HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
who requested anonymity in order
to speak frankly, warned against
viewing the governor too narrowly.
“You assume that his basic persona is cautious. My take on it is
goal-oriented,” the Romney associate said. “I don’t think you
become a wealthy, successful man
without being goal-oriented.”
Romney would not govern timidly, he said.
“If you look at about every
presidency going back to Lyndon
Johnson, caution has not been a
very good recipe for getting things
done,” the Romney associate said.
Indeed, Johnson’s approach
in the White House is in many
ways characteristic of presidents
—from Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to
Reagan—who have tried to make
significant policy changes. Robert Caro, in his new biography of
Johnson, points out that the president’s advisers tried to steer him
away from pushing for the Civil
Rights Act, arguing that it was a
lost cause that would only antagonize the southern lawmakers who
held the reins of power in Congress and hurt his presidency.
“Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” Johnson replied, according to Caro.
Mitt Romney may be having his
LBJ Moment.
By picking Ryan and putting
himself and his own ideas under
the microscope, Romney sent a
loud message about how he would
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
ably he would be [a one-term
president],” Sen. Tom Coburn
(R-Okla.), who collaborated with
Ryan on a Medicare reform proposal and is one of the leading
advocates of dramatic action to
reduce the debt, told me.
“What is wrong with that?” Coburn said. “Is it about Mitt Romney
or is it about our country? What
is wrong with having a one-term
president that actually does what is
necessary to fix the country?”
By picking Ryan to be his running mate, Romney transformed
himself in the eyes of many from
a timid, calculating, flip-flopping,
hollow “Massachusetts liberal”
—to use the words of primary foe
Newt Gingrich—into a bold, courageous, clear-eyed leader. Maybe
even a conservative.
Romney’s choice of Ryan
doesn’t appear to stem from some
ideological desire to strike a blow
for conservatism simply for ideology’s sake, however. There is
nothing in Romney’s history or
personality to suggest that he
would randomly become a bombthrower. Yet here you have it: a
level of risk-taking that doesn’t
comport with the traditional view
of the 65-year-old former Massachusetts governor.
One person close to Romney,
and familiar with his thinking,