Editor’s Note: Lanhee J. Chen, PhD is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion and the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. Chen has played senior roles in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations and been an adviser to four presidential campaigns, including as policy director of Romney-Ryan 2012. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN.
It’s no wonder that in a hyper-partisan US Congress, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney would decide that now is the time to cede the stage. His reputation as a problem-solver who seeks compromise is increasingly out of step with where most Republican politicians, and even where many voters in the party, are today.
“I understand that I have a few folks that don’t like me terribly much, and I’m sorry about that,” he said, as he was heckled at a party convention in Utah two years ago. “But I express my mind as I believe is right and I follow my conscience as I believe is right.”
Indeed, the conservative senator has left a remarkable legacy, precisely because of his willingness to follow his heart and go his own way, even when it means running afoul of others in his party.
And yet, Romney possesses a pragmatic streak that has allowed him to partner with both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on issues as wide ranging as infrastructure reform, religious liberty and overhaul of entitlements. To have worked for and with him — as I did as one of his advisors during his two presidential runs — has been one of the great privileges of my time in politics.
Romney announced on Wednesday that he would not run for re-election. The Utah senator, who was elected in November 2018, has served four-and-a-half years in the US Senate, and now has just 16 months remaining — a relatively brief tenure in a body where political careers can be measured in decades.
The departure of such a decent and dignified figure from public life is a loss for our country and politics. In my view, Romney is one of the last remaining true policy wonks in Congress—someone who takes the time to understand a problem, revels in becoming well-versed in the details and then makes informed decisions on how he should vote. He has never been strictly rooted in politics or ideology.
There are, of course, some issues Romney cares more about than others, including addressing our national debt and ensuring that America is prepared to deal with the challenges posed by an ever-more aggressive China. And he has been particularly outspoken about countering climate change, an issue that has left him at odds with many in the GOP.
And, of course, for years, Romney has expressed his strong opposition to the actions and words of former President Donald Trump. These views have earned him the ire of many Republicans in recent years.
Trump appears to be undeterred in his current march to the Republican presidential nomination. But unlike many in the GOP, Romney is one of the few Republican leaders daring to urge the party to go in a different direction.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal this past July, for instance, he wrote, “Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego” without calling out Trump by name — not that he needed to.
A recent CNN poll showed Trump with a formidable lead among Republican voters over his other contenders for the nomination. Some 52% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters support the former president, according to the survey.
In a myriad of ways, the two men could not be more different. Trump had what was seen by some to be an uncomfortably cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Romney, by contrast, has long insisted that Russia has been our number one “geopolitical opponent.”
The discussion reflected Romney’s interest in backing the right policies, not just the ones that were the most politically expedient. But as it turns out, his careful approach to policy often got him to the right answer—leaving even ardent Democrats to admit that he was prescient to call out Russia a decade ago.
There are numerous times that Romney has expressed his dismay at how the party that he grew up in and was once the presidential nominee of has changed so dramatically. Yet, he was not above self-critique—something I have always admired about him. In recent years, his observations about the state of the GOP have often been followed by self-critical musings about the role he might have played in facilitating the environment that exists today.
Of course, the GOP is where it is today because of many compromises, not just those that he or his campaign made in 2012. But that he is willing to both reflect on and admit some fault is, in part, what defines him as a leader of conscience.
His profound sense of decency is one of the reasons why so many people care so much about the retirement of a man who’s been in the Senate for such a short time. He has been willing to do what he believes to be right — consequences be damned.
Never shy to do what he feels is right, in his final months in the Senate, Romney will be even more unencumbered, untroubled by a future election campaign or the need to maintain a semblance of party unity. If he succeeds in moving the needle even a little on the issues he cares about, Romney’s grand finale — this time between now and his departure from the Senate in January 2025 — could be among the most consequential moments of a storied career.
