, that we as political parties have a right to function as anyone else in the political arena, and that the next time they read the constitution they should do so only after enlisting the help of someone who can explain to them what it means.

Two days after my letter was published I got a visit at my home.  It was Cliff Lazarus.  He spent nearly two hours trying to convince me that the objects of his organization were right and honorable.  I told him that he was in service of a villain; that the only object his sponsor had in mind was to ensure that no ordinance would be put into place which would require him to fix up his properties, nor sell homes without sewage hookup or floors to people who were mentally challenged.  Cliff did his best to persuade me, but I told him that if he was going to throw that lame shit I can hit it out of the park at will, and the letter to the editor was a roof shot clearing the light standards.  “Cliff”, I said, “I can crank that kind of response out in my sleep”.  He returned disappointed to his movement leaving me to wonder once again how the “lord works in mysterious ways”. 

The public actions taken by the leadership and both political parties in the face of local barbarism served to energize the local community.  The day after the Sentinel published my letter to the editor, I was making my rounds down Main Street when out stepped John McNamara, then the City Attorney.  “Great job, Joe”….he yelled out as we headed in opposite directions. Accordingly the EGG movement quickly began to lose traction.  In the subsequent recall elections only one elected official, an Orleans township supervisor was recalled from office.  Later when the slum lord himself stood for election to the County Commission he was roundly drubbed in a heavily conservative district. 

Past as Prelude:  I am recalling these events as a demonstration of what happens when the power structure decides to act.  This is what happened in the 1950S when Bill Buckley led those in charge of the Republican Party  to purge itself of the John Bircher’s.  This is what happened when the Republican establishment joined forces with those on the “left” to censure Joe McCarthy.  This is what happened when the Democratic Leadership spoke out against the idiocy of the Libertarians posing as “leftists” at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.  We are beginning to hear murmurs within the Conservative movement in opposition to the Idiot-wrong.  The Speaker as well as John McCain have mildly chided Representative Bachmann for her charge that one of Hillary Clinton’s aides has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and that the movement is infiltrating the State Department.  A Republican Congressman from Ohio has resigned his seat, citing the inability of his party to be reasonable and to compromise in order to get anything done.  A New York Congressional Republican has likewise criticized his party’s intransigence.  What’s missing here, is what was missing in Ionia County prior to that meeting at the radio station between the two party Chairmen—the voice from the top.

This is not your father’s Romney.  George took on the tin hats in his party, openly fielding Republican challengers to elected Republican members of the house that were so far wrong that they would prove useless in the greater effort to move the state forward.  George, famously, refused to endorse Goldwater in 1964, uncomfortable being associated with extremism.  George not only took stands on principle but, more importantly, acted on them.  Not so his son.