There’s an excellent article over at the Atlantic about Romney’s struggles to stay relevant and his decision not to run for re-election to the Senate.
He wasn’t exactly a pariah in the GOP, but he was pretty isolated. For some reason, this section left me a little chilled:
The senator hadn’t told anyone he was talking to a biographer, and we kept our interviews discreet…most weeks, I drove to a stately brick townhouse with perpetually drawn blinds on a quiet street a mile from the Capitol. … He tried to make it nice, so that Ann would be comfortable when she visited. A decorator filled the rooms with tasteful furniture and calming abstract art. He planted a garden on the small backyard patio. But his wife rarely came to Washington, and his sons didn’t come either, and gradually the house took on an unkempt bachelor-pad quality. Crumbs littered the kitchen counter; soda and seltzer occupied the otherwise-empty fridge. Old campaign paraphernalia appeared on the mantel, clashing with the decorator’s mid-tone color scheme, and a bar of “Trump’s Small Hand Soap” (a gag gift from one of his sons) was placed in the powder room alongside the monogrammed towels.
In the “dining room,” a 98-inch TV went up on the wall and a leather recliner landed in front of it. Romney, who didn’t have many real friends in Washington, ate dinner alone there most nights, watching Ted Lasso or Better Call Saul as he leafed through briefing materials. On the day of my first visit, he showed me his freezer, which was full of salmon fillets that had been given to him by Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska. He didn’t especially like salmon but found that if he put it on a hamburger bun and smothered it in ketchup, it made for a serviceable meal.
This doesn’t sound like a guy ready to make another try at the brass ring.
The article has few shockers, but did provide me with some insight into Washington. Mitch McConnell is good at taking temperatures and telling his GOP colleagues what they want to hear. GOP senators were concerned about voting for Trump’s impeachment, because they feared for their family’s safety. Mitt distinguished between GOP Senators who were sincerely crazy and those who were faking it for votes. He preferred to work with the crazies on legislation, because at least you could rely on their good faith. Ron Jon was in; Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and J.D. Vance were out. No great loss: one colleague told him, "There are about 20 senators here who do all the work, and there are about 80 who go along for the ride.” Romney wanted to be among the 20.
Book coming out next month. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101025305-romney?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=wlOkfxpIeZ&rank=1
ETA: And… this link was posted in another Romney thread. Mitt Romney is not running for reelection next year - #13 by Lance_Turbo