Romney by McKay Coppins

Author:McKay Coppins [Coppins, McKay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

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Senate offices are assigned on the basis of seniority, which meant that Romney, who ranked ninety-seventh by that metric, began his legislative career in a cramped, ill-lit subterranean bunker lined with old filing cabinets. Before he saw it for the first time, Waldrip warned his boss not to expect too much—the office was only temporary; he’d get a better one in a few months. But Romney seemed too awed by the hallowed institution he was joining to notice the low ceilings or the worn-out furniture. His father had walked these same halls, spent time in this very same building, when he worked as a junior typist. Eighty years later, his youngest son was serving as a United States senator.

When they arrived at B33 Russell, Waldrip watched as Romney walked reverently to his desk and murmured, almost as if to himself, “My dad would be so proud.”

After he was elected, Romney had begun typing out a list on his iPad of all the things he wanted to accomplish in the Senate. By the time he took office, it contained forty-two items and was still growing. The legislative to-do list ranged from complex systemic reforms—overhauling the immigration system, reducing the national deficit, addressing climate change—to narrower issues such as compensating college athletes and regulating the vaping industry. His staff was bemused when he showed it to them—even in less polarized, less chaotic times, the kind of ambitious agenda he had in mind would be unrealistic—but Romney was undeterred. He told his aides he wanted to set up meetings with all ninety-nine of his colleagues in his first six months, and began studying a flip-book of senators’ pictures so that he could recognize his potential legislative partners.

Romney began each meeting roughly the same way: “Look, I’m obviously new to this body,” he’d say. “I’m happy to share with you the things I would like to accomplish as a senator, but I’m here to understand what things are most important to you.” He took notes, asked follow-up questions, and seemed genuinely interested in picking their brains. Many of the senators, who knew Romney primarily from TV, were surprised. “I don’t think there was a single senator who assumed that’s how Mitt Romney would approach his time in the Senate,” Waldrip recalled.

In one early meeting, a colleague leveled with him: “There are about twenty senators here who do all the work, and there are about eighty who go along for the ride.” Romney saw himself as a workhorse, and wanted others to see him that way, too. “I wanted to make it clear: I want to do things,” he’d later recall.

He quickly became frustrated, though, by how much of the Senate was built around posturing and theatrics. They gave speeches to empty chambers; spent hours debating bills they all knew would never pass. They summoned experts to appear at committee hearings only to make them sit in silence while they blathered some more. The hearings were especially irksome to Romney. “They’re not about learning.

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