CACHE VALLEY DAILY: Former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now a candidate for U.S. Senate in Utah. In Logan last week, Romney was a guest on KVNU’s For the People program and said he has been to every county in Utah since he began his campaign and he has been getting good response.
“I do believe that one of the things that compelled me to get into the race,” said Romney, “is by virtue of the relationships I have with so many Republican senators, and with the President, that I would be able to have more influence and more impact than a typical junior senator from Utah might have.
“Most junior senators don’t get a lot done; they don’t have a lot of impact. But I think the friendships I have there, and the many years of campaigning with a lot of the folks that are there, will allow me to have more influence for our state, to do better for the people of Utah.”
Romney said he is on the ballot going the signature route and he is very excited about it. He said one of the first things he wants to do, if elected, is rein in spending. He said adding a trillion dollars to the national debt is a huge problem for the country.
“What we’ve seen over the last several years is a process of continuing resolutions,” Romney said, “where basically Congress says, ‘just keep on spending what you’ve been spending, plus some more.’
“That has lead to trillions of dollars of debt. Most people don’t think about the debt, but they’re paying the interest on the loan. Every month, every year we’re having it taken out of our paychecks.”
Romney said his goal is to get the U.S. government to live within its means and both parties are to blame. We also have to realize our country is in a global competition, Romney explained.
“If we are an America-first thinking people,” Romney stated, “our interests are very much to be involved in the world, to make sure we can trade with other nations and that peace reins in the world, that we don’t have the kind of disruptions that lead to military conflict that might suck us in or bring in our allies or friends around the world.”
Romney said there is a battle going on right now about what the world will be: one with free enterprise and personal freedom, or one with authoritarian rule.
Romney also said the federal government has strayed from the Constitution and has encroached on responsibilities originally granted to states. He hopes to reverse that trend.
“I want to return to a posture where the states have more authority over our own lives,” he explained, “and people in Utah will know they have the capacity to make changes because they can change their own state legislature. But trying to get change out of Washington is next to impossible.”
There are some similarities to Romney’s campaign for president in 2008 to his 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate in Utah. When he ran for president, he spent a lot of time in Iowa visiting each of its counties, getting to know its Republican delegates when he was running to be the Republican party’s official nominee. He said that is very similar to what he is doing now in Utah, visiting with 10-20 voters at a time.
Original article: http://www.cachevalleydaily.com/politics/article_f11d353c-41db-11e8-ad10-7fbc141ffb7d.html