The centrist leader of the Republican Party left the Capitol at the end of his current term because he said that if he runs for re-election as a senator and wins, he will be 78 years old when he starts his second term, and therefore he is insufficient. the health and spirit to serve the country as it should. This announcement by Mitt Romney is in contrast to the current state of the presidential election, where two men aged 81 and 77, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, are looking to face off again.
As Romney said Wednesday, announcing his departure, “I’ve spent my last 25 years in some kind of public service. At the end of another term, he’ll be in his eighties. Actually, it’s time for of a new generation of leaders. “They will have to make the decisions that will shape the world they live in.”
The senator left with the criticism of President Biden and President Trump, against whom he voted twice in the impeachment process, first for the pressure on Ukraine and then for the theft of the Capitol. Although Trump briefly considered her for secretary of state and supported her Senate bid in 2018, the two fell apart. Romney’s growing criticism has led to his being one of the Republicans most attacked by the former president.
Romney, born in 1946, is the son of a prominent conservative politician, George Romney, who was governor of Michigan between 1963 and 1969. As a young man, like most Mormons, he was a missionary in his faith and traveled extensively in France and Spain. Then he entered the world of business and investment in Boston and made a fortune. Well, he entered politics. He was the first governor of Massachusetts between 2003 and 2007. Then he ran in the Republican primary in 2008, which he lost, and which he won in 2012. In the general election, he lost to Barack Obama.
“Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. “They are the ones who must make the decisions that will shape the world in which they live.”
After a brief stint in private business, he returned to politics in the 2018 election, two years after Trump’s unexpected victory for the presidency. He took advantage of the fact that one of the two Senate seats in Utah, the state with a Mormon majority, was free.
Recently, especially since Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud, Romney has become a reference for the centrist wing of the party, admired above all by Democrats. Upon announcing his departure, he received a call from President Biden himself, who wanted to personally offer him some words of thanks for his service in the Capitol.
Trump’s stains
Trump’s attacks make it harder for Romney to stay in office. In the absence of a strong competitor, which Trump openly supports, he rises and falls in the polls, although the most recent ones give him a high popularity rating. The former president forced the resignation, one by one, of the deputies of his party who voted against him in the impeachment proceedings.
Knowing that Romney will not run again, Trump said on his social network, Truth: “He did not serve this country with dignity.”
