Dreams from His Mother

Lenore Romney's 1970 run for the U.S. Senate made a bigger impression on the Republican presidential candidate than his years spent as son of a governor

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Douglas R. Gilbert-LOOK Magazine/Courtesy Library of Congress

On the campaign trail during his mother's Senate bid, Mitt and Lenore strategize in a hotel room

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About the same time, Mitt began to make subtle remarks about the risks of choosing sides, appearing to speak as much for himself as for his mother. "So many of our Senators sometimes become so caught up in the political situation that their answer is made politically before the issue is even brought up," he said, standing under a tree in a button-down striped shirt and cream-colored jacket, in the summer of 1970. "But she isn't so allied to a political ideology or a political side of the spectrum."

With the Republican nomination now in hand, Mitt has far surpassed both parents in electoral success. In polls he is running even with or ahead of the President. "I think it's quite clear that he marches to his own drum," says the relative, who has known Mitt all his life. "He stays on track and keeps pressing forward." And yet some of the people who knew the elder Romneys best and who have not voiced their qualms in public before say Mitt paid too high a price. In part, the first-generation cohort is mourning the sharp rightward turn of the Republican Party, which would not find room today for Lenore or George. But it is not so much the GOP platform that disturbs them as its leader's mutability--the much debated adjustments on abortion, stem-cell research, the assault-weapons ban, climate change, gay civil unions and state-sponsored health care. Their main concern is not that he tells voters what they want to hear but that he backs away so readily from what they do not.

When he resigned from Nixon's Cabinet, George denounced the timidity of politicians who "avoid specific positions ... for fear of offending uninformed voters." Lenore once told an interviewer that "to live and not be committed to our ideals is worse than dying." In Mitt's determination to avoid their mistakes, contemporaries of George and Lenore see a betrayal. "I can't warm to him," says Richard McLellan, an old hand in Michigan politics who knew the Romneys well. "I get beat up by his campaign people for saying that, but he's not at all like his father."

Molin, who came to work for the Romneys early and stayed for the duration, does not usually allow himself to speak openly of his dismay. But after most of an hour of lukewarm praise for the boss's son, he quits holding back. "If you're going to be President, you have to be a leader, and you can't worry about whether everybody agrees with you," he says. "I don't know that Mitt doesn't know who Mitt is, but Mitt really doesn't want to say anything that would alienate you." After a moment of silence, he adds, "Hell, I might as well get in trouble. I think there's a difference between leadership and managerial skills, O.K.? I think George Romney had leadership skills. Mitt Romney has managerial talents."

If his father was a combatant and his mother collateral damage, Mitt Romney emerged from this year's primaries as a survivor. "He's proving to be pretty durable, and if I were Barack Obama I would not take comfort in Mitt Romney's durability," says Riegle. "But he hasn't knocked out anybody who's really a big-time player. Lenore was not cut out to be a gladiator, and George was. Mitt, we're about to find out."

With Reporting By Elizabeth Dias / Ann Arbor

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