Politics & Power Quote by Mitt Romney

Flattery, weaponized as a governing philosophy. Romney’s string of “you”s turns Massachusetts into the protagonist of its own civics lesson: taxpayers, job creators, parents. The point isn’t just gratitude; it’s a moral sorting mechanism. By assigning the hardest, most valued work to “the citizens,” he implies a contrast set: the government bureaucracy, the free riders, the distant federal apparatus. Government becomes legitimate only when it is visibly tethered to the people doing the paying and producing.

The line “This government is yours” is doing double duty. It’s populist reassurance, but also a preemptive strike against the suspicion that government is an alien force. Romney, a Republican governor in a famously Democratic state, needs a bridge. He builds it by narrating government as a customer-service relationship: you fund it, you own it, I manage it. It’s a tidy fit for his managerial brand, where politics is less crusade than stewardship, less ideology than competence.

Context matters: this is the kind of closing flourish you deliver at a transition moment - a farewell, a victory, a budget speech - when the audience wants affirmation, not granular policy. “I love this job” lands as an intentional humanizing tag, softening the transactional framing with personal warmth. The subtext is clear: I’m not here to rule you; I’m here to answer to you. Also clear: the citizenry Romney praises is defined by productivity. That’s not accidental. It’s the ethical spine of his coalition, smuggled in as a thank-you note.