Eric Mowrer
United States
Gresham
Oregon
Ami. Geek.
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/search.asp
I didn't expect this one to be marked as true on Snopes, but there you have it. Guess at the very least he's a good friend to have.
In a nut shell, Romney orchestrated the shut down of all of Bain Capital in order to free up time for all of their employees, partners included, to go find a missing daughter of a co-worker.
What are your thoughts?
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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Sounds pretty awesome to me.
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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It is good to be the king.
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King Ævil
South Euclid
Ohio
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A touching story, but until Romney renounces corporate personhood, I'll still oppose him.
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J
United States
San Diego
California
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It's a good thing she wasn't part of the "very poor" else she would have just been left to the existing safety nets.
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Josiah Fiscus
United States
Pittsburgh (Monroeville)
Pennsylvania
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I bet it would have been different if it was a missing dog. Ba-dum-pssh!
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Morgan Dontanville
United States
Brooklyn
New York
Plate of Shrimp.
Here we are folks, the dream we all dream of.
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The massive ecstasy dose part sounds like utter bullshit to me (my guess is that she was doing crank or heroin), the rest of it sounds like the rich are more privileged than the middle class.
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Rich Charters
United States
Chandler
Arizona
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When I saw the movie Taken (with Liam Neeson) I said: "I want a dad like that."
When I read this article I said: "I want a president like that."
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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richcharters wrote: When I read this article I said: "I want a president like that."
Think of what he can do for his friends then!
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Asili Eiliaz
Memphis
Tennessee
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Seems like it would have been more fruitful to divert several days' profits toward a private detective agency if he really wanted to help find her.
EDIT: Ah. Missed it. Still, I'll stand by the opinion that employing professionals all-around would have placed far less reliance on luck.
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Eric Mowrer
United States
Gresham
Oregon
Ami. Geek.
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Spacejack wrote: Seems like it would have been more fruitful to divert several days' profits toward a private detective agency if he really wanted to help find her.
EDIT: Ah. Missed it. Still, I'll stand by the opinion that employing professionals all-around would have placed far less reliance on luck.
I was thinking about that, too. Not sure they would have had the same results. The thing that ultimately found the girl was tied to media coverage, which was based on the news outlets deciding they were impressed with the grass-roots efforts being made. Would they have had the same media coverage if they just hired a bunch of PIs or took out an ad in the paper? News channels aren't really in the business of selling news spots, at least not directly. Then again, I wouldn't be shocked to find out he did some sort of under the table transaction to ensure that there was news coverage happening.
Still, I try to imagine this sort of thing happening at my company and I just don't see it. There is a spark of genuine goodness there, even when you take the privileged rich man approach to analyzing the situation.
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Christopher Bird
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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ejmowrer wrote: What are your thoughts?
I don't think anyone really thinks Mitt Romney is an actively horrible person. (Unlike, say, Newt Gingrich, who is a horrible person.) I think those who are against Mitt Romney are against him because they consider his policies to be horrible, and this is meaningless in that context.
However, if we're going to talk about Mitt Romney as a person with respect to this incident, great and good that he shut down the company so that people could go find a missing kid. No, seriously, it's a good thing he did and he deserves credit for it. But in combination with his policy proposals, it speaks to a deficiency in his public understanding that is not uncommon among conservative politicians. Conservative pols will frequently demonstrate a charitable side of themselves when directly confronted with those in need: let's be generous and assume that the majority of these instances are genuine rather than cynical photo-ops or the like, which I think is the case. Indeed, voluntary charitable donation (of money, goods or services) rather than government spending/programs is practically a mantra for conservatives (and I've seen it more than a few times on RSP).
But the problem with charity is that it depends on the inclinations of the donor, which in turn relies more often than not on the appeal of the charity-seeker. In this case, the appeal was obvious: a partner in Mitt's firm (who, as a partner, was probably a close acquaintance or friend of Mitt's in any case) needed help. Mitt helped his friend find his missing child, using an immense amount of resources to do it. That's good. Frankly, it's above and beyond what I would expect anybody to do for their friend.
