Politics & Power Quote by Mitt Romney

Romney opens with a ritual genuflection to clean energy: “Even though I love solar and love wind.” It’s a politician’s throat-clearing, designed to preempt the easy caricature of the Republican as anti-renewable. The repetition of “love” isn’t poetry; it’s inoculation. By the time he adds “like most people do,” he’s not describing public opinion so much as borrowing it, positioning himself as the reasonable center who shares your tastes but won’t be “naive” about them.

Then comes the pivot word that does the real work: “alone.” Romney isn’t arguing against renewables; he’s narrowing the frame to make renewables insufficient by definition. That single qualifier creates space for everything else - domestic drilling, natural gas, nuclear, expanded extraction - without having to say it explicitly. It’s an appeal to pragmatism that also flatters the listener: you can be environmentally sympathetic and still vote for an energy strategy rooted in traditional supply.

The phrase “energy independent” is the rhetorical payoff, a post-9/11, post-oil-shock ideal that collapses economics, national security, and identity into one bumper-sticker goal. It implies a world where American strength is throttled by foreign producers, and where the responsible adult restores control. In context, this is Romney trying to compete on the terrain of “all-of-the-above” energy: conceding renewables’ popularity while keeping the conservative coalition’s real priority intact - permission, policy-wise and psychologically, to keep the fossil-fueled engine running.