Nicholas Lemann on Romney’s beginnings.

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Nicholas Lemann on Romney’s Beginnings
Date: October 2, 2012
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Nicholas Lemann, staff writer, The New Yorker

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Episode Overview

In this episode, executive editor Dorothy Wickenden sits down with Nicholas Lemann, staff writer at The New Yorker, to discuss Mitt Romney in the context of the 2012 presidential campaign. The conversation dives into Romney's character, his approach to leadership, the influence of his background, and the contrasting public perceptions shaped by his business and religious experience. Lemann, who recently profiled Romney for The New Yorker, draws connections between Romney’s worldview and broader shifts in American business and society. The episode provides incisive analysis ahead of the first presidential debate, examining both Romney's persona and the underlying themes that define his candidacy.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Romney’s “Compassionate” Rhetoric and Comparison to George W. Bush

• Timestamp: 02:53 – 05:00

• Romney’s recent commercial echoes Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” but carries different connotations.

• Lemann notes that “compassion” for Bush’s evangelical base isn’t the same as for urban liberals, and that Bush’s rhetoric was more effective and better understood within that community.

• Lemann observes Romney’s inability to control the political narrative during crises, suggesting a key difference from Obama’s composure during controversies.

  "You can't imagine Romney having the rhetorical ability to connect with the public, ability to pull himself out of something like that... He just digs deeper and deeper every time he gets."
  — Nicholas Lemann (03:24)

2. Romney’s Business Approach to Government

• Timestamp: 05:01 – 05:45

• Lemann explains that Romney is deeply invested in the analogy that government should be run like a business—much more so than most Republicans.

• He speculates Romney genuinely believes this would result in economic improvement but argues this is a flawed analogy.

  "...he just is completely entranced and really over-entranced with the government can run like business and business is better than government analogy, which even by Republican standards, he's unusually attached to that."
  — Nicholas Lemann (05:01)

3. Romney’s Background and Struggles to Connect

• Timestamp: 05:45 – 06:57

• Lemann attributes Romney’s difficulty connecting with ordinary Americans to his upbringing in a “tightly interconnected world of Mormonism, business school, and private equity.”

• He compares the challenges of openly discussing Mormonism to those faced by Obama with race—suggesting Romney avoids topics he feels outsiders won’t understand or might be biased against.

• Romney is also doubly reluctant to discuss private equity, fearing negative public perceptions.

  "I think Romney just thinks it’s very hard to open a Mormon conversation that goes anywhere good. And it's even harder to open a private equity conversation that goes anywhere good. So I'm just not doing it."
  — Nicholas Lemann (06:46)

4. Romney’s Private Persona: Passion for Business

• Timestamp: 06:57 – 08:02

• In private interviews, Romney comes alive when speaking about business rather than politics.

• Lemann theorizes Romney’s infamous “47%” comment stemmed from a management consultant framework—viewing politics as a competitive market share.

  "It was just the consultant in him speaking to some extent, or at least that's one theory. The competition has 47% of the market locked up... but he's applying this in this sort of wacky way to the political system."
  — Nicholas Lemann (07:44)

5. Romney’s Ambivalence About Politics

• Timestamp: 08:02 – 09:50

• Lemann situates Romney’s professed ambivalence about election victory within a broader Republican tradition of claiming to serve out of duty rather than ambition—contrasting it with Democratic comfort in political identity.

• Despite a long track record of running for office, Romney presents himself as a reluctant servant, not a career politician.

  "Republicans love the sort of Cincinnatus at the farm idea... it's considered unattractive in Republican circles to say, I'm a politician, I love being in government and that's why I've devoted my life to it."
  — Nicholas Lemann (08:15)

6. Romney as Emblem of Shifts in American Business

• Timestamp: 09:50 – 11:58

• Lemann traces how changes in business—from employee stability to financialization—have altered American society, with Romney emblematic of that transition.

