The Citizen's Candidate

(See Cover)

The father of the compact car got up and dressed at 6 a.m. Usually he takes a prebreakfast jog around the grounds of suburban Detroit's Bloomfield Hills Country Club, which is adjacent to his $150,000 contemporary home. At the very least, he plays a fast game of "compact golf"--six holes, three balls. But on this particular morning, he and his wife Lenore hurried over to the polling place--to vote for George Wilcken Romney, 55, Republican candidate for Governor of Michigan. Many a politician might then have rewarded himself with a well-deserved rest on the day of days. But not Romney, a man of depthless energy and evangelical fervor about everything that engages his interest. On Election Day 1962, Romney went out campaigning.

He flew to Lansing to help dramatize the G.O.P. get-out-the-vote drive. There he baby-sat for a mother who could not otherwise leave her three children to go out and vote. (She went straight Republican.) Then he flew to Bay City, marched up and down Washington Avenue, stopped off at a garment factory to shake the hands of the women workers, got back into his plane to head for a round of electioneering in Port Huron. In that city, he slid behind the wheel of a new Rambler and chauffeured a 75-year-old spinster to the polls. On the way, Salesman Romney asked his passenger if she had ever before been in a Rambler. "No," said she with a twinkle, "but I've done quite a bit of rambling in my life."

Keeping Company. She voted for Romney. So did 1,419,000 other Michigan voters--a sizable segment of whom had felt the grip of the man's hand, seen the lean, jut-jawed face and the fire in the light hazel eyes--and heard his message about citizens' participation in government. All together, those voters, and those personal qualities, helped Romney defeat Governor John B. Swainson by some 78,500 votes--thereby ending a 14-year Democratic dynasty in Michigan.

No sooner was the outcome known than Romney became a major Republican presidential possibility for 1964. Come what may, he will be a force in national G.O.P. politics for at least the next few years. In that sense, he finds himself in the company of two other big Republican winners:

sb Pennsylvania's Representative William Scranton. 45, who was elected Governor over Philadelphia's former Mayor Richardson Dilworth by 470,000 votes. Scranton (TIME cover. Oct. 19), who matched Dilworth insult for insult in one of the most savage campaigns in recent U.S. history, cut deeply into the Democratic fortress of Philadelphia, won ordinarily Democratic Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) by 52,000 votes. With a Republican legislature to help him, plus patronage powers that will give him control of 50,000 state jobs, Scranton awoke on the morning after Election Day as a Republican really to be reckoned with. So desperate is Pennsylvania's economic condition that Scranton can hardly help improving things. An admirer of New York's Governor Rockefeller, Scranton pooh-poohs all suggestions that he himself might seek the nomination. But it could happen.

sb Rockefeller remains by every standard the front runner for the Republican nomination in '64. Last week he won re-election as Governor by 518,000 votes over U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau, about as pitiable a candidate as any party ever put up for office in a major state. Because this plurality was down from Rocky's 573,000-vote margin over Averell Harriman in 1958, many analysts argued that he had suffered a loss of prestige. Yet. in fact, he not only survived the handicaps of a tax increase and a divorce from his wife of 32 years, but took 53.5% of the total vote, nearly equaling his 1958 percentage. Among Rocky's major assets for the 1964 presidential nomination: he is one Republican who acts as if he thinks he can beat Jack Kennedy.

The Schizophrenic State. Michigan's Romney denies any presidential pretensions. Yet whether he likes it or not--and he is not the sort to stay awake nights worrying about it--Romney will certainly be talked about, along with Rocky and Scranton. More important, he is an activist Republican whose views will certainly be a major influence upon the national Republican Party.

In the 14 years that Michigan Democrats held the Governor's chair (twelve under ''Soapy" Williams, two under Swainson). Michigan's economy went to pot, largely as a result of political schizophrenia. On one side were the Democrats, monolithically supported by the United Auto Workers and other unions. On the other side was the rural-dominated state legislature, a kind of feudal barony perpetuated by malapportionment and chartered by an antiquated state constitution. Over the years, the bickering and battling between the two sides put Michigan $85.6 million into debt. Auto companies began building new assembly plants in other states; the population explosion and the absence of industrial diversification added further economic headaches. Michigan was ripe for change.

