A Way Forward for the GOP: Beth Myers on Altering Perceptions of the Republican Party

Beth Myers served as campaign manager to Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign and took charge of his vice-presidential candidate search in 2012. Previously, Myers held the position of Mitt Romney’s Chief of Staff during his four years as Governor of Massachusetts. She is a co-founder of The Shawmut Group, a political consulting firm founded with two fellow former Romney staffers. Myers was a Winter 2014 Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. 

You’ve been involved in politics off and on since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. How have you seen the political arena evolve since then? How have things changed over these past 34 years?

When I got into politics I got in because – I was a movement conservative – I really believed that our country was in a bad way under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, and I believed heart and soul that affecting change was really not only an important thing but a necessary thing. I think that those feelings are still out there today with a lot of young people, and that’s a good thing.

America is really unique in time and in history, in that our democratic form of government enables every generation to determine their own destiny and so in that sense, it’s still the same. Everybody wants to make our country greater and a better place for themselves, their children, their grandchildren to live in. There’s a lot of talk that things are more partisan, and I think there’s some of that now. I’m not sure that it’s worse than it’s ever been, but these things sort of come in waves, and certainly now Congress is a difficult body to work with. There’s a lot of crosscurrents and they’re the opposition party to the president. It’s a challenge.

I just saw this awesome play called “All the Way,” starring Brian Cranston, about LBJ’s efforts to get the Voting Rights Act passed after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and he had to make a lot of compromises. It wasn’t the perfect bill for him, but he made the compromises, he worked with people, he gave people what they wanted; it was a lot of give and take. So it’s always possible even with a difficult Congress to do things. Yeah, the world is different now, but of course it is. That doesn’t mean it’s worse.

Previously, you have mentioned that the state is the “lab of democracy,” and that, as Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney was able to make policy changes that may not have been possible at the federal level. How would you characterize the trade-off in flexibility and power between the state and federal level?

People have said to me that the best job that they’ve ever had was the Chief of Staff to a governor, and I totally agree because you’re in an environment where you can really solve problems. Problems are manageable. They’re big; they’re important; they affect people’s lives. But you can really dive in, get your arms around it, and try things out at a state level that might not work at a federal level but would be really good for your particular state.

That’s what we thought our healthcare system was. We had an unusual situation where we were spending a lot of money on healthcare. Governor Romney looked at that and said, “How can we spend this? We’re spending a lot of money and there are still people who are not covered or covered well. How can we do this well?”

We looked at our particular population and came up with a solution, working with our legislature, working with Ted Kennedy’s office and the Bush administration in DC, and came up with a plan that worked really well for our state. It wouldn’t have worked for a state like Texas, we didn’t feel, because they had a very different uninsured population – a lot more immigrants than we had, for instance.

With media coverage of the so-called “War on Women,” how can the Republican Party attract viable female candidates?

We talked about this in a session I had with Ashley O’Connor, who’s doing a lot of work in this area for the Republican Party. She’s done some research, and a lot of it has to do with the tone that we talk to people in. She’s done some polling and focus groups and discovered that when you say something in a definitive statement to a group of women, they may agree with what you say, but they may not absorb it. Tone, talking a little more emotively, a little less harshly, has a lot to do with it.

Now, I’m not saying that’s going to solve the entire problem the Republican Party has with women, and we have a lot of work to do, but the “War on Women” was, in my view, a Democrat tactic that was very successful. The swing women voters, the light Republican, light Democrat, and truly undecided women, they are up for grabs. In 2014, Nancy Pelosi has spelled out in Politico that she’s going to go after that cohort of women. They are not happy with the president, but they are not happy with Republicans either. I think it’s really important as Republicans enter 2014 that Republicans talk to these women, and that we talk about the issues they care about; we talk to them about those issues in a way they’ll listen to us.

The 2016 presidential election looks like it could be anyone’s game. What kind of candidate do you think can pull ahead from the Republican Party to not only win the primary but the general election as well?

I tend to not talk about 2016 a whole lot because I vetted a lot of the candidates who are thinking about running and I wouldn’t want any of my comments to be misconstrued as something that I found lacking in one of those. But I will say I can give you a whole long laundry list of people: Governor Christie, Paul Ryan, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker. I think there are some dark horses, too: Governor Snyder, Governor Kasich, Governor Martinez, Governor Haley.

All of these people add a lot to our party. We have a very deep bench. That’s one of the things I discovered when I was doing the VP vetting: the class of 2010 had a lot of highly qualified individuals who can easily seek higher office.

Every younger generation wants a big tent. They want to be part of a movement that’s open and inclusive. So I think the Republican who articulates that we’re not a party of exclusion, we’re a party of inclusion, will have a leg up. We don’t want to hang a sign: “Not wanted.” We want to have room in our party for men and women, young people, old people, gay, straight, every ethnic group. We fancy ourselves as the party of opportunity, personal liberty, and freedom, and that’s exactly what the message needs to be: “Come to us. We can do good things for your life.”

A year ago, you, as well as over 100 other prominent Republicans, signed an amicus brief in support of the freedom to marry. With Arizona’s pro-gay-discrimination bill grabbing headlines these days, what is the way forward for the GOP to maintain a cohesive message on gay marriage?

Almost everybody who is conservative inside and outside of Arizona, Senators Flake and McCain, have decried that bill, as well as my former boss, Mitt Romney. All of them, I think, are in favor of traditional marriage but still feel there’s no place for a bill that codifies discrimination in any state of the union. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of question there among the party leadership.

That being said, I signed that [amicus brief]; I feel very strongly about family formation. I think that is a big problem in our society right now: that children do better in family environments, and people, in general, do better when they have a strong family unit. So I’m for family formation in whatever way it manifests itself.

I would say that the Republican Party needs to find a way to incorporate people who support gay marriage and don’t support gay marriage. And, yeah, I haven’t been run out of my party with pitchforks. A lot of the signers of that brief are party leaders, and everyday there’s more and more senators – senator Rob Portman didn’t sign that brief but he came out [in support of gay marriage], [as well as] your senator here in Illinois. We’ve got two openly gay congressional candidates this year. One of them is in my home state, Richard Tisei. I’m a huge supporter of Richard’s. The candidate for governor in our state, Charlie Baker, is very pro-gay marriage, so I think you’re going to see over time more and more Republicans who are open to this idea of family formation in whatever form it takes.

You have been a Fellow both at the Harvard Institute of Politics and here at The University of Chicago. Clearly, you enjoy working with the next generation of policy entrepreneurs. What advice can you give to young people hoping to make a difference in the political sphere?

It sort of sounds cliché, but I think it’s very important for everyone to get involved, and there’s a whole range of ways you can do that. When you do get involved, don’t just get involved superficially but put your heart and soul into it and do excellent work. When you get involved as a young person there’s a lot of people out there, and in order to distinguish yourself you’ve got to put your best foot forward. It’s easy to get your foot in the door, but really excelling requires a lot of heart and soul, and your very best efforts.

Feature Photo: cc/(Darron Birgenheier)