• The erosion of job security, healthcare, and pensions has made voters uneasy, and Romney’s association with private equity is a liability.

• Obama, Lemann notes, has kept Romney on the defensive over these issues, while skillfully avoiding a clear position on the future of this new economic landscape.

  "They're run as financial entities, and that's a huge change in American society... all that stuff that Romney sort of boneheadedly is calling welfare, but that people really care about."
  — Nicholas Lemann (10:57)

7. Debate Outlook and What Romney Needs

• Timestamp: 11:58 – 13:20

• With the first presidential debate approaching, Lemann argues Romney’s strengths—looking presidential, behaving with dignity—won’t help unless he can make a substantive case.

• The real challenge is countering Obama’s argument that economic woes began pre-Obama, not convincing Americans things would have been better under Romney.

  "The case he would have to make is, if I were president today, the unemployment rate would be 5, 6%. And I think that's pretty easy for Obama to refute..."
  — Nicholas Lemann (12:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Romney’s inability to “pull himself out of something”:

  "You can't imagine Romney having the rhetorical ability to connect with the public... He just digs deeper and deeper every time he gets."
  — Nicholas Lemann (03:24)

• On why Romney avoids talking about Mormonism and private equity:

  "I think Romney just thinks it’s very hard to open a Mormon conversation that goes anywhere good. And it's even harder to open a private equity conversation that goes anywhere good. So I'm just not doing it."
  — Nicholas Lemann (06:46)

• On the business-to-politics mindset:

  "He just is completely entranced and really over-entranced with the government can run like business... which, even by Republican standards, he's unusually attached to that."
  — Nicholas Lemann (05:01)

• On the shift in American business structure and nostalgia:

  "They're run as financial entities, and that's a huge change in American society... all that stuff that Romney sort of boneheadedly is calling welfare, but that people really care about."
  — Nicholas Lemann (10:57)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:53 – Romney’s new compassionate rhetoric and comparison to Bush
• 05:01 – Romney’s “government should be run like a business” worldview
• 06:04 – Lemann on Romney’s struggles to connect with average Americans
• 07:07 – Romney in private: passion for business
• 08:15 – The Republican “reluctant leader” trope in political culture
• 09:50 – Romney as emblem of financialized capitalism
• 11:58 – Debate strategy and Romney’s challenge against Obama

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Summary

This episode offers a nuanced examination of Mitt Romney as the 2012 election approaches—exploring the interplay between his personal history, business worldview, and the limitations of his public persona. Lemann’s analysis situates Romney at the crossroads of larger shifts in American political and economic life, highlighting why Romney’s business credentials, once considered strengths, have become central to the anxieties of voters. The episode concludes with a look forward to the presidential debates, underlining the stakes for Romney as he attempts to challenge Obama on the national stage.

Transcript

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[Michael Colory]

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. DOROTHY It's Thursday, September 27th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker.

[Lauren Good]

Too many Americans are struggling to find work in today's economy.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

This week, Mitt Romney released a new commercial that made him sound a little like George W. Bush in his first campaign for president more than a decade ago.

[Lauren Good]

President Obama and I both care about poor and middle class families. The difference is my policies will make things better for them. We shouldn't measure compassion but by how many people are on welfare. We should measure compassion by how many people are able to get off welfare and get a good paying job.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

The ad shows a retooled Romney after the 47% Boca Raton video debacle. Nicholas Lemon is here to discuss the current state of the presidential campaign and Romney himself. Nick, we'll talk about the bigger themes of your profile and the current issue about Romney in a minute. But I was just curious because you profiled George W. Bush when he was campaigning in 2000. What do you make of Romney's sudden talk of compassion and particularly of the way he talks about measuring compassion? How is it different from or similar to Bush's rhetoric?

