Thread: Romney To The Rescue-Talks the Talk Walks the Walk

Romney To The Rescue
PRINT EMAIL DIGG DEL.ICIO.US FACEBOOK Email this Page To:
Multiple addresses seperated by commas From:
Subject:
Message :
By: Ronald Kessler
NEWSMAX
Sunday, Apr 01, 2007
Mitt Romney was faced with a crisis in July 1996. The 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner in Romney's new venture capital firm, Bain Capital, had disappeared. As it turned out, she had attended a rave party in New York City and had become high on ecstasy. Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was.

Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to try to find Gay's daughter.

Romney set up a command center in a conference room at the LaGuardia Marriott just outside Manhattan. He hired a private detective firm to assist with the search and established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the New York City Police Department, but he still wasn't satisfied. He raced through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York. He asked them to help his company find their friend's missing daughter.

The company's accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and its law firm, put up posters on street poles with a photo of the missing teenager. Cashiers at Duane Reade Pharmacies, which was owned by Bain Capital, put fliers in the bag of each shopper.

Romney and others from the Bain Capital posse trudged through every part of New York, even scouring Central Park, and talked with everyone they could - prostitutes, drug addicts - anyone who may have seen her. They also made rounds at the local nightclubs at 3 a.m., hoping someone somewhere could identify her.

The same day the Romney team came to New York, the hunt made the evening news. Television cameras showed photos of the girl and video of investment banker types prowling through Central Park.

The next day, a teenage boy she was with phoned in. He asked if there was a reward. But the boy got nervous and quickly hung up. Luckily, the police traced the call to a home in Montville Township, N.J.

Gay's daughter, when they found her in the basement of that home, was shivering through detox after a massive dose of ecstasy. Doctors later told Gay that he was indeed fortunate - his daughter probably would not have lasted another day.

"It was the most amazing thing, and I'll never forget this to the day I die," Gay says, adding of Romney's intervention, "I'm not sure we would have gotten her back without him."

It is often during a crisis that we gain insight into a person's real character. Romney's action demonstrated leadership, loyalty, and selflessness - attributes that Americans just might like to see in a president of the United States.

People say that Mitt Romney lights up a room. But there are all kinds of ways to light up a room - fluorescent, neon, sunlight, strobe. Romney alternates between sparkle and a warm, steady glow. He is not in your face. He is low-key, self-assured, and self-contained.

That could be a metaphor for Romney's candidacy. When the subject of the 2008 presidential election comes up, Republicans talk about the prospects of the obvious front-runners, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But they often end the conversation by saying, "You know, I really like Mitt Romney."

The fact that Massachusetts, where only 13 percent of registered voters are Republicans, could elect Romney governor by a five-point margin (50 percent versus 45 percent for his Democratic opponent) underscores his popularity among Republicans and Democrats alike.

...

When Mitt Romney was a senior in high school, he met Ann Davies, the attractive daughter of the mayor of Bloomfield Hills. Davies attended Kingswood School, the sister school of Cranbrook. She and Romney came to the party with dates but left together. Soon they were going steady. She was 15 and he was 18.

Romney went off to Stanford, where he and Davies continued to see each other. After his freshman year, Romney left for France to begin a 30-month stint as a Mormon missionary, just as his father and Marriott had done. Romney lived in a seedy hotel in Le Havre.

In the summer of 1968, 21-year-old Romney was driving a Citroën in the rain on a mountainous road near Bordeaux with five other missionaries. As they rounded a curve, a Mercedes, possibly passing another car, veered over the median. The Mercedes, traveling at 70 mph, slammed almost head-on into Romney's car. Viola Anderson, the wife of his mission president, suffered crushed lungs and died. Romney was thrown from the car.

"He was unconscious from a blow to the head," Jane Romney says.

A police officer who came on the scene thought Romney was dead. On his passport, he wrote in pencil, "Il est mort" ("he is dead"). Fortunately, Romney had suffered only a broken arm.

