A seemingly perfunctory reference offers insight into Romney and
his possible White House path. For a man so accomplished, Romney
still has not managed to introduce himself. It is not his nature to
do so, but it is the nature of the job he seeks. It was a similarly
difficult mission for a man he mentioned almost in passing: Neil
Armstrong.
By following Armstrong’s lead, Romney could turn the small step
of his acceptance speech into the giant leap of this campaign.
Romney’s Tampa speech was his biggest. It was also his hardest
because it focused on him. His goal was to go within himself and
over the media to finally reach the American people.
Self-revelation is part of the presidency’s job description.
Today, America must at least feel comfortable, if not like, its
presidents. It is not an unreasonable request.
Our presidents are before us 24 hours a day, seven days a week
for at least four years — and usually eight. Today’s president
embodies a government that controls ever more of our lives. Now, in
increased economic uncertainty — its control appears even more
precarious and important.
If Americans are going to have you continuously with them — and
you are going to run the biggest variable in their lives over which
they have a say — they expect to know you, they have to trust you,
and they would like to like you.
But while a public figure, Romney is a private man. Intensely
so. He has extended himself in many endeavors but without revealing
himself.
So as he stood at last before the Republican Party to accept its
nomination, he faced a new mission. And so he started: “I was born
in the middle of the century in the middle of the country, a
classic baby boomer.… When President Kennedy challenged Americans
to go to the moon, the question wasn’t whether we would get there,
it was only when we’d get there. The soles of Neil Armstrong’s
boots on the moon made permanent impressions on our souls and in
our national psyche… God bless Neil Armstrong.”
Certainly, Armstrong had died just days before Romney’s speech,
but far more can be taken from the reference than that. Like
Romney, Armstrong was humble, quiet, and accomplished. He had
excelled in everything he had undertaken — up to the moment he
made himself monumental.
He was a man whose moment was bigger than he was, and he was man
enough to let it be so. He did not need to embellish it, or his
role in it; it spoke for itself and for all time. It fairly sums up
Armstrong’s life: he was always the right man at the right moment.
Talent alone constantly put him in place for the next mission,
until it led to his ultimate one.
The parallel with Romney is striking. Romney’s struggle is that
to undertake his mission he must seemingly aggrandize himself.
Politics is not like Armstrong’s area of endeavor — a reason why
he assiduously avoided it. Long gone are the days when politics was
thrust upon the most deserving, like Eisenhower. Today, you succeed
only by thrusting yourself on it.
The dichotomy between Kennedy and Armstrong is equally telling.
Its broad outlines trace that of Obama and Romney.
We still remember Kennedy’s words; Armstrong’s most memorable
line — “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”
was actually flubbed (he intended it to be: “One small step for
A man…”) and a point of controversy thereafter.
Kennedy was eloquent, charismatic, the one who brashly threw
down the gauntlet. Armstrong was the engineer who picked it up.
Obama too is the man of soaring rhetoric — of hope and change
and promise. And Romney could be the man who fulfills that mission.
He knows that mission is more important than he is — than anyone
is — and is not only comfortable with it, but welcomes it
overshadowing him.
America is more than familiar with politicians who have talked
themselves into a job. What America hasn’t seen are ones who have
talked themselves into success. Real success is earned, not
“spun.”
In his acceptance speech, Romney revealed more of himself than
ever, and perhaps more than he intended or realized. As he
continues to do so, as he must, then he should keep his sight on
his Armstrong reference. As someone who can accomplish the mission
on his own terms.
America did not reject Armstrong for that. They embraced him all
the more. If conservatives are right and America is awakening
finally to the crises it faces, it is ready to elect someone
willing to embrace the mission for the mission’s sake.
