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Jennifer Rubin: What to expect from Romney in his Senate run

It would be delightful to live in a political world in which the president would endorse Romney... only to have Romney declare “I don’t want your stinkin’ endorsement!”

Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks from the bed of his pickup truck at a rally for campaign workers gathering signatures in Orem, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018. His granddaughter Allie is at right.

The Post reports:

“A presidential tweet and a polite thank you in reply underscored the complicated path for Mitt Romney as he begins his quest for a Senate seat in Utah. Entering the competition was the first and perhaps easiest step in his return to public life. Deciding what to do if he wins presents more difficult choices. The tweet came Monday night, from President Donald Trump, Romney’s nemesis for the past few years. It was a formal endorsement of his candidacy. ‘Thank you Mr. President,’ Romney tweeted back, in partial reply. The exchange drew a flood of Twitter commentary, mostly unfavorable toward Romney, recalling all the critical things he had said about Trump during the 2016 campaign and since.”

He had also said he would not, knowing what he does now, have accepted Trump’s endorsement in 2012.

It would be delightful to live in a political world in which the president would endorse Romney — signaling no primary challenge nor spitball-throwing from the right — only to have Romney declare “I don’t want your stinkin’ endorsement!” Romney instead chose a terse “thank you” and immediate pivot to expressing his desire to earn the trust of Utah voters.

So what’s reasonable to expect from Romney? My Post colleague Dan Balz suggests,

“For those who hope Romney runs primarily out of pique toward the president, there will be disappointment — as the exchange Monday night showed. But there will be disillusionment among those who admire him if he shrinks from truly standing up as needed to the president.”

How should Romney navigate through the campaign?

Free advice is worth what you pay for it, but here goes: Romney would do well to divide the political landscape into four quadrants.

First are those presidential utterances and actions that all decent Americans should reject — attacks on the courts, false allegations of widespread voter fraud, smears on the FBI, ridicule of the First Amendment, etc. When asked (or even when not asked), Romney must speak out or risk becoming another spineless Republican in a crowd of Trump enablers. He will be joined at times by retiring Republicans, about the only ones in the GOP with the nerve to denounce the president, but otherwise by few other elected Republicans.

He should not play the game of addressing the issue (e.g. Russian interference in our election) while remaining silent on Trump’s unacceptable actions (“The president should cease demonizing law enforcement and start holding the Kremlin responsible”). If he cannot utter such words, then what really is the point of running? He will have ceded the GOP to Trump — which he could easily do by staying home to play with his grandkids.

Second are the institutional failures of the Senate, which Romney is duty-bound to identify and to respond to with his suggestions for corrective action. The Senate, for example, has not held a single hearing on White House conflicts of interest. Republicans have declined to challenge exercise of executive authority, which is identical to the power grabs they opposed under President Barack Obama. For example, Congress should have challenged the executive orders on Muslim immigrants, asserting its authority to legislate and objecting to a shift in immigration law by executive decree. If Romney wants to run as someone intent on restoring constitutional balance, he needs to make the case now to voters. That requires he demonstrate some tough love for GOP leaders in the Senate and House.

The third category consists of traditional policy positions — free trade, fiscal sobriety, support for our intelligence community, legal immigration, defense of international human rights — that Trump has trashed but which Romney presumably still holds.

He made a promising start in his announcement video wherein he cited budgetary discipline (“Utah has a lot to teach the politicians in Washington. Utah has balanced its budgets. Washington is buried in debt”) and immigration (“Utah welcomes legal immigrants from around the world. Washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion”). If he shies from criticism of the president on these fronts, Romney will again undermine the rationale for his campaign.

The final category consists of those issues on which Romney, wisely or not in our view, agrees with the president. He’s not going to please many anti-Trump Americans in praising tax cuts (if he chooses to) or support for coal (if he decides to), but he is obligated not to adopt the specious justifications. (The tax cuts as passed will not pay for themselves; climate change is real.) The “ordinary” policy differences with Romney will and should continue, but denouncing Romney as a Trump sellout for supporting tax cuts (which I and fiscal conservatives opposed) is neither fair nor productive.

Keep in mind that Romney’s race is one in which there is no realistic possibility for Democrats to flip the seat. In other states, I do not suggest supporting Republicans on the grounds that they are somewhat better than Trump and other incumbents when their most important vote, for House speaker or Senate majority leader, will be to support the party whose members refuse to live up to their constitutional oaths.

The intriguing aspect of Romney’s campaign will be whether he chooses to depart from shopworn, poorly conceived GOP dogma or whether he demonstrates some creative policy vision. How far will he go on support for gun safety measures? Will he support a narrow bill to fix the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program? Will he continue to support RomneyCare, recommending changes to the Affordable Care Act but not its total destruction?

From our vantage point, after Trump leaves, it will not be sufficient to de-Trumpize the GOP. The party’s intellectual extremism and refusal to move forward from 30-year-old dogma must end if it is to remain a viable, responsible party. If the GOP post-Trump becomes the party of rigid ultra-rightists, it will have little appeal.

In sum, Romney should not be condemned for being minimally respectful to the president nor for advocating conservative positions that overlap with Trump’s. He should, however, be robustly criticized if he joins the gang of mute enablers in the GOP, declines to call out executive branch excesses or refuses to defend positions that he says he still holds. His ability to differentiate himself from his feeble fellow Republicans may determine whether the GOP will have a post-Trump future.

Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.