[Nicholas Lemann]

Well, first of all, I thought George W. In his compassionate conservative phase was a real example of how the so called liberal media don't get it. I think that was mostly meant to be for the evangelical community where the word compassionate has a very different valence than it does on the Upper west side of New York. And I, a lot of liberals heard that and heard this is going to be a very kind of familiar moderate, pro welfare state conservative, which was not true in the way that they thought it was. So that was an example of an effective slogan. I suppose you could say, you know, I feel bad for Romney in the sense that he's so unable to deal with things in the political storm. I mean, if you think back to the 2008 campaign in the spring when all those Jeremiah Wright videos came out and a lot of political pros were saying, this guy's dead, you cannot get out of this. And he went home. He wrote that speech, it was a great speech and he just turned it around. I mean, you can't imagine Romney having the rhetorical ability to connect with the public, ability to pull himself out of something like that. So he kind of sits inside it. I feel like if I were asked to be Mitt Romney for, you know, an hour, I could explain what he's probably thinking better than he can. And, you know, he just digs deeper and deeper every time he gets.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

What is he thinking?

[Nicholas Lemann]

I think what Romney's thinking is, you know, he just is completely entranced and really over entranced with the government can run like business and business is better than government analogy, which even by Republican standards, he's unusually attached to that. So I think he thinks, if I am president, I'll run government like a business. And the result of that is that business itself will begin to boom and the unemployment rate will start to plummet and that'll be the major way that government helps people. I think he probably truly believes that that will happen, but I think that's a kind of mistake on his part in over analogizing from business to government.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

The question that a lot of people have, many people have about Romney is why he's so unable to connect to ordinary Americans. And you answer that question in a very particular way in your piece. And you talk about this tightly interconnected world of Mormonism, business school and private equity, which is a way that I haven't seen anybody else quite characterize him. Could you talk about that a little bit?

[Nicholas Lemann]

Yeah. I mean, again, a really confident politician, a Bill Clinton, could be a Mormon and say, you know, I can explain this Mormon thing to people. Let me just get up there and talk it through. But I think, you know, you know, a lot of Mormons are really socialized to the idea that the world is prejudiced against us. Our prophet was taken out of a jail cell and murdered. I mean, it's a little bit like Obama and race, even though Obama's much more verbally adept. Well, you can tell he's thinking, you know what? I'm not going to get up and talk a lot about what it's like to be the first black president. And one reason why I'm not is it just freaks people out too much. You lose more than you gain. I think Romney just thinks it's very hard to open a Mormon conversation that goes anywhere good. And it's even harder to open a private equity conversation that goes anywhere good. So I'm just not doing it. That's where Romney just can't go.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

But he can go certain places, as you showed when you sat down alone with him and interviewed him and he suddenly kind of came to life in a way that most of us have never seen.

[Nicholas Lemann]

Well, you know, everything is a little bit relative, so that's to life by Romney standards. But going into the interview, I guessed that the way to bring him to Life would be get the guy to talk about business, because that's what's really on his mind. And indeed, he loves talking about business and his admiration of CEOs, his admiration of his father, business challenges. I mean, another thing that we didn't get a chance to put in the piece is the famous 47% remark. So if you're a management consultant, a strategic consultant, what you're taught is first thing you do is a competitive market share analysis. So that's kind of what he was doing. It was just the consultant in him speaking to some extent, or at least that's one theory. The competition has 47% of the market locked up. We have this percent, so we're fighting over this market segment, you know, but he's applying this in this sort of wacky way to the political system.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

One of the things that surprised me was his comment about not getting wound up about winning an election. And he went on to say, you know, if people vote for me, that's fine, and if they don't, they don't. Those aren't exactly fighting words. What was he talking about?

