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Mitt Romney
70th Governor of Massachusetts
In office January 2, 2003 – January 4, 2007
Lieutenant	Kerry Healey
Preceded by	Jane Swift (Acting)
Succeeded by	Deval Patrick
Personal details
Born	Willard Mitt Romney (1947-03-12) March 12, 1947 (age 77) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Ann Romney ​(m. 1969)​
Children	Taggart (b. 1970) Matthew (b. 1971) Joshua (b. 1975) Benjamin (b. 1978) Craig (b. 1981)
Residence(s)	Belmont, Massachusetts Wolfeboro, New Hampshire San Diego, California
Alma mater	Brigham Young University (BA) Harvard University (MBA, JD)
Positions	Co-founder and CEO, Bain Capital (1984–2002) CEO, Bain & Company (1991–1992) CEO, 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee (1999–2002)
Signature
Website	MittRomney.com

This article is part of a series about Mitt Romney
Political positions Electoral history Business career Salt Lake Organizing Committee Public image Governor of Massachusetts Governorship 2002 election Health care reform Presidential campaigns 2008 Primaries Convention 2012 Primaries Convention Debates "Binders full of women" Election Endorsements Planned presidential transition U.S. Senator from Utah 2018 United States Senate election in Utah Turnaround No Apology Anti-Trump speech
v t e

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and politician who is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).

The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Beginning in 1966, he spent thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple have five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University. He entered the management consulting industry, which led in 1977 to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as chief executive officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his previous political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as bishop of his ward and later stake president in his home area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. During his term he presided over the elimination of a projected $3 billion deficit by reducing state funding for higher education, cutting state aid to cities and towns, raising various fees, removing corporate tax loopholes, and by benefiting from unanticipated federal grants and unexpected revenue from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase. He signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance.

Romney ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, winning several primaries and caucuses but losing the nomination to John McCain. In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; as of May 2012, he won enough caucuses and primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee.

Early life and education

Heritage and youth

Willard Mitt Romney was born at Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest child of George W. Romney, who was an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), a homemaker. His mother was a native of Logan, Utah, and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents. He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry. He is a fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was an early leader in the church during the same time.

Romney was preceded in birth by three siblings: Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott. Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years. He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin, Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears. He was called "Billy" until kindergarten, when he indicated a preference for "Mitt". In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills. In 1954, his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors, a company he helped avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability. By the time Mitt was twelve, his father had become a nationally known figure in print and on television, and Mitt idolized him.

Romney attended public elementary schools until the seventh grade, when he began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a traditional private boys' preparatory school where he was one of only a few Mormons and where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than his. He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically. During his sophomore year, he participated in the 1962 campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan. When his parents moved to the state capital as part of George Romney taking office, Mitt took up residence at Cranbrook's Stevens Hall. George Romney was re-elected twice; Mitt worked for him as an intern in the Governor's office and was present at the 1964 Republican National Convention when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism.

At Cranbrook, Romney was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad, and during his final year joined the cross country running team. He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club booster group. During his final year at Cranbook, he improved academically, but was still not a star pupil. He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels". Romney was involved in many pranks, some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for.

In March of his senior year, he began dating Ann Davies; she attended the private Kingswood School, the sister school to Cranbrook. The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation.

University, France mission, marriage, and children: 1965–1975

Romney attended Stanford University in 1965–1966 for a year. Although the campus and environs were becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-"Big Game" customs involving the Stanford Axe. In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in at the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.

As you can imagine, it's quite an experience to go to Bordeaux and say, "Give up your wine! I've got a great religion for you!"

In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary, a traditional rite of passage for which his father and many other relatives had volunteered. He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters. Rules against drinking, smoking, and dating were strictly enforced. Most individual Mormon missionaries do not gain many converts and Romney was no exception: he later estimated ten to twenty for his entire mission. The nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people were especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol. He became demoralized and later recalled it as the only time when "most of what I was trying to do was rejected." In Nantes, he suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players. He gained recognition within the mission for the many homes he called on and the repeat visits he was granted. He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary. In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed palace-like accommodations. Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return. He witnessed the May 1968 general strike and student uprisings and was upset by the breakdown in social order.

In June 1968, an automobile he was driving in southern France was hit by another vehicle, seriously injuring him and killing one of his passengers, the wife of the mission president. Romney, who was not at fault in the accident, became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident. He rallied and motivated the others and they met an ambitious goal of 200 baptisms for the year, the most for the mission in a decade. By the end of his stint in December 1968, he was overseeing the work of 175 fellow members. Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French. The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose. It also represented a crucible, after having been an indifferent Mormon growing up: "On a mission, your faith in Jesus Christ either evaporates or it becomes much deeper ... For me it became much deeper."

While he was away, Ann Davies had converted to the Mormon faith and had begun attending Brigham Young University (BYU). Mitt was nervous that she had been wooed by others while he was away, and she had indeed started dating popular campus figure Kim S. Cameron and had sent Romney in France a "Dear John letter", greatly upsetting him; he wrote to her in an attempt to win her back. At their first meeting following Romney's return, they reconnected and decided to get married immediately, but subsequently agreed to wait three months to appease their parents. At Ann's request, Romney began attending Brigham Young, in February 1969. The couple were married on March 21, 1969, in a civil ceremony in Bloomfield Hills. The following day, the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple.

Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign. George was now serving in President Richard Nixon's cabinet as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In a June 1970 newspaper profile of children of cabinet members, Mitt said that U.S. involvement in the war had been misguided – "If it wasn't a political blunder to move into Vietnam, I don't know what is" – but supported Nixon's ongoing Cambodian Incursion as a sincere attempt to bring the war to a quicker conclusion. Regarding the military draft, Romney had initially received two 2-S student deferments, then, like most Mormon missionaries, a 4-D ministerial deferment while in France, and then two more student deferments. When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured that he would not be selected.

At culturally conservative BYU, he remained isolated from much of the upheaval of the era. He became president of, and an innovative fundraiser for, the all-male Cougar Club booster organization and showed a new-found discipline in his studies. In his senior year, he took a leave to work as driver and advance man for his mother Lenore Romney's eventually unsuccessful 1970 campaign for U.S. Senator from Michigan; together, they visited all 83 Michigan counties. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971, and gave commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU.

The Romneys' first son, Taggart (known as "Tagg"), was born in 1970 while they were undergraduates at BYU and living in a basement apartment. Ann subsequently gave birth to Matthew ("Matt", 1971), Joshua ("Josh", 1975), Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981). Her work as a homemaker would enable her husband to pursue his career.

Romney still wanted to pursue a business path, but his father advised him that a law degree would be valuable to his career. Thus he became one of only fifteen students to enroll at the recently created joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration four-year program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Fellow students considered him guilelessly optimistic, noting his solid work ethic and buttoned-down demeanor and appearance. He readily adapted to the business school's pragmatic, data-driven case study method of teaching, participated in class well, and led a study group whom he pushed to get all A's. He had a different social experience from most of his classmates, since he lived in a Belmont, Massachusetts house with Ann and two children. He was non-ideological and did not involve himself in the political or social issues of the day. He graduated in 1975 cum laude from the law school, in the top third of that class, and was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top five percent of his business school class.

Business career

Management consulting

Romney was recruited by several firms and chose to remain in Massachusetts to work for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), reasoning that working as a management consultant to a variety of companies would better prepare him for a future position as a chief executive. He was part of a 1970s wave of top graduates who chose to go into consulting rather than join a major company directly. His legal and business education proved useful in his job while he applied BCG principles such as the growth-share matrix. He was viewed as having a bright future there.

In 1977, he was hired away by Bain & Company, a management consulting firm in Boston that had been formed a few years earlier by Bill Bain and other former BCG employees. Bain would later say of the thirty-year-old Romney, "He had the appearance of confidence of a guy who was maybe ten years older." With Bain & Company, Romney learned what writers and business analysts have dubbed the "Bain way", which consisted of immersing the firm in each client's business and not just issuing recommendations, but staying with the company until changes were put into place. Romney became a vice-president of the firm in 1978 and worked with clients such as the Monsanto Company, Outboard Marine Corporation, Burlington Industries, and Corning Incorporated. Within a few years, he was one of Bain & Company's best consultants and was sought after by clients over more senior partners.

Two family incidents during this time later came to light during Romney's political career: a confrontation with a park ranger in 1981, and persistent interest in a 1983 episode in which Romney kept his family dog on the roof of his car during a long road trip.

Private equity

Romney was restless for a company of his own to run, and in 1983, Bill Bain offered him the chance to head a new venture that would buy into companies, have them benefit from Bain techniques, and then reap higher rewards than consulting fees. He initially refrained from accepting the offer, and Bain re-arranged the terms in a complicated partnership structure so that there was no financial or professional risk to Romney. Thus, in 1984, Romney left Bain & Company to co-found the spin-off private equity investment firm, Bain Capital. In the face of skepticism from potential investors, Bain and Romney spent a year raising the $37 million in funds needed to start the new operation, which had fewer than ten employees. Romney initially had the titles of president and managing general partner or managing partner. He later became referred to as managing director or CEO as well. He was also the sole shareholder of the firm.

Romney spent little money on costs such as office appearance, and saw weak spots in so many potential deals that by 1986, few had been done. At first, Bain Capital focused on venture capital opportunities. Their first big success was a 1986 investment to help start Staples Inc., after founder Thomas G. Stemberg convinced Romney of the market size for office supplies and Romney convinced others; Bain Capital eventually reaped a nearly sevenfold return on its investment, and Romney sat on the Staples board of directors for over a decade.

Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing firms with money mostly borrowed against their assets, partnering with existing management to apply the "Bain way" to their operations (rather than the hostile takeovers practiced in other leverage buyout scenarios), and selling them off in a few years. Existing CEOs were offered large equity stakes in the process, owing to Bain Capital's belief in the emerging agency theory that CEOs should be bound to maximizing shareholder value rather than other goals. Bain Capital lost most of its money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but then started finding deals that made large returns. The firm invested in or acquired Accuride, Brookstone, Domino's Pizza, Sealy Corporation, Sports Authority, and Artisan Entertainment, as well as lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors. He ran Bain Capital for fourteen years, during which time the firm's average annual internal rate of return on realized investments was 113 percent. Much of this profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals; Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even.

Romney discovered few investment opportunities himself (and those that he did, often failed to make money for the firm). Instead, he focused on analyzing the merits of possible deals that others brought forward and on recruiting investors to participate in them once approved. The firm initially gave a cut of its profits to Bain & Company, but Romney persuaded Bain to give that up. Within Bain Capital, Romney spread profits from deals widely within the firm to keep people motivated, often keeping less than ten percent for himself. Viewed as a fair manager, he received considerable loyalty from the firm's members. Romney's wary instincts were still in force at times, and he was generally data-driven and averse to risk. He wanted to drop a Bain Capital hedge fund that initially lost money, but other partners prevailed and it eventually gained billions. He also personally opted out of the Artisan Entertainment deal, not wanting to profit from a studio that produced R-rated films. Romney was on the board of directors of Damon Corporation, a medical testing company later found guilty of defrauding the government; Bain Capital tripled its investment before selling off the company, and the fraud was discovered by the new owners (Romney was never implicated). In some cases, Romney had little involvement with a company once acquired.

Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient. My job was to try and make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong.

Bain Capital's leveraged buyouts sometimes led to layoffs, either soon after acquisition or later after the firm had left. How jobs added compared to those lost due to these investments and buyouts is unknown, due to a lack of records and Bain Capital's penchant for privacy on behalf of itself and its investors. In any case, maximizing the value of acquired companies and the return to Bain's investors, not job creation, was the firm's fundamental goal, as it was for most private equity operations. Bain Capital's acquisition of Ampad exemplified a deal where it profited handsomely from early payments and management fees, even though the subject company itself ended up going into bankruptcy. Dade Behring was another case where Bain Capital received an eightfold return on its investment, but the company itself was saddled with debt and laid off over a thousand employees before Bain Capital exited (the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, with more layoffs, before recovering and prospering). Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most fees in such cases.

In 1990, Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company, which was facing financial collapse. He was announced as its new CEO in January 1991 but drew only a symbolic salary of one dollar (he remained managing general partner of Bain Capital during this time). He managed an effort to restructure Bain & Company's employee stock-ownership plan, real-estate deals and bank loans, while rallying the firm's thousand employees, imposing a new governing structure that included Bain and the other founding partners giving up control, and increasing fiscal transparency. Within about a year, he had led Bain & Company through a turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without further layoffs or partner defections. He turned Bain & Company over to new leadership and returned to Bain Capital in December 1992.

Romney took a leave of absence from Bain Capital from November 1993 to November 1994 in order to run for the U.S. Senate. During that time, Ampad workers went on strike, and asked Romney to intervene; Bain Capital lawyers asked him not to get involved, although he did meet with the workers to tell them he had no position of active authority in the matter.

By 1999, Bain Capital was on its way to being one of the top private equity firms in the nation, having increased its number of partners from 5 to 18, with 115 employees overall, and $4 billion under its management. Bain Capital's approach of applying consulting expertise to the companies it invested in became widely copied within the private equity industry. Economist Steven Kaplan would later say, " came up with a model that was very successful and very innovative and that now everybody uses."

Romney took a paid leave of absence from Bain Capital in February 1999 to serve as the President and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee. Billed in some public statements as keeping a part-time role, Romney remained the firm's sole shareholder, managing director, CEO and president, signing corporate and legal documents, attending to his interests within the firm, and conducting prolonged negotiations for the terms of his departure. He was not involved in day-to-day operations of the firm, nor was he involved in investment decisions for Bain Capital's new private equity funds.

In August 2001, Romney announced that he would not return to Bain Capital. His separation from the firm was finalized in early 2002; he transferred his ownership to other partners and negotiated an agreement that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds. Because the private equity business continued to thrive, this deal brings him millions of dollars in annual income.

Personal wealth

As a result of his business career, by 2007, Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts since 2003. In 2012, it was estimated that he had amassed twice the net worth of the last eight U. S. presidents combined, and would rank among the four richest in American history if elected.

An additional blind trust existed in the name of the Romneys' children and grandchildren that was valued at between $70 and $100 million as of 2007. The couple's net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and was still held in blind trusts. In 2010, Romney and his wife received $21.7 million in income, almost all of it from investments, of which about $3 million went to federal income taxes (a rate of 13.9 percent, based upon the beneficial rate accorded investment income by the U.S. tax code) and almost $3 million to charity, including $1.5 million to the LDS Church. Romney has always tithed to the church, including stock from Bain Capital holdings. In 2010, the Romney family's Tyler Charitable Foundation gave out about $650,000, with some of it going to organizations that fight specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis and multiple sclerosis.

Local LDS Church leadership

During his years in business, Romney held several specific positions in the local lay clergy, which generally consists of males over the age of 12. Around 1977, he became a counselor to the president of the Boston Stake. He served as bishop of the ward (ecclesiastical and administrative head of his congregation) at Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1981 to 1986. As such, in addition to home teaching, he also formulated Sunday services and classes using LDS scriptures to guide the congregation. He forged bonds with other religious institutions in the area when the Belmont meetinghouse was destroyed by a fire of suspicious origins in 1984; the congregation rotated its meetings to other houses of worship while it was rebuilt.

From 1986 to 1994, he presided over the Boston Stake, which included more than a dozen wards in eastern Massachusetts with about 4,000 church members altogether. He organized a team to handle financial and management issues, sought to counter anti-Mormon sentiments, and tried to solve social problems among poor Southeast Asian converts. An unpaid position, his local church leadership often took 30 or more hours a week of his time, and he became known for his tireless energy in the role. He generally refrained from overnight business travel owing to his church responsibilities.

He took a hands-on role in general matters, helping in maintenance efforts in- and outside homes, visiting the sick, and counseling troubled or burdened church members. A number of local church members later credited him with turning their lives around or helping them through difficult times. Some others were rankled by his leadership style and desired a more consensus-based approach. Romney tried to balance the conservative dogma insisted upon by the church leadership in Utah with the desire of some Massachusetts members to have a more flexible application of doctrine. He agreed with some modest requests from the liberal women's group Exponent II for changes in the way the church dealt with women, but clashed with women whom he felt were departing too much from doctrine. In particular, he counseled women not to have abortions except in the rare cases allowed by LDS doctrine, and also in accordance with church policy encouraged single women facing unplanned pregnancies to give up the baby for adoption. Romney later said that the years spent as an LDS minister gave him direct exposure to people struggling in economically difficult circumstances, and empathy for those going through problematic family situations.

1994 U.S. senatorial campaign

For much of his business career, Romney did not take public political stances. He had kept abreast of national politics during college, though, and the circumstances of his father's presidential campaign loss would irk him for decades. He was registered as an Independent who in the 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries had voted for the Democratic former senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas.

By 1993, Romney had been thinking about entering politics, partly based upon Ann's urging and partly to follow in his father's footsteps. He decided to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who was seeking re-election for the sixth time. Kennedy was potentially vulnerable that year – in part because of the unpopularity of the Democratic Congress as a whole, and in part because this was Kennedy's first election since the William Kennedy Smith trial in Florida, in which Kennedy had suffered some negative public relations regarding his character. Romney changed his affiliation to Republican in October 1993 and formally announced his candidacy in February 1994. In addition to his leave from Bain Capital, he stepped down from his church leadership role during 1994 due to the campaign.

Radio personality Janet Jeghelian took an early lead in polls among candidates for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, but Romney proved the most effective fundraiser. He won 68 percent of the vote at the May 1994 Massachusetts Republican Party convention; businessman John Lakian finished a distant second and Jeghelian was eliminated. Romney defeated Lakian in the September 1994 primary with over 80 percent of the vote.

In the general election, Kennedy faced the first serious re-election challenger of his career in the young, telegenic, and well-funded Romney. Romney ran as a fresh face, as a businessperson who stated he had created ten thousand jobs, and as a Washington outsider with a solid family image and moderate stances on social issues. When Kennedy tried to tie Romney's policies to those of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Romney responded, "Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to take us back to Reagan-Bush." Romney stated: "Ultimately, this is a campaign about change." After two decades out of public view, his father George re-emerged during the campaign.

Romney's campaign was effective in portraying Kennedy as soft on crime, but had trouble establishing its own positions in a consistent manner. By mid-September 1994, polls showed the race to be approximately even. Kennedy responded with a series of ads that focused on Romney's seemingly shifting political views on issues such as abortion and on layoffs of workers at the Ampad plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital. The latter was effective in blunting Romney's momentum. Kennedy and Romney held a widely watched late October debate without a clear winner, but by then, Kennedy had pulled ahead in polls and stayed ahead afterward. Romney spent $3 million of his own money in the race and more than $7 million overall. In the November general election, despite a disastrous showing for Democrats overall, Kennedy won the election with 58 percent of the vote to Romney's 41 percent, the smallest margin in Kennedy's eight re-election campaigns for the Senate.