While Romney was in France, Davies, an Episcopalian, decided to convert to Mormonism. She began attending Brigham Young University, which is affiliated with the Mormon church. Upon his return, Romney transferred to the school as a sophomore to be with her.

They were married on March 21, 1969. She was 19 and he was 22.

An English major, Romney graduated in 1971 with a 3.97 grade-point average. Because he ranked at the top of his class in the College of Humanities, he was chosen to speak on graduation day.

After a series of student and missionary deferments, Romney became available for military service in 1970. He drew a 300 in the draft lottery, but no man who had a number of 196 or higher was called from that particular drawing.

Mitt decided to attend Harvard Business School, but his father thought he should obtain a law degree, so he enrolled in a joint program at Harvard Law School. In 1975, he graduated from Harvard Law cum laude and from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar and was in the top 5 percent of his class. One of his classmates at Harvard Business School was George W. Bush.

The Romneys eventually settled in Belmont, Mass., a suburb of Boston that adjoins Cambridge. They own a Colonial-style home on 2.4 acres of land on Marsh Street. The home is worth $3.3 million.

The Romneys have five sons - Taggart, Matt, Josh, Benjamin, and Craig.

Convinced that being a consultant would prepare him to be a top manager, Romney joined Boston Consulting Group. In 1978, Bain & Co., another management consulting company, lured him away and named him vice president. His colleagues included future eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

While he was successful, Romney's role of recommending strategy rather than implementing it frustrated him. He was about to join a Chicago corporation when William Bain, the founder of Bain & Co., persuaded him to start a sister company where Romney would have operational control.

After raising $37 million in startup funds, Romney founded Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, in 1984. For the most part, the company looked for troubled companies that had good potential if management was improved.

Romney had an eye for identifying future success. Notable was Romney's investment in Staples, which had not yet opened its first office supply store.

...

Bain Capital went on to help launch or acquire Domino's Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, and The Sports Authority. Each time Romney looked into an opportunity, he submerged himself in data, analyzed the business, and then was willing to take risks if his instincts told him he was on the right track.

Because of these and other successful investments, Bain Capital now manages $40 billion.

By 1990, Bain & Co., the mother ship, was in dire straits because of excess debt. Founder William Bain asked Romney to return to the company as interim CEO to straighten things out.

Romney tightened expenses, renegotiated loans, and improved morale. He returned the company to profitability within a year before returning to lead Bain Capital.

In 1994, Romney decided to run for the Senate against Democrat Ted Kennedy. It was an audacious move, and Romney spent $6.1 million of his own money on the campaign. He felt liberal social programs of the 1960s and 1970s had created a permanent underclass and fostered poverty rather than eliminating it.

Romney managed to win 41 percent of the votes to Kennedy's 58 percent. Generally, that's not a good showing, but it was remarkable considering he was running as a Republican in a staunchly liberal state - against a Kennedy, no less.

...

In 1998, Utah state leaders approached Romney about taking over the scandal-ridden 2002 Winter Olympics. More than $1 million in bribes had been paid to members of the International Olympic Committee organizers. Before the scandal erupted, the Salt Lake Olympics Organizing Committee (SLOC) had a projected shortfall of $397 million.

Romney accepted the position and asked Fraser Bullock, one of the seven original partners of Bain Capital, to become his chief operating officer.

Romney traveled all over the world to gather support, as he cut back on SLOC expenses. Without foundation, Woody Paige, a Denver Post columnist, blasted the Winter Olympics as a "massive Mormon marketing scheme."

With Romney at the helm, the games ended with a surplus of $56 million. The surplus money went to fund future Olympics.

It was during his busy days guiding the Olympics that Romney received a call from Barbara Anderson, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Limited Taxation.

"I know you're busy with the Olympics right now," said the message she left on his answering machine, "but when you get back please save the commonwealth."

It was Anderson's way of telling him she wanted him to run for governor.

"There was no one else on the horizon, and with the legislature almost entirely Democratic, we felt it was necessary to have a grown-up in the corner office," she says.

With the Olympics success under his belt, Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 on a platform of fiscal conservatism, promising to erase the state's $3 billion deficit.

