At a secluded Utah rendezvous, two familiar figures vying for the presidency of the United States – or at least vying to raise money to explore a battle for the presidency – will pause their rivalry to meet as simple men: Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush.
Two “prominent” Republicans told the New York Times that the scions of the respective affluent and well-connected white families will meet privately in Utah this week, not long before a Wall Street Journal reporter caught Bush at an airport gate for a flight headed to Salt Lake City, near where the Romney family keeps one of its largest houses.
Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had no comment about a meet-up with Romney, but a meeting between the de facto adversaries could have a major impact on the GOP primary race that follows. Both men have courted donors and signaled they are considering a run in 2016, for what would be Romney’s third attempt and the younger Bush’s first. Both men have also courted establishment conservatives and a more moderate electorate, shying away from Tea Party extremes. They have even pitched campaigns about inequality and the middle class, despite their own personal fortunes and close ties to the financial and oil industries – and to old money.
The meeting was proposed and planned before Romney suddenly hinted he would join the race, according to the New York Times.
For now, Romney and Bush have set their eyes not on winning among the American people, but rather on winning over a tiny group of Americans who might help them pay for a political campaign that costs more than a billion dollars. To do so, they have each tried to shift their talking points away from the language and ideas that Romney campaigned on in 2012 and that Bush’s older brother, George W Bush, employed for eight years as president.
The former Massachusetts governor said he believes in and wants to “tackle” climate change and suggested that Americans simply “deal with poverty”. His platform continues to shift; he said last week that “we have to stand for helping lift people out of poverty”. Romney joked he had learned lessons from the past: “You know, I always wanted to run for president in the worst way. And that’s just what I did.”
Bush was also keen to tell supporters about being a loser, saying on Wednesday that he too learned lessons from a failed run for governor of Florida in 1994. He criticized the Obama administration, and said he would stay a staunch moderate despite the tug-of-war of Republican primaries.
Romney and Bush have resisted direct criticism of each other so far, directing their ire at President Obama and more extreme elements of their own party. On Wednesday, Romney threw out a rhetorical question to thousands at an investment management conference in Utah: “Why run for office in the first place?
“The major challenges that this country faces are not being dealt with by leaders in Washington,” he answered himself, before dealing a glancing blow to an unpopular GOP: “On both sides of the aisle, we just haven’t been able to take on and try and make progress on the major issues of our day.”
Of Romney, Bush only said he did not believe it necessary to destroy a political opponent to win a primary. Should both men run, they could split the vote of many moderates and allow a more extreme candidate to snatch the nomination away from them. As Bush has looked increasingly like a certainty in the race, donors have waited anxiously for Romney to state his clear intentions. Like his rival, Bush could be vulnerable to accusations of elitism and a cozy relationship with Wall Street.
Bush stayed almost entirely out of Romney’s 2012 run, in part because of the unpopularity of his surname in the years after his brother’s presidency. Romney and Bush do not know each other well, despite backgrounds that not only share famous families, elite educations and unusual wealth but also a very public ambivalence about running for president. Asked a year ago about a run for 2016, Romney said: “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.”
The Utah meeting could be an opportunity for the former governors to strike some sort of accord about 2016 – or it could simply be a private preview of the primary race to come.