2002 Winter Olympics

Romney returned to Bain Capital the day after the election, but the loss had a lasting effect; he told his brother, "I never want to run for something again unless I can win." When his father died in 1995, Mitt donated his inheritance to BYU's George W. Romney Institute of Public Management and joined the board and was vice-chair of the Points of Light Foundation (which had incorporated his father's National Volunteer Center). His mother died in 1998. Romney felt restless as the decade neared a close; the goal of simply making more money was losing its appeal to him. He no longer had a church leadership position, although he still taught Sunday School. During the long and controversial approval and construction process for the $30 million Mormon temple in Belmont, he feared that as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy, he would become a focal point for opposition to the structure. He thus kept to a limited, behind-the-scenes role in attempts to ease tensions between the church and local residents, but locals nonetheless sometimes referred to it as "Mitt's Temple".

Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998; Mitt described watching her fail a series of neurological tests as the worst day of his life. After two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found while living in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home) a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. When the offer came for him to take over the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, to be held in Salt Lake City in Utah, she urged him to take it, and eager for a new challenge, he did. On February 11, 1999, Romney was hired as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002.

Before Romney came on, the event was running $379 million short of its revenue benchmarks. Plans were being made to scale back the Games to compensate for the fiscal crisis, and there were fears the Games might be moved away entirely. The Games had also been damaged by allegations of bribery involving top officials, including prior Salt Lake Olympic Committee president and CEO Frank Joklik. Joklik and committee vice president Dave Johnson were forced to resign. Romney was chosen by Utah figures looking for someone with expertise in business and law and with connections to the state and the LDS Church. The appointment faced some initial criticism from non-Mormons, and fears from Mormons, that it represented cronyism or gave the Games too Mormon an image.

Romney revamped the organization's leadership and policies, reduced budgets, and boosted fundraising, alleviated the concerns of corporate sponsors and recruited many new ones. Romney worked to ensure the safety of the Games following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by coordinating a $300 million security budget. Overall, he oversaw a $1.32 billion budget, 700 employees, and 26,000 volunteers. The federal government provided between approximately $400 million and $600 million of that budget, much of it a result of Romney's having aggressively lobbied Congress and federal agencies. It would prove to be a record level of federal funding for the staging of a U.S. Olympics. An additional $1.1 billion of indirect federal funding came in the form of highway and transit projects.

I have learned from my Olympic experience that if you have people who really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there you can get money to help build economic development opportunities.

Romney emerged as the public face of the Olympic effort, appearing in photographs, news stories and on Olympics pins. Robert H. Garff, the chair of the organizing committee, later said that "It was obvious that he had an agenda larger than just the Olympics," and that Romney wanted to use the Olympics to propel himself into the national spotlight and a political career. Garff believed the initial budget shortfall was not as bad as Romney portrayed, given there were still three years to reorganize. Utah Senator Bob Bennett said that much of the needed federal money was already in place and an analysis by The Boston Globe stated that the committee already had nearly $1 billion in committed revenues. Olympics critic Steve Pace, who led Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, thought Romney exaggerated the initial fiscal state in order to lay the groundwork for a well-publicized rescue. Kenneth Bullock, another board member of the organizing committee and also head of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, often clashed with Romney at the time, and later said that Romney deserved some credit for the turnaround but not as much as he claimed: Bullock said: "He tried very hard to build an image of himself as a savior, the great white hope. He was very good at characterizing and castigating people and putting himself on a pedestal."

Despite the initial fiscal shortfall, the Games ended up clearing a profit of $100 million. His performance as Olympics head was rated positively by 87 percent of Utahns. Romney and his wife contributed $1 million to the Olympics, and he donated to charity the $1.4 million in salary and severance payments he received for his three years as president and CEO.

Romney was widely praised for his efforts with the 2002 Winter Olympics including by President George W. Bush, and it solidified his reputation as a turnaround artist. Harvard Business School taught a case study based around his actions. He wrote a book about his experience titled Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games, published in 2004. The role gave Romney experience in dealing with federal, state, and local entities, a public persona he had previously lacked, and the chance to re-launch his political aspirations. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in both Massachusetts and Utah, and also as possibly joining the Bush administration.

Governor of Massachusetts

2002 gubernatorial campaign

In 2002, Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift's administration was plagued by political missteps and personal scandals. Many Republicans viewed her as a liability and considered her unable to win a general election. Prominent party figures – as well as the White House – wanted Romney to run for governor, and the opportunity appealed to him for its national visibility. One poll taken at that time showed Republicans favoring Romney over Swift by more than 50 percentage points. On March 19, 2002, Swift announced she would not seek her party's nomination, and hours later Romney declared his candidacy, for which he would face no opposition in the primary. In June 2002, the Massachusetts Democratic Party challenged Romney's eligibility to run for governor, noting that state law required seven years' consecutive residence and that Romney had filed his state tax returns as a Utah resident in 1999 and 2000. In response, the bipartisan Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that he had maintained sufficient financial and personal ties to Massachusetts and was therefore an eligible candidate.

Romney again ran as a political outsider. He played down his party affiliation, saying he was "not a partisan Republican" but rather a "moderate" with "progressive" views. He touted his private sector experience as qualifying him for addressing the state's fiscal problems and stressed his ability to obtain federal funds for the state, giving his Olympics record as evidence. He proposed to reorganize the state government while eliminating waste, fraud, and mismanagement. The campaign was the first to use microtargeting techniques, in which fine-grained groups of voters were reached with narrowly tailored messaging.

To overcome the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people – a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage. Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless, received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, in polls as late as mid-October. He rebounded with ads that accused O'Brien of being a failed watchdog for state pension fund losses in the stock market and that associated her husband, a former lobbyist, with the Enron scandal. During the election he contributed over $6 million – a state record at the time – to the nearly $10 million raised for his campaign overall. Romney was elected governor on November 5, 2002, with 50 percent of the vote to O'Brien's 45 percent.

Tenure, 2003–2007

When Romney was sworn in as the 70th governor of Massachusetts on January 2, 2003, both houses of the Massachusetts state legislature held large Democratic majorities. He picked his cabinet and advisors more on managerial abilities than partisan affiliation. He declined his governor's salary during his term. Upon entering office in the middle of a fiscal year, he faced an immediate $650 million shortfall and a projected $3 billion deficit for the next year. Unexpected revenue of $1.0–1.3 billion from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase and $500 million in unanticipated federal grants decreased the deficit to $1.2–1.5 billion. Through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes, the state ran surpluses of around $600–700 million for the last two full fiscal years Romney was in office, although it began running deficits again after that.

Romney supported raising various fees by more than $300 million, including those for driver's licenses, marriage licenses, and gun licenses. He increased a special gasoline retailer fee by two cents per gallon, generating about $60 million per year in additional revenue. (Opponents said the reliance on fees sometimes imposed a hardship on those who could least afford them.) Romney also closed tax loopholes, in the interests of both better fairness and revenue increases, that brought in another $181 million from businesses over the next two years and over $300 million for his term. He did so in the face of conservative and corporate critics that considered them tax increases.

The state legislature, with the governor's support, also cut spending by $1.6 billion, including $700 million in reductions in state aid to cities and towns. The cuts also included a $140 million reduction in state funding for higher education, which led state-run colleges and universities to increase tuition by 63 percent over four years. Romney sought additional cuts in his last year as governor by vetoing nearly 250 items in the state budget, but all were overridden by the heavily Democratic legislature.

The cuts in state spending put added pressure on localities to reduce services or raise property taxes, and the share of town and city revenues coming from property taxes rose from 49 to 53 percent. The combined state and local tax burden in Massachusetts increased during Romney's governorship but remained below the national average.

Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state. This came after Staples founder Stemberg told him at the start of his term that doing so would be the best way he could help people, and after the federal government, owing to the rules of Medicaid funding, threatened to cut $385 million in those payments to Massachusetts if the state did not reduce the number of uninsured recipients of health care services. Although he had not campaigned on the idea of universal health insurance, Romney decided that because people without insurance still received expensive health care, the money spent by the state for such care could be better used to subsidize insurance for the poor.

After positing that any measure adopted not raise taxes and not resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds. Beginning in late 2004, they came up with a set of proposals more ambitious than an incremental one from the Massachusetts Senate and more acceptable to him than one from the Massachusetts House of Representatives that incorporated a new payroll tax. In particular, Romney pushed for incorporating an individual mandate at the state level. Past rival Ted Kennedy, who had made universal health coverage his life's work and who, over time, had developed a warm relationship with Romney, gave the plan a positive reception, which encouraged Democratic legislators to cooperate. The effort eventually gained the support of all major stakeholders within the state, and Romney helped break a logjam between rival Democratic leaders in the legislature.

There really wasn't Republican or Democrat in this. People ask me if this is conservative or liberal, and my answer is yes. It's liberal in the sense that we're getting our citizens health insurance. It's conservative in that we're not getting a government takeover.

On April 12, 2006, the governor signed the resulting Massachusetts health reform law, commonly called "Romneycare", which requires nearly all Massachusetts residents to buy health insurance coverage or face escalating tax penalties, such as the loss of their personal income tax exemption. The bill also establishes means-tested state subsidies for people who do not have adequate employer insurance and whose income is below a threshold, with funds that were previously used to compensate for the health costs of the uninsured. He vetoed eight sections of the health care legislation, including a controversial $295-per-employee assessment on businesses that do not offer health insurance and provisions guaranteeing dental benefits to Medicaid recipients. The legislature overrode all eight vetoes, but the governor's office said the differences were not essential. The law was the first of its kind in the nation and became the signature achievement of Romney's term in office.

