Boston Globe reporters Kranish and Helman present a very impartial look at Romney's life. Young Romney is from a privileged background and is introduced to politics through a close relationship with his father, the late governor of Michigan, George Romney. He is not a natural athlete and so teen-age Romney becomes a cheerleader for his prep school's athletic teams. At Stanford University, Romney sails through his first year of college without a care in the world. Up to this point in his life, he seems to be a normal, though privileged and perhaps socially-awkward, young man. The authors paint a fairy tale life in a world of elites.
One can see the curious young Romney in the anecdotes told, but after he completes more than two years proselytizing, he emerges a different man. After his LDS mission to France he returns as a mature, aggressive salesman. Dedicated to his faith, Romney chooses to continue his undergraduate degree at LDS-owned BYU instead of Stanford. There, he is surrounded by other like-minded Mormons who continue to re-enforce his world-view.
His life from that point onward is all business, his marriage proposal to Ann Davies, his joint JD/MBA from Harvard, and his first job as a business consultant. Meanwhile Ann was dutifully having his children.
With great detail, the authors chronicle Romney's experiences at Bain Capital, where the cold, calculating world of leveraged buy-outs is aptly described. Romney continues his path to greatness: running against Ted Kennedy for Senator, fixing the Salt Lake Olympics and then, finally as Massachusetts governor, he does some good things but has a general inability to work with his congress. With the documented assistance of the LDS hierarchy, Mitt spends most of the last two years of his term in Massachusetts ignoring the governor's job; instead, he blazes a trail of self-promotion for the 2008 Republican presidential primary.
The authors document that many who worked with him in public service or in political races labeled him self-absorbed, unapproachable and opportunistic. They call him: an "empty suit," a "phony," "a wall," "a shell," "a mask," the "tin man." On the other hand, Romney uses words like "poophead," "holy cow," and "gosh," as if he were a 55 year-old teenager, locked in a time warp. The authors put it best when speaking of Mitt's problems interacting with his co-workers during the Massachusetts governorship: "[An] Amalgamation of his core values never came into relief."
The style of the book is very similar to news-reporting, with little editorializing, except in the excellent preface. The last few chapters are very dry, facts laid upon facts, and seem to be almost lifted from prior news reports. I would have liked to have seen more of the authors' viewpoint in their writing--but perhaps that is just personal taste.
However, through it all the authors do a good job of describing how Romney puts numbers above people and then is surprised when his data-method fails. The picture painted here is of a man who scrambles to take advice from whomever he can, to fit whatever circumstance he finds himself in. He never shares his deepest ideologies; one wonders if he has any other than to follow the LDS Church leaders, counsel he gave a young, single mother-to-be, who needed his compassion as she was about to make a heart-wrenching decision.
Instead of speaking from established beliefs developed within himself over a life-time, according to the reports in this book, Romney seems to take his cues from the outside, whether it is his father, his business associates or his church leaders. As is also shown, Romney seems to be driven to a predestined role: U.S. President. This fits nicely with Joseph Smith's "White horse prophecy," which predicts that an Elder of Israel (Mormon priesthood leader) shall save the Constitution.
The cover photo says it all--you can't see the real Romney. The eyes are the windows to the soul and his eyes are dark. He is a pragmatist, a utilitarian. The degree to which his faith has influenced those values becomes clear in this detailed account. Based upon this book, Romney is a man of expedience, with little room for altruism.
Does he have a soul? This theme is the subtle message underlying the book. Overall, this is an excellent and very detailed summary of a man who appears to have successfully orchestrated a level of prominence in U.S. politics.
Kay Burningham
Author, "An American Fraud: One Lawyer's Case against Mormonism"
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The Right Leader For These Troubled Times?
