For years, Mitt Romney had a reputation as a flip-flopper, an opportunist, a politician who would tailor his beliefs to fit whichever group he was trying to please.
Running for office in deep-blue Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002, he pronounced himself strongly pro-choice. Running for the Republican presidential nomination in pro-life Iowa and South Carolina, he became just as strongly pro-life.
As governor of Massachusetts, he produced a universal healthcare program that prefigured Obamacare. Appealing to GOP voters deeply opposed to Obama, Romney renounced his signature accomplishment.
Running for office in Massachusetts, Romney backed away from the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Running in the Republican primaries, he embraced the GOP’s favorite president.
Running for office in Massachusetts, Romney eschewed the label of conservative Republican. “My views are progressive,” he said in 2002, pronouncing himself a “moderate.” Ten years later, running in the GOP primaries, he famously declared himself “severely conservative.”
And so on. Romney could never escape the opportunist label, mostly because it fit.
Until now. As the junior senator from Utah, on Wednesday, Romney voted to convict and remove President Trump from office, becoming the first senator in U.S. history to vote to remove a president of his own party. To hear some mainstream journalists tell the story, Romney’s years of opportunism just melted away, replaced by a profile in courage.
“A profile in courage,” declared the Washington Post.
“A profile in courage,” declared the Atlantic.
“A profile in courage,” declared CNN.
Romney meticulously prepared the media rollout of his new profile in courage. Before he announced his intention to vote against Trump, he arranged for interviews with the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, and Fox News — all embargoed until he made his decision public on the Senate floor.
“Romney’s media plan around this is really a wonder to behold,” noted BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith.
One of those pre-interviews was with the New York Times‘s podcast The Daily. Romney conceded the charge of political opportunism in the past. “My guess is that I was influenced in some cases by political benefit,” he said, “and I regret that.”
But what about now? The New York Times’s Mark Leibovich suggested that with the anti-Trump vote, Romney might be trying to make up for times past. “He has always been very aware of his own political narrative,” Leibovich said. “He has been aware of how he was viewed, maybe as a political opportunist, him maybe doing things out of expediency rather than principle. And I think ultimately one of the things that this Senate chapter has done for him in his career is that it has enabled him to maybe rewrite the ending, maybe recast himself as someone who did feel as if he was doing the right thing at the expense of whatever the expedient decision at the moment would have been.”
And so, the Old Romney became the New Romney. “His career … is littered with examples of moments where it seems like he wanted to be on both sides of an issue, or he ‘evolved’ in ways that felt opportunistic,” the New York Times’s Michael Barbaro said. “Yet at this moment, he becomes a senator of conscience.”
But Barbaro, who covered Romney’s 2012 presidential run, wondered whether it might not be that simple, whether all might not be exactly as it seems, whether there might still be a bit of Old Romney at work. “But it’s a moment where his vote to convict the president on one of two counts has no impact whatsoever on the process,” Barbaro said. “Romney is the lone dissenting voice in a case that he can have no influence over.”
Barbaro compared Romney’s anti-Trump vote to the deciding vote the late Sen. John McCain cast to kill the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare. That was a consequential vote, one where the fate of a major political issue rested entirely on McCain’s shoulders. Romney’s vote, even though it earned him the scorn of Trump supporters, was nevertheless not terribly consequential. Trump would remain in office whether he cast it or not.
On the plus side, the vote would win Romney widespread praise across much of the media. How often can one become a profile in courage? That would certainly feel good, especially for a man who was excoriated by some of those same media voices when he ran against Barack Obama eight years ago.
Now, Romney will take plenty of hits from the Trump side — and from the president himself. But there are clearly benefits as well. So, just as it was in the old days, the question is: Who is Romney trying to please?
It is often remarked that Trump, at 73 years of age, is not going to change. That certainly appears to be true. And what about the 72-year-old Mitt Romney? A career in politics led to his vote Wednesday. Although he is a man with some undeniably good qualities, those who have watched him over the years will wonder whether the vote was truly something new or the Romney they have known for a long time.