At the beginning of his governorship, Romney opposed same-sex marriage and civil unions, but advocated tolerance and supported some domestic partnership benefits. Faced with the dilemma of choosing between same-sex marriage or civil unions after the November 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health), Romney reluctantly backed a state constitutional amendment in February 2004 that would have banned same-sex marriage but still allow civil unions, viewing it as the only feasible way to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. In May 2004, the governor instructed town clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but citing a 1913 law that barred out-of-state residents from getting married in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home state, no marriage licenses were to be issued to out-of-state same-sex couples not planning to move to Massachusetts. In June 2005, Romney abandoned his support for the compromise amendment, stating that the amendment confused voters who oppose both same-sex marriage and civil unions. Instead, he endorsed a petition effort led by the Coalition for Marriage & Family that would have banned same-sex marriage and made no provisions for civil unions. In 2004 and 2006, he urged the U.S. Senate to vote in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

In 2005, Romney revealed a change of view regarding abortion, moving from the "unequivocal" pro-choice position expressed during his 2002 campaign to a pro-life one in opposition to Roe v. Wade. He subsequently vetoed a bill on pro-life grounds that would expand access to emergency contraception in hospitals and pharmacies (the veto was overridden by the legislature).

Romney generally used the bully pulpit approach towards promoting his agenda, staging well-organized media events to appeal directly to the public rather than pushing his proposals in behind-doors sessions with the state legislature. He dealt with a public crisis of confidence in Boston's Big Dig project – that followed a fatal ceiling collapse in 2006 – by wresting control of the project from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. After two years of negotiating the state's participation in the landmark Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that instituted a cap and trade arrangement for power plant emissions in the Northeast, Romney pulled Massachusetts out of it shortly before its signing in December 2005, citing a lack of cost limits for industry.

During 2004, Romney spent considerable effort trying to bolster the state Republican Party, but it failed to gain any seats in the state legislative elections that year. He was given a prime-time appearance at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and was already being discussed as a potential 2008 presidential candidate. Midway through his term, Romney decided that he wanted to stage a full-time run for president, and on December 14, 2005, announced that he would not seek re-election for a second term. As chair of the Republican Governors Association, Romney traveled around the country, meeting prominent Republicans and building a national political network; he spent part or all of more than 200 days out of state during 2006, preparing for his run.

The governor had a 61 percent job approval rating in public polls after his initial fiscal actions in 2003, but it began to sink after that. The frequent out-of-state travel contributed to a decline in Romney's approval rating towards the end of his term; at 34 percent in November 2006, his rating level ranked 48th of the 50 U.S. governors. Dissatisfaction with Romney's administration and the weak condition of the Republican state party were among several factors that led to Democrat Deval Patrick's lopsided win over Republican Kerry Healey, Romney's Lieutenant Governor, in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election.

Romney filed to register a presidential campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission on his penultimate day in office as governor. His term ended January 4, 2007.

2008 presidential campaign

Romney formally announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination for president on February 13, 2007, in Dearborn, Michigan. Again casting himself as a political outsider, his speech frequently invoked his father and his own family, and stressed experiences in the private, public, and voluntary sectors that had brought him to this point.

Romney's campaign emphasized his résumé of a highly profitable career in the business world and his stewardship of the Olympics. He also had political experience as governor, together with a political pedigree courtesy of his father (as well as many biographical parallels with him). Ann Romney, who had become an advocate for those with multiple sclerosis, was in remission and would be an active participant in his campaign, helping to soften his political personality. Moreover, a number of commentators noted that with his square jaw and ample hair graying at the temples, the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) Romney – referred to as handsome in scores of media stories – physically matched one of the common images of what some believed a president should look like.

Romney's liabilities included having run for senator and served as governor in one of the nation's most liberal states and having taken some positions there that were opposed by the party's conservative base. Late during his term as governor, he had shifted positions and emphases to better align with traditional conservatives on social issues. Skeptics, including some Republicans, charged Romney with opportunism and having a lack of core principles. As a Mormon, he was also viewed with suspicion and skepticism by some in the Evangelical portion of the party.

Romney assembled for his campaign a veteran group of Republican staffers, consultants, and pollsters. He was little-known nationally, though, and stayed around the 10 percent range in Republican preference polls for the first half of 2007. He proved the most effective fundraiser of any of the Republican candidates and also partly financed his campaign with his own personal fortune. These resources, combined with the mid-year near-collapse of nominal front-runner John McCain's campaign, made Romney a threat to win the nomination and the focus of the other candidates' attacks. Romney's staff suffered from internal strife and the candidate himself was indecisive at times, constantly asking for more data before making a decision.

During all of his political campaigns, Romney has generally avoided speaking publicly about specific Mormon doctrines, referring to the U.S. Constitution prohibition of religious tests for public office. But persistent questions about the role of religion in Romney's life, as well as Southern Baptist minister and former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls based upon an explicitly Christian-themed campaign, led to the December 6, 2007, "Faith in America" speech. Romney said that he should neither be elected nor rejected based upon his religion, and echoed Senator John F. Kennedy's famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign in saying, "I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law." Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith, he said that he would be informed by it and that, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Academics would later study the role religion had played in the campaign.

Romney's strategy was to win the initial two contests, the January 3, 2008, Iowa Republican caucuses and the adjacent-to-his-home-state January 8 New Hampshire primary, and propel himself nationally. But he took second in both, losing Iowa to a vastly outspent Huckabee, who gained much more of the evangelical Christian vote, and losing New Hampshire to the resurgent McCain. Both Huckabee and McCain criticized Romney's image as a flip flopper and this label would stick to Romney through the campaign (but was one that Romney rejected as unfair and inaccurate, except for his acknowledged change of mind on abortion). Romney seemed to approach the campaign as a management consulting exercise, and showed a lack of personal warmth and political feel; journalist Evan Thomas wrote that Romney "came off as a phony, even when he was perfectly sincere." The fervor with which Romney adopted his new stances and attitudes contributed to the perception of inauthenticity which hampered the campaign. Romney's staff would conclude that competing as a candidate of social conservatism and ideological purity rather than of pragmatic competence had been a mistake.

A win by McCain over Huckabee in South Carolina, and by Romney over McCain in childhood-home Michigan, set up a climactic battle in the Florida primary. Romney campaigned intensively on economic issues and the burgeoning subprime mortgage crisis, while McCain attacked Romney regarding Iraq policy and benefited from endorsements from Florida officeholders. McCain won a 5 percentage point victory on January 29. Although many Republican officials were now lining up behind McCain, Romney persisted through the nationwide Super Tuesday contests on February 5. There he won primaries or caucuses in several states, but McCain won more and larger states. Trailing McCain in delegates by a more than two-to-one margin, Romney announced the end of his campaign on February 7.

Altogether, Romney had won 11 primaries and caucuses, received about 4.7 million total votes, and garnered about 280 delegates. He spent $110 million during the campaign, including $45 million of his own money.

Romney endorsed McCain for president a week later. He was on the nominee's short list for the vice presidential running mate slot, where his business experience would have balanced one of McCain's weaknesses. McCain, behind in the polls, opted instead for a high-risk, high-reward "game changer", and selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. McCain lost the election to Democratic Senator Barack Obama.

Activity between presidential campaigns

Following the election, Romney paved the way for a possible 2012 presidential campaign by using his Free and Strong America political action committee (PAC) to raise money for other Republican candidates and to pay his existing political staff's salaries and consulting fees. An informal network of former staff and supporters around the nation were eager for him to run again. He continued to give speeches and raise funds for Republicans, but turned down many potential media appearances, fearing overexposure. He also spoke before business, educational, and motivational groups. He served on the board of directors of Marriott International from 2009 to 2011 (having earlier served on it from 1993 to 2002).

In 2009, the Romneys sold their primary residence in Belmont and their ski chalet in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had bought the year before. The San Diego home was beneficial in location and climate for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis and lumpectomy for mammary ductal carcinoma in situ. Both it and the New Hampshire location were near some of their grandchildren (who by 2012 numbered eighteen). Romney maintained his voting registration in Massachusetts, however, and bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010. In February 2010, Romney had a minor altercation with LMFAO member Skyler Gordy, known as Sky Blu, on an airplane flight.

Romney's book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, was released in March 2010; an 18-state book tour was undertaken. The book, which debuted atop The New York Times Best Seller list, avoided anecdotes about his personal or political life in favor of a presentation of his economic and geopolitical views. Earnings from the book were donated to charity.

Immediately following the March 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney attacked the landmark legislation as "an unconscionable abuse of power" and said the act should be repealed. The antipathy Republicans felt for it created a potential problem for the former governor, since the new federal law was in many ways similar to the Massachusetts health care reform passed during Romney's term; as one Associated Press article stated, "Obamacare ... looks a lot like Romneycare." While acknowledging that his plan was an imperfect work in progress, Romney did not back away from it, consistently defending the state-level health insurance mandate that underpinned it and saying it was the right answer to Massachusetts' specific problems at the time.

In nationwide opinion polling for the 2012 Republican Presidential primaries, Romney led or placed in the top three with Palin and Huckabee. A January 2010 National Journal survey of political insiders found that a majority of Republican insiders, and a plurality of Democratic insiders, predicted Romney would be the party's 2012 nominee. Romney campaigned heavily for Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm elections, raising more money than the other prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidates. Beginning in early 2011, Romney presented a more relaxed visual image, including rarely wearing a necktie.

