Mitt Romney as Utah Governor

[Ricardolindo]

Could Mitt Romney have been Utah Governor instead of Massachusetts Governor? If so, I think it would be much better for his national career. He had to renounce much of his legacy as Massachusetts Governor in order to win the Republican nomination.

 

[Steve Brinson]

Could Mitt Romney have been Utah Governor instead of Massachusetts Governor? If so, I think it would be much better for his national career. He had to renounce much of his legacy as Massachusetts Governor in order to win the Republican nomination.

I mean, I think the fact that he won the nomination anyway indicates that it didn't hurt him too much - indeed, as the main non-Tea Party candidate, it might have actually helped that he was viewed as someone who could win over moderates and even liberals. Not for nothing does the Republican Party have its first primary in New Hampshire - I imagine that without Romney having a solid record one state over, he would have done worse there, and I don't know that lower expectations plus an even stronger showing in Nevada makes up for that.

More to the point, Latter-Day Saint conservatism (assuming that Romney wouldn't govern basically like he did in Massachusetts, which I don't think is a given) is very culturally and politically different from Evangelical conservatism - there's a lane for a moderate Northern Republican, but I don't know that one quite as easy exists for a conservative Latter-Day Saint to win over either country-club moderates or Tea Party conservatives. If the same candidates get in (absent Jon Huntsman, obvs), I suspect Romney is still the favorite - the only other candidate with his name recognition and appeal outside the Tea Party is Rick Perry, and while Perry is a good candidate on paper his OTL campaign left a lot to be desired - but I don't think there's any reason to believe that he's more likely to win.

If he had stayed in Michigan, on the other hand... well, he probably would have done about the same as OTL, but still.

 

[Elektronaut]

He won the 2012 nomination but he won it after the entire party from donors downwards had been trying to find an alternative to him, up to and including as late as late 2011. If there'd been a more credible right-wing alternative beyond the five minute gadflies like Hermann Cain and Rick Perry then he would have been in trouble. He essentially won it by default. The fact he had so much baggage from the Republican hell of Taxachusetts was absolutely the main reason for all this. Even facing a really weak field of has-beens in the shape of Gingrich and Santorum he outright struggled in a lot of places and lost some important contests.

He could certainly have become Utah governor in the 2000s if things had lined up in the right way for him in terms of openings and he absolutely had an eye on such.

I think that being a Mormon governor of Utah would hugely pigeon-hole him though. It's a really flat resume to be governor of a small, deep Republican state and it really amplifies the religion issue significantly in a way that being a Mormon politician from outside Utah doesn't to the same degree. He'd absolutely have much less exposure on his right but that's moot if he doesn't have the ability to get off the ground for a serious tilt at a nomination to begin with.