[Nicholas Lemann]

I don't think that's so particular to Romney. I think that's a sort of Republican point of vanity that you often hear. And Bush used to talk about this a lot too. Republicans love the sort of cincinnatus at the farm idea that they were just sitting at home outside Washington running a business and they were called to service to help. You know, it's considered unattractive in Republican circles to say, I'm a politician, I love being in government and that's why I've devoted my life to it. So I think you were getting a little bit more of that and also maybe some basic lack of self awareness. If you look from the outside, Romney spent basically 20 years just continually running for office or preparing to run for office. But I don't think that thought is how he consciously thinks of himself at all.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Does he want to be president? Cause that was the other thing, that reading between the lines in your conversation with him and the way he spoke about his father. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Nicholas Lemann]

I mean, I think he wants to be president. He certainly has put himself through a lot, you know, to be president, has run twice in a row. But I think he may process it as a duty or an obligation either to the country, to his father, to, you know, the better values of America or something. And not as again, going back to the Clinton comparison, I think Clinton would feel comfortable probably saying, I think it would just be really fun to be president, but Romney can't admit that to himself, let alone the rest of us.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Nick, you say that Americans are uneasy about the type of economy that people like Romney have brought about. One of the key passages in your piece is about the business world shifting from production to capital in the 70s and 80s, and about Mitt Romney embodying that shift him as a kind of emblematic transaction. Man. Could you talk a little bit about that and how it's playing out in the election?

[Nicholas Lemann]

Well, there's this sort of fun to watch, but not very spiritually uplifting part of politics. It's like a boxing match, and it's just all about, you know, do you keep your opponent on the defensive all the time. And the Obama campaign has been great about that. I mean, they made Romney and private equity the subject, as Ted Kennedy did back in 94 when he ran against Romney, or Romney ran against him really effectively. So if you go back, you know, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a famous book called the Affluent society in the 50s where he was sort of grousing about, you know, the United States doesn't really have a modern welfare state. It has this system where big corporations sort of take care of their employees for life. And isn't that terrible? But, you know, now everybody's nostalgic for that. There's so many places in the world, I mean, almost everybody I know personally has experienced the idea that companies are not run as sort of stable entities anymore. They're run as financial entities. And that's a huge change in American society. And it's eroded job security, healthcare, pensions, et cetera, all that stuff that Romney sort of boneheadedly is calling welfare, but that people really care about. And it's kind of hovering. And you know, honestly, by keeping Romney on the defensive, Obama has avoided giving his own forthright take on all this. He's way too smart not to have noticed this. And he's clearly thinking about the fiscal cliff and all those kinds of issues. But he hasn't had to offer very much up at least until the debates, about what he'll do about it.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Well, and that raises the final questions, which is about the coming debates. The first presidential one is this coming Wednesday, I believe. How is Romney going to go after Obama given his relative weakness right now?

[Nicholas Lemann]

Romney, what he's really good at is he'll look presidential and he'll, you know, carry himself in a dignified manner and all that. But we assume that the sort of the market already has corrected for that. So that's not much upside for him. You know, the case he has to make. Fundamentally, I think the case he'd like to make is a foreign policy case. But supposedly, unless you're in a war, voters don't vote on foreign policy. The case he would have to make is, if I were president today, the unemployment rate would be 5, 6%. And I think that's pretty easy for Obama to refute, if not explicitly, implicitly, by saying, come on, you know, really, things were so horrible as I was coming in. None of the disaster happened on my watch. It landed on my doorstep right as I came in. And do you folks out there really think that if this guy had been sitting in the chair instead of me, unemployment would be significantly lower than it is now? As long as Obama can sort of make it seem like, yeah, you know, come off it, then it's very hard for Romney to come out ahead.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

We're going to have to leave it there. Nicholas Lemon is a staff writer and his profile of Romney is in the current issue. This has been the Political Scene podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[Lauren Good]

You can subscribe to this and other free New Yorker podcasts in the iTunes store. The weekly audio edition of the magazine is available at audible.com subscribers can read the magazine [e-mail] and also in the tablet edition on the iPad and the Kindle Fire.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial director. I'm Michael Colory, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And I'm Lauren Good.

[Michael Colory]

I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

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[Katie Drummond]

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[Nicholas Lemann]

From prx.