A Real Contrast Between Romney and Obama

This interesting piece just came across the transom.  I received it from a friend. You can verify Romney’s record and past by researching the Internet. Can you do the same for Obama?  Thanks to, RAdm Dick Van Orden USN (Ret) NA ’45, for sending this personal information about Mr. Romney to us.  I suggest that you read it and pass along to other voters.

       Mitt Romney                       Barack Obama

Stay informed when you vote.  Did you know that Romney received a dual degree from BOTH Harvard Business School and Harvard Law…graduating Cum Laude?  Well, it’s about time that someone put an article out there describing Mitt Romney and his background.  Notice a really clear difference between Romney and Obama?  Here are a few:

1. Mitt doesn’t have that arrogant, supercilious pose that Obama has
2. His scholastic credits are an open book…grades, friends, etc.
3. He doesn’t need a teleprompter to speak
4. He does his speaking engagements to adults not high school groupies
5. His past friends are visible, and none are anarchists, radicals, or….
6. He is a religious man and attends a church which preaches humanity
7. He has an outstanding and successful background in government and business
8. He can’t dance, sing, shoot baskets, or skip up the steps of aircraft
9. He successfully worked with Democrats while Governor
10. He is proud to be an American and strongly backs Israel
11. Last, but surely not least, he is clean as [the] driven snow….  The Democratic machine will be hard pressed to dig up any ‘dirt’…which will really get under their skin

Bottom line, as the French would say, “He is a mensch”…and, except for the un-Hollywood persona, he will make a h*** of a president.

Another thing I noticed about that Fox News poll was, Question #11: Which candidate do you think is smarter?

• Barack Obama 42%
• Mitt Romney 33%

Putting aside the question of just how smart Barack Obama is, this shows me that a lot of people aren’t really familiar with Romney.  Because he’s really smart.  And his smartness includes the dimensions on which Obama is usually considered smart by his admirers (again, the point isn’t whether you agree with them): articulateness and academic credentials.

Romney is very well-spoken, and he seems to perform just as well without a teleprompter.  What’s more, even though we don’t know Obama’s grades but only his degrees, Romney’s got the same top degree, only more so.  Romney is a graduate of Harvard Law who earned a simultaneous MBA from Harvard Business School, a tricky and difficult feat that not many accomplish or even attempt.

Unlike with Obama, we even know quite a bit about Romney’s grades.  Take a look.  Romney graduated in 1971 [from Brigham Young University] 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….  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.

Back in December of 2011, the NY Times spotlighted Romney’s years at Harvard Business School.  Mr. Romney recruited a murderers’ row of some of the most distinguished students in the class.  “He and I said, hey, let’s handpick some superstars,” said Howard Serkin, a classmate….  Mr. Romney served as a kind of team captain, the other members said, pushing and motivating the others.  “He wanted to make straight A’s,” Mr. Serkin said.  “He wanted our study group to be No. 1.”  Sometimes Mr. Romney arrived early to run his numbers a few extra times.  And if his partners were not prepared, “He was not afraid of saying: ‘You’re letting us down.  We want to be the best,’” Mr. Serkin added.

Mr. Romney was in his element.  His class performances were outstanding; his peers described him as precise, convincing, and charismatic.  He won the high grades he craved….  If Mr. Romney melded with the school intellectually, he kept some distance from it socially.  He was married and a parent.  In the liberal precincts of Cambridge, he and his wife, Ann Romney—pictured wearing matching sweaters at a fall 1973 business school clambake, with their two sons on their laps—seemed like they were from “out on the prairies,” Mr. Brownstein said.  The future governor abstained from things many other students were doing: drinking coffee or alcohol, swearing, smoking….  I especially note this, in contrast to Obama.

Today, Mr. Romney does not speak much about his business school degree.  But he remains quite attached to the star study group he put together all those years ago, faithfully attending dinners the men hold every five years….  [H]e does not miss a chance to return to that setting.  Mr. Romney even showed up the year he was put in charge of cleaning up the troubled 2002 [Winter] Olympic Games, stopping by for an hour before flying to Athens for a meeting of the International Olympic Committee….

The men gathered most recently in 2009, after Mr. Romney’s unsuccessful presidential bid.  His old friends asked him about the experience, and he pointed out how much simpler decisions are in business than in politics.  “You end up taking into consideration things that wouldn’t be important in a business decision,” Ronald J. Naples remembers him saying.  Not an un-smart man.  Not at all.

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This introduction of Mitt Romney to the people of America Is very well done. Watch and ask yourself, “Is Mitt the leader we need?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKMDS4cB58U

A friend from Hawaii sent this:

Mitt Romney from his Mitt Romney 2012 Site: After going to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously (double degree), he passed the Michigan bar, but never worked as an attorney.  As a venture-capitalist, Romney’s first major business deal involved investing in a start-up office supply company with one store in Massachusetts that sold office supplies.  That company, called Staples, now has over 2,000 stores and employs over 90,000 people.

Romney or his company Bain Capital (using what became known as the “Bain Way”) would go on to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again with companies like Domino’s, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, and many others.

Got your calculators handy?  Volunteer campaign worker for his dad’s gubernatorial campaign for one year.  Unpaid intern in Governor’s office for eight years.  Mormon missionary in Paris for two years.  Unpaid bishop and stake president for his church for 10 years.  No salary as president of the Olympics for three years.  No salary as Massachusetts governor for four years.  That’s a grand total of 28 years of unpaid service to his country, his community, and his church.

Note: Having been neighbors with a few Mormon families in an apartment building for many years 30 years ago, this is what I came to know about Mormons.  They don’t smoke, they don’t drink alcohol, coffee, coke…anything that has caffeine, and they don’t swear or cuss.  They always look at the positive and brighter side of things.  They have many times, shared their food with us without expecting reciprocation.  They are always there if you need help.  In my opinion, they have been my best neighbors.  If everyone in the World had their outlook, attitude, and personal disposition, the World would be a much better and more peaceful place to live.