2012 presidential campaign

On April 11, 2011, Romney announced in a video taped outdoors at the University of New Hampshire that he had formed an exploratory committee for a run for the Republican presidential nomination. A Quinnipiac University political science professor stated, "We all knew that he was going to run. He's really been running for president ever since the day after the 2008 election."

Romney stood to gain from the Republican electorate's tendency to nominate candidates who had previously run for president and appeared to be "next in line" to be chosen. The early stages of the race found him as the apparent front-runner in a weak field, especially in terms of fundraising prowess and organization. Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination was party opposition to the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had shepherded five years earlier. As many potential Republican candidates decided not to run (including Mike Pence, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Mitch Daniels), Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney.

On June 2, 2011, he formally announced the start of his campaign. Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused on the economy and criticized President Obama's handling of it. He said, "In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it – because I have lived it."

Romney raised $56 million during 2011, far more than any of his Republican opponents, and refrained from spending any of his own money on his campaign. He initially ran a low-key, low-profile campaign. Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls, then by September 2011, Romney's chief rival in polls was a recent entrant, Texas Governor Rick Perry. Perry and Romney exchanged sharp criticisms of each other during a series of debates among the Republican candidates. The October 2011 decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to run finally settled the field. Perry faded after poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain's long-shot bid gained popularity until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed him.

Romney continued to seek support from a wary Republican electorate; at this point in the race, his poll numbers were relatively flat and at a historically low level for a Republican frontrunner. After the charges of flip-flopping that marked his 2008 campaign began to accumulate again, Romney declared in November 2011 that "I've been as consistent as human beings can be." In the final month before voting began, Newt Gingrich enjoyed a major surge, taking a solid lead in national polls and in most of the early caucus and primary states, before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC.

In the initial 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3, Romney was announced as the victor on election night with 25 percent of the vote, edging out a late-gaining Rick Santorum by eight votes (with an also-strong Ron Paul finishing third), but sixteen days later, Santorum was certified as the winner by a 34-vote margin. Romney decidedly won the New Hampshire primary the following week with a total of 39 percent; Paul finished second and Jon Huntsman third.

In the run-up to the South Carolina Republican primary, Gingrich launched ads criticizing Romney for causing job losses while at Bain Capital, Perry referred to Romney's role there as "vulture capitalism", and Sarah Palin questioned whether Romney could prove his claim that 100,000 jobs were created during that time. Many conservatives rallied in defense of Romney, rejecting what they inferred as criticism of free-market capitalism. During two debates, Romney fumbled questions about releasing his income tax returns, while Gingrich gained support with audience-rousing attacks on the debate moderators. Romney's double-digit lead in state polls evaporated and he lost to Gingrich by 13 points in the January 21 primary. Combined with the delayed loss in Iowa, Romney's admitted bad week represented a lost chance to end the race early, and he decided to release two years of his tax returns quickly. The race turned to the Florida Republican primary, where in debates, appearances, and advertisements, Romney unleashed a concerted, unrelenting attack on Gingrich's past record and associations and current electability. Romney enjoyed a big spending advantage from both his campaign and his aligned Super PAC, and after a record-breaking rate of negative ads from both sides, Romney won Florida on January 31, gaining 46 percent of the vote to Gingrich's 32 percent.

As Mitt Romney himself Paul Ryan also was been attacked by Paul Krugman, who reproached him class warfare.

There were several caucuses and primaries during February, and Santorum won three in a single night early in the month, propelling him into the lead in national and some state polls and positioning him as Romney's main rival. Romney won the other five, including a closely fought contest in his home state of Michigan at the end of the month. In the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses of March 6, Romney won six of ten contests, including a narrow victory in Ohio over a greatly outspent Santorum, and although he failed to win decisively enough to end the race, still held a more than two-to-one edge over Santorum in delegates. Romney maintained his delegate margin through subsequent contests, and Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10. Following a sweep of five more contests on April 24, the Republican National Committee put its resources behind Romney as the party's presumptive nominee. Romney clinched a majority of the delegates with a win in the Texas primary on May 29.

Polls have shown a generally tight race for the November general election. The campaign has been dominated by negative ads from both sides, with Obama ads proclaiming that Romney shipped jobs overseas while at Bain Capital and has kept his own money in offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts. A related issue has been whether Romney was responsible for actions at Bain Capital after taking the Olympics post. Romney has faced demands from Democrats to release additional years of his tax returns, an action a number of Republicans also think would be wise, but has been adamant that he will not.

On August 11, 2012, the Romney campaign announced the selection of Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice-presidential running mate.As Mitt Romney himself Paul Ryan also was been attacked by Paul Krugman, who reproached him class warfare.

Political positions

Romney has identified himself as "pro-life" since 2005: having previously favored access to legalized abortion during his Massachusetts runs for the U.S. Senate and governorship, he now opposes access to abortion "except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother." He has promised to nominate Supreme Court justices who would help overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing states to individually decide on the legality of abortion. Romney opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions. He has signed a pledge promising to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, which defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman."

Romney has called for cutting federal government spending to help reduce the national debt. He has proposed changes such as gradually raising the eligibility ages for receipt of Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs benefits. He favors substantial increases in military spending, and has promised to invest more heavily in military weapons programs and to increase the number of active-duty military personnel. He has been a supporter of the directions of the federal Paul Ryan Budget.

Romney supported the Bush administration's Troubled Asset Relief Program ("Wall Street bailout") in response to the late-2000s financial crisis, which he has said prevented the U.S. financial system from completely collapsing. During the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010, he opposed a bailout of the American automotive industry in the form of direct government loans, and argued instead that struggling automobile companies should be restructured through managed bankruptcy then seek private-sector loans backed by government loan guarantees.

Romney pledges to lead an effort to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and replace it with a system that give states more control over Medicaid and makes health insurance premiums tax-advantaged for individuals in the same way they are for businesses. He wants to see a repeal of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in response to the financial crisis, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was enacted to prevent accounting scandals such as had occurred with Enron, with plans to eventually replace them with a "streamlined, modern regulatory framework".

Romney has said he would seek income tax law reforms that he says would help lower federal deficits and would stimulate economic growth. Among the series of tax changes he has proposed are: reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, maintaining the Bush administration-era tax rate of 15 percent on investment income from dividends and capital gains (and eliminating this tax entirely for those with annual incomes less than $200,000), cutting the top tax rate on corporations from 35 to 25 percent, and eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax. He has promised that the loss of government revenue from these tax cuts would be offset by closing loopholes and reining in tax deductions and credits available to taxpayers with the highest incomes, so that his tax plan would not raise federal deficits, but has said that aspect of the plan cannot be evaluated yet due to lack of specific details.

Romney opposes mandatory carbon caps known as Cap and Trade to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. After previously saying human activity is contributing to global warming, he now says that it is unknown. He favors increased domestic oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), and nuclear plant construction, and he would seek to reduce the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In his 2010 book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney writes of his belief in American exceptionalism. He has stated that Russia is America's "number one geopolitical foe", and that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability should be America's "highest national security priority". He plans to label China a currency manipulator and take associated counteractions unless that country changes its trade practices. Romney supports the Patriot Act, indefinite detention of suspected terrorists without trial, and use of enhanced interrogation techniques for interrogation of suspected terrorists.

Awards and honors

Romney has received five honorary doctorates, including one in Business from the University of Utah in 1999, in Law from Bentley College in 2002, in Public Administration from Suffolk University Law School in 2004, in Public Service from Hillsdale College in 2007, and in Humanities from Liberty University in 2012.

People magazine included him in its 50 Most Beautiful People list for 2002, and in 2004, he received the inaugural Truce Ideal Award for his role in the 2002 Winter Olympics. The Cranbrook School gave him their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005. In 2008 he shared with his wife Ann, the Canterbury Medal from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, for "refus to compromise their principles and faith" during the presidential campaign. In 2012 Romney was named to the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

Books

• With Timothy Robinson (2004). Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games. Washington: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89526-084-0.
• No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-312-60980-1.

See also

• List of Presidents of the Olympic Organizing Committee
• List of Governors of Massachusetts
• List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets

