Mitt Romney has had an interesting life. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or at least as silver as a person born of people like George Romney and his wife could have. George Romney taught his children the value of work done intelligently but, by his example, he taught them the value of morals and ethics to be practiced throughout their lives. George Romney probably thought that his children would walk in his footsteps. Little did he know that he would have a son who would undue the great reform that he is best known for today--releasing his financial data to the public at large. Those footsteps led George Romney to the head of American Motors and, later, to a career in the public service arena. The senior Romney served a few terms as Michigan’s governor and then, as 1968 approached, to an attempt to become the Republican candidate for president of the United States.

George Romney was an ethics pioneer and became the first presidential candidate in history to release in full disclosure ten years of his tax returns for all the world to see and to dissect. George Romney felt that he needed to do this so that no one would think that his wealth was in any way ill acquired. In point of fact, George Romney acquired his wealth the old fashioned way, he was bright and he worked hard for it. And countless numbers of political candidates from George Romney’s time forward have followed in this good man’s footsteps by also disclosing their financial records! Romney took a struggling car company and completely revamped its marketing plan that led it to provide some of the first affordable automobiles for those who could not have previously afforded a new car. The elder Romney had to appear before Wall Street analysts like most publicly owned company heads do but that was about as close as he ever got to Wall Street. We remember being young and seeing some of Romney’s handiwork driving up and down our local highways. American Motors is long gone now as it was the first of the major car companies not to make the cut as the giants like General Motors and Ford and Chrysler copied and incorporated what Romney’s company had done so successfully that the smaller outfit could not forever endure. The reality of it is that George Romney built things and was an innovator so he knew the value of the struggle. His son Mitt took the struggle and often perverted it for his own profit. There was little risk for Mitt Romney. Whether the companies that his Bain Capital invested in made money or not, Bain usually always came out with a handsome profit. There is really no struggle in that at all! Just manipulation!

In an article now made famous in the conservative owned Wall Street Journal, George Romney’s son Mitt stated that the car industry should be allowed to go through bankruptcy and let the pieces fall where they might! Enter one Barack Obama who decided, as president, that he could not in good conscious let this vital American industry fail. He did not do this to coddle up to Wall Street but, rather, to save over one million American jobs that were either directly or indirectly tied to the fate of the automobile industry. Obama is interesting because he did not have any sort of silver spoon in his mouth and did not even have a father for most of his early or later life. After going to Harvard Law School where he graduated close to the head of his class, Obama came back to the mid west to help those who were in need of help when he could have made a quick and handsome living among those who now do not care much for him at all. Romney followed the family tradition and became successful in business and then took a look at politics while Obama forwent that lucrative option to become a person of the people whose life is a constant struggle in the most basic sort of way by becoming a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois. This fork in the road is the entire difference between these two men! Barack Obama could have easily done what Mitt Romney did but Mitt Romney could have never even conceived of doing what Barack Obama accomplished. Where people have been Barack Obama’s main concern, money and tax avoidance have ruled Mitt Romney’s life.

So, anyone who thinks that Mitt Romney is a man of the people had best look at the people that he chose to associate with for so much of his pre political adult life. Where Mitt Romney used his Harvard connections to set up a firm that manipulated what others had already innovated in order to make bundles of money while sometimes doing some good but making sure that he always prospered whether any real good was done or not, Barack Obama chose to make a difference on the most basic of human levels in a place where Mitt Romney would never care to show his face. As Mitt Romney has so eloquently stated, they were “those people!�

Barack Obama worked for the betterment of those in the forty seven percent that Mitt Romney, in his most unguarded moments, stated were victims who basically sponged off of the rest of us. These were the people that Barack Obama knew best and that Mitt Romney simply decided not help or reach out toward. About as close as Romney ever came to them was when he and his wife Ann had a basement apartment and lived off of his investment income. George Romney wanted Mitt and his siblings to make it on their own but he also gave them some advantages--paid for homes and a free Harvard education. It has been said that Mitt Romney gave away his inheritance but we wonder how much of that gift went to a Mormon Church that appears to be driven by the materialism that so guides so many off brand religions of its type. It is also interesting to note that Barack Obama wrote a book that helped to make him wealthy called “Dreams from my father� but his wealth from that does not begin to approach the wealth that the elder Romney in his wildest dreams could not have thought that his son might have acquired. However, wealth can be measured in many different ways. Barack Obama has a wealth of experiences drawn from the self sacrifice that led him to the streets of Chicago while we suppose that Mitt Romney has a lot of experience with wealth drawn from his experiences among the wealthy in Boston and the other wealth concentration centers of this nation and this world.

All of this led these two divergent men to a fateful meeting on the third of October on a debate stage in the city of Denver, Colorado. Mitt Romney brought his wealth of experience in the business world where he questioned and made decisions that affected the lives of so many and not always in a positive way. Romney has stated that he likes the idea of being able to fire people who provide services to him. Barack Obama came to this encounter having struggled mightily for most of his life trying to help as many people as possible. And, just perhaps, it is the story of that struggle that might be key to the differences between these two men.

We do not think that Barack Obama would have ever done to anyone what Mitt Romney is said to have done to a supposed gay youth in his exclusive private high school back in the state of Michigan where he and his gang of friends held the youth down and cut off the hair that so offended them! So why would we have any reason to doubt that Romney would do the equivalent sort of thing to Barack Obama on that stage out in Denver last Wednesday night. The media has stated that Romney is used to face to face confrontation while Obama is used to speaking to large crowds, thus giving Romney a supposed advantage in this meeting when what really happened was that Romney not only bullied Obama, but the moderator too. He told every lie and changed most of his positions to pander to the watching crowd that has supposedly been numbered upwards of seventy million. And the crowd even saw him bully a gentle soul such as Sesame Streets Big Bird. There is only one problem with that scenario. Bullies, when they are stood up to, become the biggest cowards of all.

Baseball season is in its final days and Obama can draw from pages from that book. When a batter stands in at the plate they will occasionally watch the first pitch come by. Obama must have been in shock watching what Mitt Romney threw at him. But Romney must throw two more by the president and there is every likelihood that Mr. Obama might just hit one of them out of the park! And, if he does, back up in the state of Michigan there might be a special quietness around the grave of one George Romney as he knows that the son that he taught to be ethical who never even cared enough to follow in his fathers footsteps by releasing the tax returns that might just damn him anyway, gets his just deserts! Debating Mitt Romney the other night was like having a wrestling match with a greased pig who changes positions at ever turn. But, there will be another day and a gentleman like Barack Obama will simply have to start calling Mitt Romney what he actually is--A liar! And, that is not always easy for gentlemen to do! But, if he does not do it, the people of the streets of places like Chicago where he did so much good in his younger days, may go uneasily into what cannot be considered to be a good night. In the book of Matthew in the Christian Bible, it says in the twenty fifth chapter that “as you do unto the least of these�. Barack Obama needs to look to them for the strength that he needs to lead us forward into a better day. Barack Obama saw a wrong that needed to be righted when he oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden!

Gentle people sometimes have to be hard!

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.