Today's New York Times.
The Real Romney
By DAVID BROOKS
The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the
real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this
subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique
look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee:
Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan,
Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first,
believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given
the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into
the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the
Arrow shirt man.
Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I
like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15
months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school,
highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the
deal.
Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called
the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of
land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar
franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project,
“Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired.
The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member
got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. Mitt spent many happy
hours up there, applying face lotion to combat windburn.
The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school,
where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer
where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second
homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately
rich.
Some people say he retreated into himself during these years. He had a
pet rock, which ran away from home because it was starved of affection.
He bought a mood ring, but it remained permanently transparent. His
ability to turn wine into water detracted from his popularity at
parties.
There was, frankly, a period of wandering. After hearing Lou Reed’s
“Walk on the Wild Side,” Romney decided to leave Mormonism and become
Amish. He left the Amish faith because of its ban on hair product, and
bounced around before settling back in college. There, he majored in
music, rendering Mozart’s entire oeuvre in PowerPoint.
His love affair with Ann Davies, the most impressive part of his life,
restored his equilibrium. Always respectful, Mitt and Ann decided to
elope with their parents. They went on a trip to Israel, where they
tried and failed to introduce the concept of reticence. Romney also went
on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing
to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his
2008 presidential bid.
After his mission, he attended Harvard, studying business, law, classics
and philosophy, though intellectually his first love was always tax
avoidance. After Harvard, he took his jawline to Bain Consulting, a firm
with very smart people with excessive personal hygiene. While at Bain,
he helped rescue many outstanding companies, like Pan Am, Eastern
Airlines, Atari and DeLorean.
Romney was extremely detail oriented in his business life. He once
canceled a corporate retreat at which Abba had been hired to play,
saying he found the band’s music “too angry.”
Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his
wife’s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five
perfect sons — Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip — who married identically
tanned wives. Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly
privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in
the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney
owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the
stairs.
After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the
Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after
the G.O.P. He then decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. His
campaign slogan, “Vote Romney: More Impressive Than You’ll Ever Be,” was
not a hit, but Romney won the race anyway on an environmental platform,
promising to make the state safe for steeplechase.
After his governorship, Romney suffered through a midlife crisis, during
which he became a social conservative. This prepared the way for his
presidential run. He barely won the 2012 Republican primaries after a
grueling nine-month campaign, running unopposed.
At the convention,
where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about
his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man,
effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker.
If elected, he promises to bring all Americans together and make them
feel inferior.
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