Notes

1. Teenage pranks conducted by Romney included sliding down golf courses on large ice cubes, dressing as a police officer and either pretending to arrest people or tapping on the car windows of friends who were making out, and staging an elaborate formal dinner on the median of a busy street. The golf course escapade apparently got Romney and Ann Davies arrested, or otherwise detained, by the local police. In 2012, five former classmates described a 1965 episode wherein Romney, then a senior, took the lead in holding down a younger student while cutting his long, bleached-blond hair with scissors. Romney said that he does not recall the incident, though he acknowledged that he may have participated in some high school "hijinks and pranks" that went too far, and he apologized for any harm that resulted from them.
2. ^ When initially considering colleges after high school, Romney had not wanted to go to BYU. He later recounted that he had planned to attend BYU to convince Ann to marry him, then the couple planned to transfer together back to Stanford, but in the end, they enjoyed BYU and decided to stay.
3. Mitt's great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and two uncles had been missionaries, as had his older brother. He did briefly consider breaking with tradition and not going on a mission (and he had successfully rushed the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity at Stanford, for sophomore year membership). But he did go, and all five of Mitt's sons later served as missionaries as well.
4. Based on figures from 1971 to 2010, the average Mormon only gets 4–8 baptism converts to the faith per year during a mission. The church succeeds in expanding by having huge numbers of missionaries, so that the small number of conversions from each one add up.
5. ^ On June 16, 1968, Romney was driving fellow missionaries on dangerous roads in southern France. As they drove through the village of Bernos-Beaulac, a Mercedes that was passing a truck missed a curve and swerved into the opposite lane hitting the Citroën DS Romney was driving in a head-on collision. Trapped between the steering wheel and door, the unconscious and seriously injured Romney had to be pried from the car; a French police officer mistakenly wrote Il est mort in his passport. The wife of the mission president was killed and other passengers were seriously injured as well. George Romney relied on his friend Sargent Shriver, the U.S. Ambassador to France, to go to the local hospital and discover that his son had survived. Romney, who was not at fault in the accident, had suffered broken ribs, a fractured arm, a concussion, and facial injuries, but recovered quickly without needing surgery. The French police say that they have no records of the incident because such records are routinely destroyed after 10 years.
6. Some sources incorrectly report that Romney graduated BYU as valedictorian. Romney himself has corrected this notion, saying that he was not. While he believes he did have the highest grade point average for his BYU years in the College of Humanities, he did not if his Stanford year was factored in, and he did not among the graduating class university-wide.
7. Romney sat for the bar exam in his home state of Michigan in July 1975, passed it and was admitted to practice law there, but never worked as a lawyer and only considered in case his business career did not work out.
8. While at a 1981 family outing at Lake Cochituate in Massachusetts, according to Romney, a ranger from Cochituate State Park told him his motorboat had an insufficiently visible license number and he would face a $50 fine if he took the boat onto the lake. Disagreeing about the license and wanting to continue the outing, Romney took it out anyway, saying he would pay the fine. The angry ranger then arrested him for disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped several days later after Romney threatened to sue the officer and the state for false arrest.
9. In summer 1983, Romney and his family embarked on a 12-hour drive from Boston to his parents' cottage on the Canadian side of Lake Huron. Seamus, the family Irish setter, was put up on the station wagon's roof rack, inside a dog carrier with its own attached windshield, but after some hours the dog suffered gastrointestinal distress, evidence of which was readily seen on the rear window. With his five children loudly expressing revulsion, Romney calmly stopped off at a service station, hosed off the dog, carrier, and car, put the dog back in the carrier and completed the journey. Since becoming public in 2007, the story has been the source of complaints from animal lovers, a point of psychological study regarding Romney's emotion-free crisis management, an obsession to New York Times columnist Gail Collins, and the occasional target of news stories, talk show hosts and political rivals.
10. One study of 68 deals that Bain Capital made during Romney's time there found that the firm lost money or broke even on 33 of them. Another study that looked at the eight-year period following 77 deals during Romney's time found that in 17 cases the company went bankrupt or out of business, and in 6 cases Bain Capital lost all its investment. But 10 deals were very successful and represented 70 percent of the total profits.
11. Kennedy spent $10.5 million overall, including a $1.5 million loan to himself. This was the second-most expensive race of the 1994 election cycle, after the Dianne Feinstein–Michael Huffington Senate race in California.
12. Official state figures for fiscal year 2005 (July 1, 2004 – June 30, 2005) declared a $594.4 million surplus. For fiscal 2006, the surplus was $720.9 million. During fiscal 2007, Romney cut $384 million in spending that the legislature wanted; in January 2007, midway through the fiscal year, incoming Governor Deval Patrick restored that amount, and also declared that the state faced a "looming budget shortfall" of $1 billion for fiscal 2008. Patrick consequently proposed a budget for fiscal 2008 that included $515 million in spending cuts and $295 million in new corporate taxes. As it happened, the state ended fiscal 2007 with a $307.1 million deficit and fiscal 2008 with a $495.2 million deficit.
13. Within four years, the Massachusetts law had achieved its primary goal of expanding coverage: in 2010, 98% of state residents had coverage, compared to a national average of 83%. Among children and seniors the 2010 coverage rate was even higher, 99.8% and 99.6% respectively. Approximately two-thirds of residents received coverage through employers; one-sixth each received it through Medicare or public plans.
14. American political opinion periodically looked towards industry for business managers who it was thought could straighten out what was held to be wrong in the nation's capital. The track record of such efforts was at best mixed, with Lee Iacocca declining to run, Romney's father George and Steve Forbes failing to get far in the primaries, and Ross Perot staging one of the more successful third-party runs in American history.
15. Biographical parallels between George and Mitt Romney include: Both served as Mormon missionaries in Europe and considered the experiences formative. Both pursued high school sweethearts singlemindedly until the women agreed to marry them several years later, then had families with four or five children. Both had very successful careers in business and became known for turning around failing companies or organizations. Both presided over a stake in the LDS Church. Both achieved their first elected position at age 55, as Republican governor of a Democratic-leaning state. The two bear a close physical resemblance at similar ages and both have been said to "look like a president". Both staged their first presidential run in the year they turned 60. Both were considered suspect by ideological conservatives within the Republican Party. There are also obvious differences in their paths, including that George had a hardscrabble upbringing while Mitt's was affluent, and that Mitt far exceeded George's accomplishments in formal education. Another is that Mitt's personality is more reserved, private, and controlled than his father's was, traits he got from his mother Lenore, and his political personality is also shaped at least as much by Lenore as by George. And while George was willing to defy political trends, Mitt has been much more willing to adapt to them.
16. Regarding the role of Romney's religion in the 2008 campaign, one academic study, based upon research conducted throughout the 2008 primaries, showed that a negative perception of Mormonism was widespread during the election, and that perception was often resistant to factual information that would correct mistaken notions about the religion or Romney's relationship to it. The authors concluded that, "For Romney ... religion is the central story." Another study, analyzing a survey conducted during January 2008 (when an African American, a woman, and a Mormon all had realistic chances of becoming the first president from that group), found that voters had internally accepted the notion of black equality, paving the way for Barack Obama's election; had partially established but not fully internalized the notion of gender equality, making Hillary Rodham Clinton's task somewhat more difficult; but had only selectively internalized the notion of religious equality, and in particular not extended it to Mormons, thus making Romney's run significantly more difficult. Those authors concluded that, "for a Mormon candidate, the road to the presidency remains very rough ... The bias against a Mormon candidate is substantial."
17. Following the August 2009 death of his past rival and sometime ally Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Romney declared that he had no interest in running in the special January 2010 election to replace him. Romney was an early supporter of Scott Brown, the successful Republican candidate in that race. Some of Romney's former aides were used by Brown's campaign and Romney raised funds for Brown.
18. After having attended the 2010 Winter Olympics, Romney and wife were on board an Air Canada plane waiting to take off on a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles when he got into a physical altercation with Sky Blu, sitting in front of him, over Sky Blu's seat not being in the upright position. Romney said that Sky Blu became physically violent and that he did not retaliate, while Sky Blu said that Romney gave him a "Vulcan grip" first and that he responded physically to that. Sky Blu was escorted off the aircraft by Canadian police but Romney did not press charges and Sky Blu was released.
19. Romney's cited exceptions regarding abortion are in line with his LDS upbringing. He has also amended his position on embryonic stem cell research: having once supported it broadly, he is now against therapeutic cloning of embryos for scientific research, insisting that "surplus embryos" from fertility treatments should be used instead.