Selling Power. George Romney had experience in the business of change. Back in the '50s, while the Big Three auto companies patiently explained that the U.S. could not market a small family car to compete with European imports. American Motors President Romney led a lone revolution, put over the Rambler with such success that it revitalized his foundering company and forced the automotive giants of Detroit to bring out their own compacts. Romney sold the idea--and he is a super salesman. He went out on the road in a crusade against the "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" in the big-car field. That was the same sort of zeal that he applied to politics.

Borrowing a line from a well-known Democrat. Romney set out to "get this state moving again." He called for citizen participation at all levels of government --and with it an end to the "monopoly" of power groups, whether of the left, center or right. He developed a theory, similar to that of the University of Chicago's late Professor Henry Simons, that the overwhelming power of great corporations, pitted against that of big unions, serves only to enlarge the power and size of the Federal Government, which must regulate both forces. Michigan, he insisted, needed a leader who could rise above the pressure politics of special-interest groups and put an end to partisan wrangling. "The individual," he cried, "is being engulfed in vast organizations and power groups."

"That's What's Wrong." Romney tore through Michigan on his people-to-people campaign, propelled like a man with a divine mission. He drove 37,000 miles, flew 13,000 more, knocked on 2,000 doors, shook more than 100,000 hands at factories, shopping centers and meetings. He tried not to label himself a Republican. None of his campaign literature identified his party. When pressed, he said: "I'm a citizen who is a Republican, not a Republican who is incidentally a citizen."

He rode a variety of comic animals, slid down a firemen's pole, peeled potatoes and performed the thousand other idiocies expected of a candidate. He accosted people on the street, poked a finger into their chests and told them what he thought about politics. Once he walked up to a man and asked him to shake hands. The fellow refused. A crowd gathered. Romney challenged him once more, and still the man declined. Roared Romney as the man stalked away: "See what I mean about partisanship? This man won't even shake hands with me! This is what's wrong with Michigan!" More than once he turned up uninvited at labor gatherings and demanded to be heard. More than once, he was sent away. At last union leaders decided that they were getting a reputation for undemocratic attitudes. After that they sent Romney invitations, and he did not hesitate to appear and preach his gospel.

In the end, Romney won because he appeared to be a prophet at a time when Michigan desperately needed one. His victory was one of charisma, that indefinable quality of leadership, force and spiritual magnetism that defies pat explanations. The fact that he is a Mormon--and president of the Detroit Stake (district) of the Mormon church--had much to do with it. For devout Mormons count as cardinal principles of their religion individual responsibility and dedication to public service.

Soapbox Missionary. Romney was born in Mexico. His grandfather, who had four wives, fled across the border from Arizona in 1885 to avoid antipolygamy laws in the U.S. But Romney's father was a monogamist, and brought his family back to the States when George was five.* George studied for a year at the Latter-day Saints Junior College in Salt Lake City, in 1927 went to England and Scotland as a Mormon missionary. There he got his first experience in public speaking, preaching from a soapbox in London's Hyde Park. Returning after two years, he got in some more schooling at the University of Utah and at George Washington University, went to work in Washington as a tariff specialist for Massachusetts' Democratic Senator David Walsh. In the 1930s, he was a lobbyist for the aluminum industry: in 1939 he became Detroit manager of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and during the war he helped to organize the Automotive Council for War Production. In 1948 he joined Nash-Kelvinator--forerunner of American Motors--as assistant to the chairman, took over the presidency of the company in 1954.

From 1956 to 1959, Romney was chairman of the Detroit Citizens Advisory Committee on School Needs, brought together divergent views of all segments of the community. The committee submitted 182 proposals to the board of education. All but a few of them have since been incorporated into the Detroit school system. That success led in 1959 to the idea that perhaps Michigan's economic troubles could be cured by a nonpartisan "citizen's approach." Romney discussed it with friends, brought together a group of Michigan leaders (including Ford Motor Co.'s Robert McNamara, now Secretary of Defense), and by June of that year had formed a 300-man group called "Citizens for Michigan."

How to Get Along. From that came the organization of Michigan's Constitutional Convention--popularly known as the "Con-Con." It was meant to modernize the state's preposterously out-of-date constitution, and Romney was the unquestioned leader of the conclave. But very soon it was a wide-open secret that Romney meant to run for Governor, and in due course the convention bogged down in partisan politics. Romney was forced to make concessions to ultraconservative rural Republicans--and even if he hadn't. Democratic delegates would have found political cause for criticism. As a result, in running for Governor, Romney's main problem was answering charges that he would be subservient to the "Neanderthals" who continue to dominate the state legislature. Said Romney: "If men are treated like Neanderthals, they respond like Neanderthals. I'll get along with them."

