‘Unity and virtue’: Mitt Romney bids farewell to the Senate after 6 years

WASHINGTON — From George Washington leading the continental army during the American Revolution to Thomas Edison’s experiments that led to the invention of the light bulb, Mitt Romney is impressed by figures who have accomplished something great as individuals.

His own career in public service — first as the governor of Massachusetts, then as the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, and now as junior senator from Utah — has been defined instead by collaboration, Romney told Senate colleagues Wednesday morning.

“During my life, I have rarely been truly alone — maybe taking tests at school or running cross-country or on my uncle’s tractor cultivating corn,” the senator said. “My life’s work has been a group affair, and its center is my wife, Ann. She is my most trusted adviser, my indefatigable ally, the love of my life.”

Romney, who is wrapping up his first and only term in the U.S. Senate, delivered a farewell address from the chamber floor, reflecting on several bipartisan accomplishments and projecting hope for the future of the nation.

“During my first months in the Senate, I was mostly on my own, and thus mostly unproductive,” he said, before listing off the names of nine colleagues he worked closely with on a bipartisan infrastructure law, electoral counting reform, gun safety legislation and marriage legislation with religious protections. “We had each come to Washington to enact law that would help people, and that’s just what we did. We accomplished together what we could have never done alone.”

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