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193. Barrick, Daniel (May 3, 2007). "Romney's vetoes seldom stood". Concord Monitor.
194. ^ Belluck, Pam (April 6, 2006). "On Health Care, Massachusetts Leaders Invoke Action, Not Talk". The New York Times.
195. ^ Knox, Richard (April 8, 2006). "Romney's Mission: Massachusetts Health Care". NPR.
196. ^ Mooney, Brian C. (May 30, 2011). "Romney and health care: In the thick of history". The Boston Globe.
197. ^ Mooney, Brian C.; Ebbert, Stephanie; Helman, Scott (June 30, 2007). "The Making of Mitt Romney: Part 7: Ambitious goals; shifting stances". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) Also available in HighBeam.
198. Canellos, The Last Lion, p. 300.
199. ^ LeBlanc, Steve (April 13, 2006). "Mass. governor signs health bill, with vetoes". The Beaufort Gazette. Associated Press. p. 4A.
200. Crook, Clive (June 2006). "The Massachusetts Experiment". The Atlantic.
201. "An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care" Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Acts of 2006 (Session Laws), Chapter 58. Retrieved January 2, 2007.
202. Dembner, Alice (January 19, 2007). "Outline for new insurance plan proposed". The Boston Globe.
203. ^ LeBlanc, Steve (April 26, 2006). "Mass. House Overrides Gov. Romney Veto of Health Care Fee". Insurance Journal. Associated Press.
204. Geisel, Jerry (December 14, 2010). "Massachusetts' insured rate hits 98.1%: Analysis". Business Insurance. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help)
205. ^ Mehren, Elizabeth (June 17, 2005). "Massachusetts ballot initiative could halt same-sex marriages". Los Angeles Times for Sarasota Herald-Tribune. p. 4A. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
206. "Mitt Romney on the Issues". Romney for Governor 2002. Archived from the original on December 18, 2002. Retrieved December 11, 2006.
207. Phillips, Frank (February 23, 2005). "Romney's stance on civil unions draws fire". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on April 6, 2009.
208. Abraham, Yvonne; Phillips, Frank (May 19, 2004). "Romney Eyes Order on Licenses; Seeks to Halt Marriage of Gay Outsiders". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008.
209. Romney, Mitt (June 2, 2006). "Letter to the US Senate" (PDF). Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 17, 2006. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
210. "Testimony of Honorable Mitt Romney, Governor, Massachusetts". United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. June 22, 2004. Archived from the original on December 27, 2006. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
211. Greenberger, Scott S. (September 16, 2005). "Lawmakers override governor's contraception veto: Move will ease morning-after pill's availability". The Boston Globe.
212. Greenberger, Scott S. (December 21, 2005). "7 states sign emissions pact". The Boston Globe.
213. Barone and Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2006, p. 809.
214. Bradley, Nina (August 29, 2004). "Is Romney ready for the big time?: Mass. Gov. gets plum prime-time speaking spot during convention". msnbc.com. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help)
215. ^ Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, p. 238.
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220. "Approval Ratings for All 50 Governors as of 11/20/06". SurveyUSA. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
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223. ^ Helman, Scott; Ryan, Andrew (February 13, 2007). "Romney formally announces run for president". The Boston Globe.
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229. Glass, Andrew (January 13, 2008). "Romney plays nostalgia card in Michigan". Politico.
230. Melanson, Mike (September 13, 2003). "Ann Romney tackles multiple sclerosis head-on". The Boston Globe.
231. ^ Fiore, Fay (November 24, 2007). "Working to break his own storybook spell". Los Angeles Times.
232. James, Susan Donaldson (October 18, 2011). "Caveman Politics: Americans Like Their Presidents Tall". ABC News.
233. An April 2012 Google News archive search for the period of Romney's 2007–2008 campaign. Among those describing Romney as handsome was another presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama.
234. "Mr Smooth of Massachusetts". The Economist. July 5, 2007.
235. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, p. 11.
236. "Politico's Simon: Romney "up close ... is almost overpowering. He radiates vigor"". Media Matters for America. February 13, 2007.
237. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, pp. 251–252.
238. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, p. 247.
239. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, pp. 261–263.
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246. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, p. 251.
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248. "Huckabee, Obama have huge night in Iowa". CNN. January 4, 2008.
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250. Thomas, "A Long Time Coming", p. 45.
251. ^ Zeleny, Jeff (March 5, 2011). "To Quiet Critics, Romney Puts 2012 Focus on Jobs". The New York Times.
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253. ^ Heilemann and Halperin, Game Change, pp. 312–313.
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258. Kranish, Michael (July 17, 2008). "Romney not getting his $45m back: Says he won't seek gifts to repay campaign loans". The Boston Globe.
259. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, pp. 328, 331.
260. Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, pp. 334–335.
261. Phillips, Frank (December 8, 2008). "Romney paves way for possible '12 run". The Boston Globe.
262. Hiar, Corbin (March 5, 2012). "Money for Love? Romney Campaign Gives Over $1.7 Million to Republicans". The Huffington Post. Center for Public Integrity.
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264. Cannon, Carl M. (June 2, 2009). "Mitt's Makeover: Channeling Reagan for 2012 Run". Politics Daily.
265. Confessore, Nicholas (August 12, 2011). "Romney Reports Net Assets Of as Much as $264 Million". The New York Times.
266. "Mitt Romney stepping down from Marriott board, again". Deseret News. Salt Lake City. Associated Press. January 13, 2011.
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268. Abel, David (February 17, 2009). "2 Romney estates hit the market". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on April 12, 2010.
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270. Levenson, Michael (December 6, 2008). "Ann Romney has surgery to remove precancerous lump". The Boston Globe.
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272. Issenberg, Sasha (August 24, 2010). "A 25-state midterm swing for Romney". The Boston Globe.
273. Barr, Andy (August 27, 2009). "Mitt Romney won't run for Ted Kennedy's seat". Politico. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help)
274. Hand, Jim (October 31, 2009). "Romney goes to bat for Brown". The Sun Chronicle. Attleboro, Massachusetts.
275. Dumcius, Gintautas (September 14, 2009). "Brown launches Senate bid". The Arlington Advocate. State House News Service. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
276. "Romney Assaulted on Flight Leaving Olympics", Fox News, February 16, 2010
277. "Is 'Vulcan Grip' Rapper Sky Blu, Who Tussled With Mitt Romney, the Nerdiest Hip-Hop Artist Ever?", The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2010
278. "Sky Blu of LMFAO claims Mitt Romney got physical first on flight from Vancouver", New York Daily News, February 19, 2010.
279. Barr, Andy (January 4, 2010). "Mitt Romney headed to Iowa". The Politico.
280. Zimmermann, Eric (March 13, 2010). "Romney tops bestseller list, but with an asterisk". The Hill.
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283. ^ Johnson, Glen (March 26, 2010). "Romneycare may come back to haunt Mitt on health issue". Deseret News. Salt Lake City. Associated Press.
284. Johnson, Glen (December 15, 2010). "Health Mandate Cases to Loom Over 2012 Romney Run". ABC News. Associated Press. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |unused_data= (help)
285. Issenberg, Sasha (March 30, 2010). "Romney defends Mass. health care law". The Boston Globe.
286. "GOP Insiders Sour On Palin". The Hotline. January 7, 2010.
287. Burns, Alexander (October 13, 2010). "Mitt Romney's plan: Go big, go everywhere". Politico.
288. Vogel, Kenneth P. (October 14, 2010). "Romney's $1.7 million tops field". Politico.
289. ^ Martin, Jonathan; Burns, Alexander (April 12, 2011). "5 challenges for front-runner Mitt Romney". Politico.
290. "Romney forms presidential exploratory committee". CNN. April 11, 2011.
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292. Lewis, Matt (October 20, 2009). "Palin or Romney: Republicans Weigh Passion vs. Principle". Politics Daily.
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294. ^ Burns, Alexander (May 17, 2011). "X factor: 5 questions for the GOP race". Politico.
295. Green, Joshua (May 5, 2011). "The Do-Nothing Frontrunner". The Atlantic.
296. ^ Martin, Jonathan (May 22, 2011). "With Mitch Daniels out, GOP looking for new 2012 option". Politico.
297. Condon, Stephanie (June 2, 2011). "Romney launches presidential bid with Obama "misery index" attack". CBS News.
298. Shear, Michael D. (January 13, 2012). "Obama Raised $42 Million in Last Quarter of '11". The New York Times.
299. Viser, Matt (September 27, 2011). "Romney expects to raise much less money this quarter". The Boston Globe.
300. Smith, Ben (August 1, 2011). "Mitt Romney's low-profile strategy". Politico.
301. "Accelerating GOP Race Poised to Test Perry's Staying Power, Romney's Obama Strategy". Fox News. September 3, 2011.
302. Kucinich, Jackie (September 25, 2011). "GOP debates signal a race between Romney and Perry". USA Today.
303. ^ Babington, Charles (October 5, 2011). "With GOP Field Set, Romney Woos The Unconvinced". The Seattle Times. Associated Press.
304. Tulumello, Jennifer Skalka (November 11, 2011). "Newt Gingrich: Will his mini-surge in the polls last?". The Christian Science Monitor.
305. "Cain and Gingrich Benefit from Perry Swoon". Fox News. September 29, 2011.
306. "Cain Suspends Presidential Campaign, Cites 'Hurt' Caused by 'False' Allegations". Fox News. December 3, 2011.
307. "Cain Surges, Nearly Ties Romney for Lead in GOP Preferences". The Gallup Organization. October 10, 2011.
308. Klein, Joe (December 1, 2011). "Why Don't They Like Mitt?". Time.
309. Elliot, Philip (October 9, 2011). "Romney rivals may go after him for flip-flops". The Boston Globe. Associated Press.
310. ^ Coral Davenport (October 28, 2011). "Mitt Romney's shifting views on climate change". CBS News.
311. Wallsten, Peter (November 3, 2011). "Romney says he's been consistent". The Washington Post.
312. Allen, Mike (December 12, 2011). "Mitt Romney on Newt Gingrich: He's the front-runner". Politico.
313. Montopoli, Brian (December 19, 2011). "Poll: Newt Gingrich's lead over Romney is gone". CBS News.
314. "Romney defeats Santorum by 8 votes in Iowa". CNN. January 4, 2012.
315. Silver, Nate (January 19, 2012). "The Semantics and Statistics of Santorum's Win in Iowa". The New York Times. {{cite news}}: More than one of |work= and |newspaper= specified (help)
316. "Romney secures front-runner status with New Hampshire win, looks to take momentum into South Carolina". Fox News. January 11, 2012.
317. ^ "Romney, Gingrich tangle over ads in South Carolina". Fox News. January 13, 2012.
318. Lee, MJ (January 12, 2012). "Sarah Palin: Mitt Romney needs Bain show & tell". Politico.
319. ^ "Gingrich wins huge come-from-behind victory in South Carolina". McClatchy Newspapers. January 21, 2012.
320. Dickerson, John (January 20, 2012). "The Brawl". Slate.
321. "Mitt Romney will release tax returns Tuesday; rival Newt Gingrich calls himself most electable GOP candidate". MassLive.com. Associated Press. January 22, 2012.
322. Burns, Alexander; Bravender, Robin (January 24, 2012). "Florida Republican primary is 'Armageddon'". Politico.
323. Rutenberg, Jim; Zeleny, Jeff (January 28, 2012). "The Calculations That Led Romney to the Warpath". The New York Times.
324. Cohen, Tom; Steinhauser, Paul (February 1, 2012). "Romney claims victory in Florida, builds new momentum". CNN.
325. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?_r=3
326. "Polls: All tied up between Romney and Santorum". CNN. February 14, 2012.
327. "Romney wins Michigan and Arizona". CNN. February 28, 2012.
328. "Mitt Romney wins Wyoming caucuses". The Washington Post. February 29, 2012.
329. "Romney builds delegate lead with Super Tuesday wins". Fox News. March 7, 2012.
330. "Romney sweeps 3 primary contests, eyes general election battle". Fox News. April 4, 2012.
331. Cohen, Tom (April 10, 2012). "Santorum suspends campaign, clearing Romney's path". CNN.
332. "RNC officially names Mitt Romney the party's 'presumptive nominee'". Los Angeles Times. April 25, 2012.
333. Haberman, Maggie (July 5, 2012). "7 points that could tip the election". Politico.
334. Peters, Jeremy W. (July 25, 2012). "Negative Ads Hit at Identity to Shape Race for Presidency". The New York Times. p. A1.
335. Shear, Michael D.; Gabriel, Trip (July 18, 2012). "Romney Steadfast in the Face of Growing Calls to Release More Tax Returns". The New York Times.
336. Sweet, Lynn (August 11, 2012). "Romney picks Ryan as his veep mate". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
337. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?_r=3
338. Romney, Mitt (July 26, 2005). "Why I vetoed contraception bill". The Boston Globe.
339. Kessler, Glenn (September 21, 2007). "The Fact Checker: Romney and Abortion". The Washington Post.
340. Romney, Mitt (March 6, 2005). "The problem with the stem cell bill". The Boston Globe.(subscription required)
341. Helman, Scott (February 11, 2007). "Romney's stem cell view may upset the right". The Boston Globe.
342. Parker, Ashley (October 8, 2011). "Romney tries to reassure socially conservative audience". The New York Times.
343. Barbaro, Michael (May 9, 2012). "Romney reaffirms opposition to marriage, or civil unions, for gay couples". The New York Times.
344. Montopoli, Brian (August 4, 2011). "Mitt Romney pledges opposition to gay marriage". CBS News.
345. ^ Jennings, Natalie (February 24, 2012). "Mitt Romney speaks to Detroit Economic Club". The Washington Post.
346. Riley, Charles (May 10, 2012). "Defense spending to spike $2.1 trillion under Romney". CNN Money.
347. "Romney to Legion: I will not cut defense". American Legion. July 19, 2012.
348. Landler, Mark (April 4, 2012). "Budget author, a Romney ally, turns into campaign focus". New York Times.
349. Burns, Alexander (August 11, 2012). "Mitt Romney hugs Paul Ryan, but not budget". Politico.
350. Memoli, Michael A. (March 21, 2012). "Romney: It was Bush, not Obama, who averted second Depression". Los Angeles Times.
351. "Mitt Romney changes position on TARP, DNC says". PolitiFact.com. November 28, 2011.
352. Mitt Romney (November 18, 2008). "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". The New York Times.
353. Semuels, Alana (March 23, 2012). "Romney vows to repeal and replace 'Obamacare' on law's anniversary". Los Angeles Times.
354. Riley, Charles (May 12, 2012). "JPMorgan and the politics of financial reform". CNN Money.
355. Lerer, Lisa (May 17, 2012). "Romney calls for caution on regulations after JPMorgan loss". Bloomberg News.
356. Romney, Mitt (February 24, 2012). "Mitt Romney delivers remarks in Detroit, Michigan". MittRomney.com. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
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358. Easley, Jonathan (March 7, 2012). "Romney says his tax plan 'can't be scored' because it lacks details". The Hill.
359. Mufson, Steven; Eilperin, Juliet (June 8, 2012). "Romney energy plan shows candidate's changing views, draws questions on job claims". The Washington Post.
360. Huisenga, Sarah (April 5, 2012). "Romney goes after Obama on fracking". National Journal.
361. Friedman, Emily (March 26, 2012). "Mitt Romney Says Russia Is No. 1 Geopolitical Foe". ABC News.
362. Mitnik, Joshua (July 29, 2012). "Romney's Israel speech: Iran will be 'highest national security priority'". The Christian Science Monitor.
363. "Mitt Romney on the Issues". Ontheissues.org. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
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365. Palazzolo, Joe (January 17, 2012). "Romney booed for support of indefinite detention". The Wall Street Journal.
366. Egan, Dan (April 9, 1999). "SLOC Boss Romney Will Give U. Commencement Address". The Salt Lake Tribune. p. B3.
367. "Mitt Romney Calls for Bentley College Graduates to 'Be American Heroes'" (Press release). Bentley College. May 1, 2002.
368. "Suffolk University to Award Eight Honorary Degrees" (Press release). Suffolk University. May 24, 2004.
369. "Commencement 2007" (PDF). Hillsdale College. Retrieved June 9, 2011.
370. Bible, Mitzi (May 12, 2012). "Commencement 2012: Paying tribute to Liberty's heritage, God's blessings". Liberty University.
371. "Mitt Romney: Politician". People. May 13, 2002.
372. Pane, Lisa Marie (February 13, 2006). "Romney looks ahead, back in Olympics visit". The Boston Globe. Associated Press.
373. Roche, Lisa Riley (May 10, 2008). "Romney honored for 'Defense of Religious Liberty'". Deseret News. Salt Lake City.
374. Mayer, Marissa (April 18, 2012). "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". Time. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

