Channeling Ezra Taft Benson
When I said that I didn't think Mitt Romney (whose father was a serious early 1968 presidential hopeful) would be "channeling Ezra Taft Benson," this quote from Sherman Adams's First-Hand Report (p. 206) was what I had in mind. Benson was a two-term Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower:
Since he is one of the Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church, everything that Benson does is deeply influenced by his religious faith. When Eisenhower offered him the Agriculture post, he hesitated at first, as he said afterward. "I told him that I had dedicated my remaining years to spiritual matters, that I had responded to the call of my church and that I was not sure that a minister of the Gospel belonged in the Cabinet." Eisenhower won him over, Benson recalled, by asking him in return if a position of responsibility in the government was not a spiritual job.
In Washington, Benson was sometimes difficult to deal with because he overlooked many of the required procedures of government work. Enveloped in a kind of celestial optimism, he was convinced that his big decisions were right and therefore bound to turn out for the best in the end.
Romney is from a political family, and it's clear that he's got more political sense than Benson did.
Massachussetts is hardly Utah. On the other hand, I don't think he'll be using this slogan.
Posted by joshuasharf at June 1, 2005 07:06 PM
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