As the new governor, Romney consolidated state agencies, cut employees, and closed what he called loopholes in the corporate tax code. He also tackled the most difficult public policy issue of all, health insurance.

With input from the Heritage Foundation, Romney came up with a way to provide universal health insurance by requiring that everyone buy coverage, just as drivers are required to buy car insurance. If they don't, they lose their personal exemption on their state income taxes and part of their state tax refund. The idea was that in a reformed marketplace, everyone has the responsibility to have health insurance - no more free riders.

...

Romney's bottom line in Massachusetts: He erased the budget deficit he inherited when he took over, just as he'd done with the Olympics.

When Romney left office on Jan. 4, 2006, the Bay State had a balanced budget plus a "rainy day fund" - all without ever raising taxes.

...

Romney emphasizes four priorities if elected president: defeating the jihadists, competing with Asia, stopping runaway spending, and affirming America's culture and values.

In his NewsMax interview, Romney says he wants to see more money devoted to stopping the next terrorist plot through additional funding for the FBI and CIA. In running the Olympics, he became heavily involved in security issues to make the event safe, says David M. Tubbs, a former FBI agent who was in charge of security at the games.

"Fundamentally, the most important thing you can do to secure this homeland is to keep a bomb from going off," Romney points out. "And the only way you can do that effectively is through intelligence work and counterterrorism. And that means more FBI agents, more careful screening, more tracking of people who represent potential threats."

The FBI has only about 4,000 agents working counterterrorism, compared to New York City's 40,000 police officers.

Romney also favors a tougher immigration policy, investing in technology, extending health insurance to all Americans, achieving energy independence, and improving education by measuring progress and "making teaching a true profession."

He has staked out more conservative positions than Giuliani and McCain on immigration policy and abortion. As governor, he decided that 30 state troopers should be trained to arrest illegal immigrants in the state.

On another bedrock issue for conservatives, he believes McCain was on the wrong side. "He voted against the Bush tax cuts," Romney points out. "I was in favor of the Bush tax cuts."

While Romney has generally supported Bush, he criticizes his creation of the Medicare drug prescription benefit without finding ways to pay for it.

Promising to build "a new American dream," Romney formally announced his candidacy on Feb. 13 at the Henry Ford Museum in his home state of Michigan. He cast himself as an optimistic and forward-thinking Washington outsider with the experience and vision to lead the country into a new age.

...

Romney's fans range from Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, to Ann Coulter, to talk-show host Laura Ingraham. While governor of Florida, Jeb Bush gave his blessing to key staffers to migrate to the Romney camp.

Grover Norquist notes that Romney was the first major candidate to sign Americans for Tax Reform's pledge to oppose any effort to raise marginal income tax rates. Norquist says Romney is moving to "place himself dead center of the Reagan coalition." If he succeeds, Norquist says, "He will be the strongest candidate for the nomination."

...

Romney is "a spectacular candidate," says Republican strategist Mary Matalin, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. "He is methodical, and he's definitely got the happy warrior thing. He's substantive, and he's got executive skills. And he's 21st century, too." Romney's Mormon religion will turn out to be a plus, she says, because people "like that have a source of strength."

...

Romney said he is "very concerned about the America that my grandkids will enjoy, and your grandkids will enjoy. It can be a stronger, more vibrant nation, or it can become the France of the 21st century - starting off as the economic superpower, military superpower, ending still a great nation, but not the world's superpower. The choices we make today will determine whether America is a more prosperous and secure place for our grandchildren. I can help do that."

Among former presidents, Romney admires Dwight D. Eisenhower. Besides taking on communism, "He was a person whose leadership during World War II made him someone the entire nation revered and respected," Romney says. "And there's nothing wrong with having heroes in positions of prominence."

Having rescued the commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Winter Olympics, Bain & Co., and his partner's daughter, Romney could well be talking about himself.

View Entire Article

http://www.mittromney.com/News/In-The-N ... ney_Rescue


My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am.

I am watching TV here in Boston where it has been announced that the polls show Romney leading McCain. Yeah