Romney forges Bush family ties

Amid political move, he finds common bonds

Mitt Romney has praised George H.W. Bush, whose policies aren't associated with his son's and whose grandfatherly warmth is now appreciated across the political spectrum. (Jessica Rinaldi /Reuters)

WASHINGTON - When Mitt Romney saved his presidential campaign with a victory in Michigan two weeks ago, he declared that "I take my inspiration from Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, who took their inspiration from the American people."

The comment was puzzling given that Republicans always say they take their inspiration "from the American people" when promising to get government off people's backs. In Michigan, Romney had promised the opposite - to use the presidency to help rescue the auto industry.

Still, his praise of Reagan was no surprise. Even though Romney had said in his 1994 Senate race that he rejected the legacy of the Reagan-Bush era, he has been trying hard to claim Reagan's mantle. George H. W. Bush, however, occupies a less prominent position in the Republican pantheon, and so Romney's decision to invoke him as a hero was as surprising as Hillary Clinton's recent hints that she would be like Lyndon Johnson.

There seems, however, to be an obvious political explanation for Romney's allegiance to Bush I. Over the past three months, Romney has been trying to cultivate the Bush family, aware that former governor Jeb Bush still has a political network in Florida, where Romney is today locked in a tight race with John McCain.

While other Republicans were distancing themselves from the current President Bush in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney took the lead in thanking the president for "keeping Americans safe." He also scolded rival Mike Huckabee for suggesting that Bush's foreign policy was arrogant and called for more respect for "our president."

Then Romney shifted his message. As McCain, a fixture in the Senate for more than two decades, emerged as the Republican to beat, Romney took a page from John Edwards's book and began excoriating Washington in every speech. Romney would tick off a long list of problems that "Washington" had promised to solve, but hadn't.

"Tonight we are celebrating here in Michigan - I gotta tell you that," Romney said after his big win. "Guess what they're doing in Washington? They're worrying, because they realize - the lobbyists and politicians realize - that America now understands that Washington is broken. And we're going to do something about it."

Bold-sounding words, but not entirely supportive of "our president." How then to appeal to the Bushes? By praising George Herbert Walker Bush, whose policies aren't associated with his son's and whose grandfatherly warmth is now appreciated across the political spectrum.

In claiming Bush I as his inspiration, Romney may have stumbled on an apt metaphor for his own career. Both Romney and George H.W. Bush were sons of prominent politicians whose careers stalled short of the presidency. Both their fathers, George Romney and Prescott Bush, were famous for their geniality but lacked a killer instinct. The sons worshiped their fathers and shared an aristocratic air of good manners and good breeding - but were more willing to do what was necessary to succeed.

Each carved out a career of his own, and raised a large, loving family. But on some level they saw that their common sense, business skills, and self-discipline weren't enough to carry them to the presidency. There was what Bush called "the vision thing."

For Bush, the unfortunate reality was that to be elected Reagan's successor he had to act more conservative than he was, and he had to demonize his opponents.

He dismissed his main primary opponent, Bob Dole, as a tax-raising creature of the Senate. Having once offended the tax-cut wing of the GOP by calling supply-side economics "voodoo," he overcompensated by declaring, "Read my lips - no new taxes." In the general election, he unloaded on Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis for being insufficiently supportive of the Pledge of Allegiance and the crime of flag burning, and too lenient toward Willie Horton, the Massachusetts murderer who fled a furlough program and terrorized a Maryland couple.

After being elected, Bush reverted to the prudent moderate that he had always been - but found himself stranded between Democrats who were convinced he had run a dirty race against Dukakis and Republicans who were convinced he had exaggerated his conservatism.

Now 83, Bush seems to see something of himself in Romney. He offered his presidential library as the setting for Romney's speech on religion. Romney clearly sees something of himself in the elder Bush. What each probably sees is a decent, moderate man who secretly hates what he had to do to get ahead.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.