ROMNEY

From a comment in a RCP article on "Obama's Dereliction of Duty" article by Mark Salter:

B Ha Moderator 1 day ago

why meet with world leaders who expect actual governance when you can meet with fawning celebrity fans on a national tv show that has a mostly female (who votes you need) audience? he's not an empty chair; he's an empty suit.
Jean Jean and 24 more liked this

Twister Moderator 22 hours ago in reply to B Ha

B Ha -

Agreed! Think a guy like THIS would abdicate responsibility? (By the way, Democrats and Independents, I wrote every single word of this myself over a period of almost 5 years of reading and learning about Romney from independent sources, meaning, not one single statement came from the Romney website or a Romney mailer. Verify it all yourself.)

ROMNEY:

- Graduated with “University Honors” from BYU (also known as “Highest Honors”, their most prestigious form of recognition, somewhat equivalent to valedictorian) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English; he’s not just a numbers guy

- Master’s degree in Business (Harvard, a Baker's scholar: top 5% of business students)

- Master’s degree in Law (Harvard, graduated Cum Laude / with Honors, top 1/3 of his class)

- Earned both master’s degrees (business AND law) at Harvard University simultaneously (Could you do that? I couldn’t.)

- Had an incredible 80% success rate in private business and now worth between $200 and $250 million (compare this to Obama and many of Obama's closest advisers who have never had to turn a profit or go hungry, and, no, don't whine about workers Romney let go when investing in a company while at Bain Capital because you'd be forgetting to look at: A) the fact that Bain was INVITED by the companies to have Bain invest in them; there were no “hostile takeovers” by Bain Capital and B) the workers' jobs Romney saved by saving a dying company and C) the jobs he created after those struggling companies were turned around and started to grow again)

http://theweek.com/article/ind...

- Gave away his inheritance in 1998 to start / help fund the “George W. Romney Institute of Public Management” at BYU (his father, George Romney, died in 1995)

- As head of the 2002 Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City) turned a potential loss (-$379M shortfall) into one of the few profit-earning Olympic games (+$100M profit)

- Donated his entire Olympic Games salary and severance package ($1.4M) to charity

- Put aside partisanship prejudices/trash-talk by successfully campaigning/winning the governor's seat (2003 – 2007) as a Republican in a heavily Democrat-controlled state LONG before Scott Brown

- While governor of Massachusetts, at HIS request, served the people of MA at the salary of $1/year (that’s right, ONE DOLLAR)

- Previous executive leadership experience as a state governor, including Massachusetts' Commander In Chief of state military forces (Yes, a state governor is legally the Commander In Chief of that state's National Guard forces unless those troops are called to active-duty by the President)

- Turned Massachusetts' budget from red to black while governor (- $3.0B to +$2.16B; that’s “billion” with a “B”)

- Cut taxes 19 times as Massachusetts governor (that’s not a typo, NINETEEN)

- As MA governor, developed a plan that would make deadbeats pay for their own health care (you may not like the MA health care law but that's what it's sole purpose was. Still don't like it because of the mandate? Don't move to MA.) (BTW, how would YOU have solved the MA healthcare free-loader problem and how would you have done it with an overwhelmingly Democrat-controlled state legislature like Romney had to work with?)

- “Service over self”. Romney endorsed McCain only 2 days after ‘Super Tuesday’ in 2008 when it became obvious McCain was the clear front-runner; America is more important to him than his ego (Can you say “He’s not Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum”?)

- Volunteer service to community as a church head pastor for 13 years all with ZERO pay (that's right, none); 5 years as a “bishop” and 8 years as a “stake president”

- Would give ALL his Presidential salary ($1.6 Million total) back to the American taxpayers if elected (yes, he's on record as committing to this)

- Voluntarily turned down enrolling in Medicare when he turned 65 on March 12, 2012
(in other words, he’s NOT sucking up our precious tax dollars because he knows he can, and therefore should, take care of himself)

- He also chose to NOT receive any Social Security payments upon turning 65 because, again, he knows he can take care of himself and therefore should not rely on our tax dollars to help fund his daily living

- Looks, talks and acts "Presidential"

- Released his last 2 years of filed tax records (2010 AND 2011) proving he’s not a tax cheat; paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes in 2011giving him an effective tax rate of 14.1%. AND, the private firm which prepared Romney’s taxes from 1990 through 2009 issued a letter stating that Romney paid 100% of the federal and state income taxes owed during those 20 years. The firm also said Romney’s average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.2% for those 20 years. Satisfied?

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/2...

- Cares about his fellow man: gave $3,000,000 to charity in 2010 and $4,000,000 to charity in 2011; that’s $7 MILLION in just 2 years. Would you have done that? Romney did.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/o...

- He’s pledged (repeatedly) that he’ll repeal Obamacare and REPLACE it with something better.

- And finally…..he’s N-O-T Obama

P.S. - If all one can say about a candidate is that they are a member of "X" church and ignore the talents and character of the person, that person does not deserve the privilege of voting.