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2012
The reviewer bought his copy of this biography at a book discussion group conducted by the Boston Globe at the Boston Athenaeum. Only one of the authors was on the panel along with three Globe editors and former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. It was good that Healey was included or the discussion would probably have turned into a Romney Bashing session. However, Healey's presence (and she is working on the current Romney campaign), kept discussions more balanced. I was particularly observing what Scott Helman, one of the co-authors was saying. I was surprised that everything he said seemed accurate and non-partisan. This was surprising considering the Boston Globe is owned by the N.Y. Times and tends to be equally liberal in its editorial policies. "Strategy informed nearly everything he did. This is a man who saw the millions of dollars one could make in selling paper clips. The man who once explained to a reporter in an airport that he preferred eating only the tops of muffins, so as to avoid the butter than melted and sand during baking." When reading this book it's amazing that anyone could question whether Romney is a conservative. The man is the latest in a long line of American pioneer families that settled the American West and part of Mexico. Like his ancestors, Romney does not drink alcohol, smoke, take drugs, use swear words, drink coffee and whose chief interests in life are his family and service to God through his church. "As a nineteen-year-old student at Stanford University in May 1966, Romney picketed antiwar protestors who were holding a sit-in at the office of the university president." He held a huge hand-made sign reading "Speak Out. Don't Sit In." Romney detests intimidation by mobs in the street. It's probably safe to conclude that Mitt isn't a big fan of the "Occupy Movement" because of his long-held belief in "Reason, not coercion!" For the thinking American those qualities alone would place Romney firmly on the right side of the Conservative movement. It also makes the average American wonder just why much of the electorate questions whether Romney is a "true conservative?"An interesting minor point in the book dealt with one of Romney's ancestor's media relationships. For those who think critics and the media are unkind today, here is a sample of the press coverage of the Romneys in 1884 by the Arizona newspaper the "Apache Chief." "The newspaper's editor, George A. McCarter, viciously attacked Romney as 'a mass of putrid pus and rotten goose pimples; a skunk, with the face of a baboon, the character of a louse, the breath of a buzzard and the record of a perjurer and common drunkard.' This mass of accusations reeks of the kind of bar stool name-calling that was common in the Wild West." Maybe the mud slinging that is common in campaigns today isn't really so bad? But that was just a sample of the many minor sidelights contained in this biography. Back to the important points the book makes. Even as a Mormon missionary in France, Romney showed his leadership abilities.Mitt was a big fan of Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich" and encouraged his fellow missionaries to also read and learn from it. "Hill, concluded that wealth grew out of the rigorous applications of personal beliefs and an ability to work with people of like-minded determination... Some of the chapter titles serve as guides to how Romney achieved success in his future careers in business and politics."One of Romney's partners at Bain Capital "marveled at how different Romney was from most people in the stratosphere of the investment world...He was all business or all family." After reading this surprising unbiased biography, Mitt Romney seems to represent the perfect candidate for President of the United States at this time in history. His rare skills combined with a devotion to his church, family and country plus his absolute honesty explain why he was earlier in his career able to clean up the corrupt mess that was the 2002 Winter Olympics. Romney believes in public service and would always remember he was a servant of the public, not vice-versa. Mitt still labors to follow his father's example. As he once expressed it, "Work was never just a way to make a buck to my dad. There was a calling and purpose to it. It was about making life better for people."As a long-time resident of MA, this reviewer remembers Romney was a pretty decent Governor who did much to clean up the fiscal mess he inherited when taking over the corner office at the State House. He was also able to get things done with a legislature that was 85% Democrat. Romney didn't have enough Republicans in the legislation to uphold a veto so he had to have enough help from the other side of the aisle to maintain the 800 plus vetoes he did make.According to Ann Romney when discussing the reason Mitt agreed to try and save the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics, "He loves emergencies and catastrophes...He would never have considered doing it if it wasn't a big mess." The task he faced was crystal clear to David D'Alessandro, who summed it up as "The best way I can describe what he faced, is trying to rebuild an airplane while it's flying." Mitt Romney, named after a cousin of his father who was a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears, seems the right man to lead Team America to new glories. (Please enjoy some of the customer photos this reviewer has posted on this Amazon listing site. Romney seems to be shedding his stiff image and enjoying making contact with the voters.)
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2012
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