Mitt Romney As another hat was thrown into the ring along with Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, the race for the presidential election 2008 heated up on February 13th 2007, this time being in favour of the Republicans, when the 70th Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, formally announced his candidacy. He chose to make his announcement at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, his home state. Willard Mitt Romney, named after his father’s friend and hotel magnate, J. Willard Marriott, was born on March 12th 1947 in Detroit, Michigan as the son of a former Governor, chairman of American Motors and an unsuccessful senate candidate, Lenore Romney. He was one of four children and attended school at Cranbroook School and while he was there he met his future wife, Ann Davies. In 1968 Mitt and Ann married and went on to have five children together, all sons. Sadly in 1998 Ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After graduating from Cranbrook School Mitt attended Stanford University for just two quarters and then served in France for 30 months as an LDS missionary. When he returned from France he returned to Brigham Young University earning his B.A. and in 1975 Mitt graduated from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar.
From the late 1970’s until 1984, Romney worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a vice president of Bain & Company, Inc., another Boston-based management consulting firm. As the CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 winter Olympics, who had previously been running $379 million short, Mitt revamped the organization's leadership and policies, reduced budgets and boosted fundraising. He also worked to ensure the safety of the Games following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by coordinating a $300 million security budget. The position of CEO and President to the Olympics earned Mitt $825,000 which he donated to charity and he then wrote a book about his experience called Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games. Running for Massachusetts Republican party’s nomination in1994, Romney found himself only slightly behind Edward Kennedy but finally went on to win after defeating businessman John Lakian in the primary only to lose the Senate to Kennedy with a 14% vote difference. However, in 2003 Mitt went on to win the election for governor and became the 70th governor of Massachusetts and when his term ended in January 2007 he formed a committee to establish a formal presidential exploratory campaign and announced his intension to run for president in March 2007. Mitt first participated in the 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates Debate on May 3, 2007, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library along with the other Republican presidential contenders.
Mitt has publicly come out with his pro-life views, and in a March 2007 in an interview with Larry King, he explained his position on abortion citing the idea of cloning human embryos for the purpose of harvesting stem cells as the reason when it became an issue of debate in his state. He supports the death penalty, charter schools, and sentencing under the three strikes law, but he is opposed both same-sex marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts. The successor to George W Bush, whether its Romney, McCain, Clinton or Obama, they will become the 44th president and the first Mormon to reach that position In early February 2008 Mitt suspended his campaign in the race to The White House but declined to give up his 268 deligates until a clear runner became obvious. On February 14th 2008 Romney endorced John McCain as the Republican candidate and gave up his deliagets in a bid to secure McCain's bid to be the next occupyer of The White House in 2009. ABB |
