September 25, 2012<div id="printbody"><div id="pagebody" class="hfeed"><div id="AMS_NYR_CONTENTPAGE_TEXTOFFER">
<h1 class="entry-title">Two Romneys</h1>
<div class="byline">Posted by <cite class="vcard author"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/jill_lepore/search?contributorName=Jill%20Lepore" title="search site for content by Jill Lepore" rel="author">Jill Lepore</a></cite></div>
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<p>George Romney was fifty-nine when he ran for reëlection as Michigan’s
governor, in 1966. In this half-hour television special (see a clip
above or the full-length version below), he explains his policies and
plans for the state. (I came across the film in the records of
Campaigns, Inc., in the California State Archives, while researching <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/24/120924fa_fact_lepore">a piece on the history of political consulting</a>.) </p>
<div id="entry-more"><p>George Romney’s oldest son is now sixty-five.
On television, he and his father look and speak uncannily alike. What
they say, though, is strikingly different. Romney Republicanism in 2012
could hardly be more different from Romney Republicanism in 1966. The
difference, of course, isn’t so much a family story as it is a story
about the G.O.P.</p>
<p>Like Mitt, George started out as a businessman. Beginning in 1939, he
was the head of the Automobile Manufacturers Association. In 1954, he
became president of American Motors. He was committed to public
education; in the nineteen-fifties, he ran a Detroit
public-school-improvement citizens’ committee. He ran for governor as a
moderate Republican in 1962. Two years later, he refused to support the
Presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, calling Goldwater conservatism
“extremist.” </p>
<p>The Governor Romney campaign film was meant to be broadcast on
November 7, 1966, the day before the election. In it, Romney introduces
his “action team,” a slate of candidates running for statewide office.
He also introduces his wife, Lenore, as he holds her hand. (One thing
that hasn’t changed in four decades is the political wife.) </p>
<p>Talking about his record as governor, Romney, who smiles easily, boasts about his achievements during his first term. </p>
<p>“Our educational programs are much better,” Romney says. “The
investment in jobs for our young people in the future is four times what
it was four years ago. And the unfortunate and the sick and the elderly
have more meaningful programs.” </p>
<p>More meaningful programs of that sort are notably lacking from the
agenda of Romney the younger. At a town hall in Youngstown, Ohio, last
March, Mitt Romney told a high-school senior that he shouldn’t expect
the government to help him pay for college. “And don’t expect the
government to forgive the debt that you take on,” he added. Part of the
difference between father and son comes to this: George Romney, was “on
relief—welfare relief—in the early years of his life,” Lenore Romney
said, in a 1962 interview. But a bigger part of the difference has to do
with the rightward drift of the G.O.P.</p>
<p>In the 1966 campaign film, George Romney talks about employment
conditions: “Conditions are better for workers, whether they’ve been
working in plants or whether they’re working on the farms or in shops or
in offices, including our public employees.” He charts the course of
environmental regulation. “Four years ago, we didn’t have any meaningful
air or water-pollution programs, and we’ve done a good deal, at least,
to get these programs started, or underway.” </p>
<p>He introduces the candidates for the boards of the University of
Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. </p>
<p>“We have to improve the scientific and research atmosphere, because
it’s important that we educate the scientists who can create new jobs
for Michigan,” says Trudy Huebner, a candidate for the University of
Michigan Board of Regents. </p>
<p>“Very important,” Romney agrees.</p>
<p>Scientific research is no longer much of a plank for the G.O.P.</p>
<p>He mentions fiscal responsibility, of course, and the importance of
volunteerism (one of his most passionate commitments) but he spends more
time talking about investment in education, urban housing and
transportation, pollution, parks, and the arts—the kinds of things the
Republican Party just doesn’t talk about these days.</p>
<p>“None of us are going to live in the past,” George Romney said, in 1966. No, indeed. </p>
<p><em>Videos courtesy the California State Archives.</em></p></div>
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