He may at that. For Romney is far from being a pragmatic politician. His politics, he believes, are neither liberal nor conservative nor moderate. He is an anti-organization man. "I believe in the deathless freedom of the individual," he said during the campaign, "and the sacred right of individual choice. I believe that these basic fundamental freedoms of individuality are in imminent danger of being smothered within the drift of our social, economic and political institutions toward impersonal organization control. I believe that one of the greatest dangers in our society comes from the concentration of excessive power in business, in unions, in the Federal Government. I am convinced Michigan is about to see a bold new dimension in public affairs: the return of their state government to genuine citizens' control."

Within that philosophical framework, Romney struck some specifics. He was against the "excess concentration of power" that arises from industry-wide collective bargaining. He opposed businessmen who organize politically "as businessmen" to fight unions. He argued for the re-establishment of the independence of state governments: "I don't talk about states' rights; I talk about state responsibilities." He criticized the G.O.P. as being identified "too much as a business party."

Destiny & Decision. Romney ran his own campaign in his own way. Recalls a Romney aide: "Whatever heights and depths our campaign reached were a result of George Romney and no one else. Sometimes we'd sit there in horror listening to a new idea from George. Then we'd all try to dissuade him. Sometimes it worked. But most of the time he'd say, 'Well, you're all very persuasive, but this is the way I'm going to do it. We've been tied to traditional methods too long.' "

Romney is an untraditional sort of politician, with a deep sense of divinely guided destiny. He prayed and fasted for 24 hours last February before announcing his candidacy for Governor. "I have a very simple formula for reaching decisions," he explained. "First, I diligently search out the pertinent facts. This means getting the viewpoints of others. The second step is prayer. I believe firmly in prayer. I believe that if we want to make decisions as wisely as possible, we can get much help through prayer."

Pressure Points. Believing that, Romney takes poorly to mortal criticism. "He is compulsively good." says a friend, "and compulsively right. He finds it so hard to be wrong, that when he is, he convinces himself that he isn't." Romney's temper is both famed and feared--yet, so far in his brief political career, he has generally managed to control it. Once, after a bitter debate at Con-Con, when Democrats impugned his motives, Romney returned home for the weekend, and that Sunday delivered an impassioned sermon at the Bloomfield Hills Mormon Church. He climaxed it with a quotation from Othello: "Who steals my purse steals trash . . . 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands--But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed."

Again, during the arduous gubernatorial campaign, Romney visited the office of the Detroit Free Press to submit to a group interview. During that session, he hotly accused a Free Press reporter of prejudice against him. That was too much for Managing Editor Frank Angelo, a Romney admirer, who jumped to his feet and cried: "That's a goddamned lie, George." Retorted Romney: "The hell it is." He spun on his heel and headed out. Then he regained control, returned and submitted to more questioning.

"I Can So." For the next two years, George Romney's performance as Governor of Michigan is going to be watched with eagle eye by politicians of both parties. Whether he likes it or not, Romney will be thought of and talked of in presidential terms. Despite his denial of White House ambitions, he does not slam the door. "There is a remote possibility," he says, "that either of two things would happen--that the problems of Michigan can be sufficiently dealt with in the two-year period to feel that the responsibility there has been completed or discharged, and that someone who is not actively a presidential candidate would become a candidate."

That "someone" would be George Romney. Years ago, in Salt Lake City, Romney's younger brother Charles--who was born shortly after the family returned from Mexico--could always get a rise out of George by saying: "I'm the only Romney who can be President, because I was born in this country." Invariably George Romney cried out: "That's not so. My mother and father were citizens, and I can so be President!"

Maybe he can. But for the moment, and for the next two years, his importance will lie in how he revitalizes Michigan and what he can do to reshape the G.O.P. so as to meet his own prescription for it as a national party dominated by citizens without regard to special interests.

* His Mexican birth has raised some questions about Romney's constitutional qualifications for the presidency. Article Two of the Constitution specifies that only a "natural-born citizen" is eligible. Some legal authorities say that this means only those born on U.S. soil. But a law enacted by the first Congress in 1790 stipulated that children born of U.S. citizens beyond the boundaries of the country "shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the U.S."

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