This Isn't Just About Winning

This essay originally appeared on Beliefnet in 2000.

The inside covers of 56 copies of Mormon scriptures have these words written out in my father's longhand:

"Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another."

It is a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of revelations given to the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith.

These are the books and the wisdom George Romney gave to each of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. At the end of the scripture, he explains: "This is the Lord's formula for successful living."

But I didn't need him to write it out to know how important this verse was to him. I remember how he faced defeat in the gubernatorial election of 1964. Having been elected Michigan's governor in 1962 by the narrowest of margins, he was running again in 1964 on a ticket headed by Barry Goldwater.

As we watched national election-night returns from the campaign suite of Lansing's Jack Tarr Hotel, it was obvious that Goldwater would be swamped by Johnson's overwhelming tide. Michigan was being predicted to give Johnson a 600,000-vote plurality. Dad's pollster gave him the obvious news: "George, we've lost this one already--there's no way that enough ticket-splitters are out there to bail us out."

Lost! How humiliating! To a high school senior still battling the insecurities of zits, skinny legs, and b.o., I couldn't imagine facing my friends. And worse, facing my enemies. All those kids at school who said they were my dad's opponents, all the people who let me know what they thought about the bumper stickers on my car, all the partisans I debated at campaign stops over the last months.

But then I glanced at Dad. Not a trace of pain or anger or sorrow; in fact, he looked entirely calm and unaffected by the news. He was smiling, even joking with his staff. Turning to the family, he said, "This isn't just about winning, you know."

A few hours later, the pollsters were proved wrong, and Dad won a second term. Still, I will never forget how he looked, what he said, when he thought he had lost.

He explained it to me later: "I knew that I was doing what I was supposed to do, so win or lose, I was satisfied. I was successful."

Continued on page 2: Win or lose in earthly games, all things work for good... »