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EDITORIAL
Editorial; OP-ED; New gov appeals to our better selves
Thomas M. KEANE, Jr.

01/03/2003
Boston Herald
All Editions
023
(Copyright 2003)

It's so easy to be cynical. Mitt Romney assumed office yesterday with a moving ceremony following on a near-perfect transition, yet we steel ourselves to be disappointed. A new year and a new governor should bring new hopes, yet those have been dashed so many times before that we are suspicious.

Romney and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey forgoing their combined salaries of $255,000? It's an insult, some say, a not-so-subtle reminder from two plutocrats that they're richer than the rest of us.

How about the two attending services at the predominately African- American New Covenant Christian Church in Mattapan or feeding breakfast to the homeless the morning of their inauguration? Mere ploys, comes the response, symbolic efforts to prove that Romney and Healey, cocooned in wealth, have compassion and heart.

Then there's Romney reaching out to Democrats after the election, building a transition team seemingly drawn from all parts of the political spectrum. That's not a sign of strength, is the response. It's weakness. A Republican in a state dominated by Democrats, Romney has little choice.

And how about Romney's staff picks, apparently made without regard to politics and chosen on the basis of merit? A trick, some fear. The heart of patronage is not the highest level positions but rather those deeper in the ranks, at the manager level. That's where the hacks and failures will land - new ones, perhaps, but hacks and failures nevertheless.

See? It really is easy to be cynical.

But for now, let's not be. For Romney has offered up a sense of government that hearkens back to another son of Massachusetts: John Kennedy.

In his 1960 presidential inaugural, Kennedy famously said: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Kennedy's words were delivered during a time of enormous fear. World War II had ended just 15 years earlier, only to leave Americans even more fearful of nuclear conflagration. Those were gloomy days, an era of "a long twilight struggle."

Yet it was not a pessimistic speech. For Kennedy used a time of danger to call Americans to greatness, to be more than just the sum of their individual selves. "Now the trumpet summons us again," he said. His oratory that day was genuinely inspirational to many. Government, Kennedy said, was a noble calling, a way of achieving the best we can be.

Romney's inaugural speech and his actions so far suggest that he too believes in the nobility of public service.

He clearly differs from libertarians such as Carla Howell, whose crabbed slogan of "small government is beautiful" essentially derides any notion that public service can accomplish anything worthwhile. But Romney also differs from many Democrats - and Republicans - who, while advocates of government, too readily see it as a means of divvying up the spoils. The winner gets the jobs and the money; the losers are left hoping they'll win next time around.

Consider Edward Flynn. Flynn is the commonwealth's new secretary of public safety. When pols in Massachusetts talk about a "nationwide search" for new staff, it's intended as a joke, a wry comment on the fact that it's connections, not talent, that drive state hiring.

In Romney's case, there really was a nationwide search. Flynn was a widely praised police chief in Fairfax County, Va. Romney's call to him came out of the blue. And when Flynn asked the question every political appointee knows to ask - Who do you need me to hire? - the answer was, no one. "You pick your team," Romney told Flynn.

The same tale comes from others Romney has appointed. They are coming into an administration grounded in the new governor's apparent determination that state government's best chances for success come from people of genuine expertise and real merit, unhampered by the traditional rules of political accommodation.

It was a point Romney hammered home in his inaugural speech. "Our source of greatness is our people," he said, and he spent a large portion of his remarks singling out those people who are public servants. Even while berating a government that has become "slow, bureaucratic and disconnected," he made it clear that the solution is not to lose faith in government but to reform it.

Admittedly, the problems of Massachusetts today pale in comparison to those that faced Americans in 1960. Still, they are disheartening. Romney said that "financial distress has precipitated the changes we must make." Yet, like Kennedy, he used those challenges as a call for something greater: "It is the vision of what we can achieve to help our citizens that is the most compelling motivation," Romney said.

Who knows? Perhaps in the months ahead the cynics may be proved right. But on a cold winter's day, the new governor warmed the heart and stirred the soul.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.