Bibliography

• Balz, Dan; Johnson, Haynes (2009). The Battle for America, 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election. New York: Viking Penguin. ISBN 978-0-670-02111-6.
• Barone, Michael; Cohen, Richard E. (2004). The Almanac of American Politics 2004. Washington: National Journal Group. ISBN 978-0-89234-106-1. {{cite book}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
• Barone, Michael; Cohen, Richard E. (2006). The Almanac of American Politics 2006. Washington: National Journal Group. ISBN 978-0-89234-111-5.
• Barone, Michael; Cohen, Richard E. (2008). The Almanac of American Politics 2008. Washington: National Journal Group. ISBN 978-0-89234-116-0. {{cite book}}: |format= requires |url= (help)
• Canellos, Peter S. (ed.) and The Team at The Boston Globe (2009). The Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-3817-5.
• Clymer, Adam (1999). Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. New York: Wm. Morrow & Company. ISBN 978-0-688-14285-8.
• Heilemann, John; Halperin, Mark (2010). Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-173363-5.
• Hersh, Burton (1997). The Shadow President: Ted Kennedy in Opposition. South Royalton, Vermont: Steerforth Press. ISBN 978-1-883642-30-3.
• Hewitt, Hugh (2007). A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney. Washington: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59698-502-5.
• Kranish, Michael; Helman, Scott (2012). The Real Romney. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-212327-5.
• Mahoney, Tom (1960). The Story of George Romney: Builder, Salesman, Crusader. New York: Harper & Brothers. OCLC 236830.
• Thomas, Evan (2009). "A Long Time Coming": The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-607-5.

Further reading

• Foster, Craig (2008). A Different God?: Mitt Romney, the Religious Right, and the Mormon Question. Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books. ISBN 978-1-58958-117-3.
• Hines, Phillip (2012). Mitt Romney in His Own Words. New York: Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1-4516-8780-4.
• Scott, Ronald B. (2011). Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press. ISBN 978-0-7627-7927-7.
• Turner, Lisa Ray; Field, Kimberly (2007). Mitt Romney: The Man, His Values, and His Vision. Silverton, Idaho: Mapletree Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60065-109-0.

External links

Official

• MittRomney.com

Other

• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
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v t e Mitt Romney
U.S. Senator from Utah (2019–present) 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–2007)
Politics	1994 senatorial election 2002 gubernatorial election Governor of Massachusetts health care reform 2008 presidential campaign 2012 presidential campaign vice presidential candidate selection 2012 Republican National Convention 2012 U.S. presidential election "Binders full of women" "Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney" Mitt 2016 anti-Trump speech 2018 senatorial election Political positions Electoral history Public image
Business	Bain & Company Bain Capital
Olympics	Salt Lake Organizing Committee
Bibliography	Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games No Apology: The Case for American Greatness
Family	Ann Romney (spouse) Tagg Romney (eldest son) George W. Romney (father) Lenore Romney (mother) Gaskell Romney (grandfather) Harold A. Lafount (grandfather) Miles Park Romney (great-grandfather) Milton Romney (cousin) Ronna Romney McDaniel (niece)
Category Conservatism portal

v t e Governors of Massachusetts
Colony (1629–1686)	Endecott Winthrop T. Dudley Haynes Vane Winthrop T. Dudley Bellingham Winthrop Endecott T. Dudley Winthrop Endecott T. Dudley Endecott Bellingham Endecott Bellingham Leverett Bradstreet
Dominion (1686–1689)	J. Dudley Andros Bradstreet
Province (1692–1776)	W. Phips Stoughton Bellomont Stoughton Governor's Council J. Dudley Governor's Council J. Dudley Tailer Shute Dummer Burnet Dummer Tailer Belcher Shirley S. Phips Shirley S. Phips Governor's Council Pownall Hutchinson Bernard Hutchinson Gage
Commonwealth (since 1776)	Hancock Cushing Bowdoin Hancock Adams Sumner Gill Governor's Council Strong Sullivan Lincoln Sr. Gore Gerry Strong Brooks Eustis Morton Lincoln Jr. Davis Armstrong Everett Morton Davis Morton Briggs Boutwell Clifford E. Washburn Gardner Banks Andrew Bullock Claflin W. Washburn Talbot Gaston Rice Talbot Long Butler Robinson Ames Brackett Russell Greenhalge Wolcott Crane Bates Douglas Guild Draper Foss Walsh McCall Coolidge Cox Fuller Allen Ely Curley Hurley Saltonstall Tobin Bradford Dever Herter Furcolo Volpe Peabody Volpe Sargent Dukakis King Dukakis Weld Cellucci Swift Romney Patrick Baker Healey
Italics indicate acting officeholders

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