The Republican Senator for Utah by way of Massachusetts speaks his mind finally about the party he’s been running with….
It is NOT pretty what he says about fellow Republicans in biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” …..
“Romney: A Reckoning,” by McKay Coppins, has already scored in the marketplace of tittle-tattle. A recent excerpt in the Atlantic (where Coppins is a staff writer) yielded up several items worthy of Page Six, if not Page One. To wit: that soon-to-be ex-senator Mitt Romney — he has decided not to run for reelection — holds many of his colleagues in low esteem; that he finds Mike Pence’s “pious brand of Trump sycophancy” off-putting; and that he keeps a bar of “Trump’s Small Hand Soap” in the powder room of his Washington pied-à-terre.
That’s the sizzle, but how satisfying is the full 400-page meal? It’s occasionally interesting and often a little bland, like Romney himself. “I was accused of being inauthentic,” Romney told Coppins. “But in reality, that’s just who I am. I’m the authentic person who seems inauthentic.”…
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One downside of “Romney: A Reckoning” is the reckoning part.
The book indulges an effusion of public hand-wringing as Romney works overtime to square himself with the historical record. Does he really regret laying off workers in his Bain years — corporate CEOs lay off workers every day, after all — or does he regret the toll those layoffs took on his wooing of union voters? We watch him rationalize his pro-abortion-rights platform in Massachusetts, in conflict with Mormon doctrine, by noting that church leaders said abortion was “like unto murder” but not, well, actual murder….
The NY Times piece gives Romney’s view on his fellow GOPer’s
Mr. Romney’s advisers in 2012 suggested that he consider Chris Christie, then the governor of New Jersey, as a running mate, according to the book.
But Mr. Romney had reservations about Mr. Christie’s “prima donna tendencies,” and worried that the governor was not “up to the physical demands” of being on the ticket and was plagued by “barely buried” scandals, Mr. Coppins writes.
The two also came into conflict in 2016 after Mr. Christie became one of the first establishment Republicans to back Mr. Trump…
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“Mr. Romney wanted to like the governor,” Mr. Coppins writes. The senator said that it was a “no-brainer” to support Mr. DeSantis if it meant keeping Mr. Trump out of the White House.
Yet Mr. Romney appeared to have reservations. He worried that Mr. DeSantis shared “odious qualities” with Mr. Trump, pointing to his penchant for stoking the culture wars and his fight with the Walt Disney Company.
And Mr. Romney appeared to have objections to the Florida governor on a more personal level.
“There’s just no warmth at all,” Mr. Romney said. He added that when Mr. DeSantis posed for photos with Iowa voters, “he looks like he’s got a toothache.”…
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As he does with many other Republicans in the book, Mr. Romney hammers Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, over what he sees as a gap between his public and private statements relating to Mr. Trump…..
There’s an extra dimension to the Romney/Christie business.
In October, 2012, after Hurricane Sandy hit, Romney offered to pitch in with relief efforts in any way possible. Christie not only snubbed Romney, but went on to hug it out with President Obama for the press. Probably a deciding moment in that election, and one that set Christie up for a 2016 bid.
Of course, Christie’s own efforts shut all that down.