But the President of the United States is not everybody's friend. He simply can't be, because - for a start - 735,000 kids go missing every year in the United States. Hell, 35-50 kids go missing every year in Boston alone. Was Mitt Romney shutting down Bain Capital to go find them? Of course not, and he shouldn't have been expected to, because it's not his job.
This ties in neatly to Mitt Romney talking about not being concerned for the very poor "because there are safety nets." Except in his policies he's proposing massive cutbacks to those safety nets. Those people who will suddenly be netless will have to rely on charity - and charity is not reliable, because if the charity doesn't like your face or thinks you have a bad attitude, tough titty, regardless of how great is your need.
I have no doubt that social values inform Mitt Romney's actions, but they do so in a way as you would expect for someone raised in wealth. When Mitt talks about public cutbacks and increasing the role of the private sector, he's not doing so from a place of abstraction: he was raised and lives in a world where the private sector will actually do things for you when you ask them to do it, because Mitt has never been one to whom people have said "no." Particularly when it's his employees and he's just ordered them all to New York City for the week to talk to drug addicts and prostitutes, because he could do that.
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Ken
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
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ejmowrer wrote: There is a spark of genuine goodness there,
That's great, but it's not the only reason I'd vote for anyone for President. Mr. Romney's positions strike me as pretty appalling and damaging to both the middle class and the poor here in the US, for example. So while I'll give him very high marks for his actions in this case and probably many other cases, it doesn't matter to me.
However, I bet it'll play well with the Republican base.
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Christopher Bird
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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richcharters wrote: When I read this article I said: "I want a president like that."
Yessir! When Mitt Romney sees a problem, he will spend any amount of money to pursue all possible methods of solving that problem, regardless of their potential effectiveness!
I am sure this is exactly what conservatives want and have been complaining about for the last few years.
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Eric Mowrer
United States
Gresham
Oregon
Ami. Geek.
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You can all stop trying to convince me not to vote for Romney. I've already stated several times elsewhere in RSP that I have no desire to vote for him because I don't agree with his flip-flopping or the fact that he's just another politician perpetuating the false dichotomy denial-cycle that we've been in for the last several decades.
However, it IS refreshing to see a politician who apparently isn't also a slimy thug in his free time. Some of you may even disagree with that much, but whatever.
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Christopher Bird
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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ejmowrer wrote: However, it IS refreshing to see a politician who apparently isn't also a slimy thug in his free time.
I wouldn't disagree with that assessment in the slightest (and would add that it also applies to Obama in my opinion). But you don't vote for a dude based on what he does in his free time.
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Jon
United States
Vancouver
WA
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But this thread isn't about voting for him or his suitability for any political office. It's about what he did in this situation and for some strange reason, people seem to be afraid to say they like what he did if they don't like him as a presidential candidate.
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Proud Father and Diabetic Underachiever
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
Grata
Bastard of Internet Ridicule
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I like what he did, and I'd never vote for him for any public office, although I am fairly sure that my wife is going to vote for him on the basis of this story, which thankfully cancels anything I might do. I really hate to feel responsible for putting Obama in there in the first place, so it's good that even though I'm compelled to vote for him yet again, this time I know for sure that within my own family the point is utterly moot.
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Not Just Wrong- SPECTACULARLY WRONG.
Spain
Texas
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But the real question is,
Is Mitt Romney kind to animals????
I mean, that is the IMPORTANT issue.
Darilian
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Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim..
United States
Cleveland Heights
Ohio
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So, he knows how to extend his family-protection sphere to his partners. I wonder how much effort he put into protecting the children of all the people he threw into the public safety net after his company bankrupted their employers, made a huge profit and moved on. I wonder what his job placement command center looked like as he was finding new positions for all those people.
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DORGON
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
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Darilian wrote: But the real question is,
Is Mitt Romney kind to animals????
I mean, that is the IMPORTANT issue.
Darilian
He's not concerned about animals...or poor people.
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Ken
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
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ejmowrer wrote: However, it IS refreshing to see a politician who apparently isn't also a slimy thug in his free time. Some of you may even disagree with that much, but whatever.
Well, he wasn't a slimy thug in this case. 
Still, I take your point. Saying this in the OP would have kept me from posting. It does speak to his character, and it's good that he did what he did.
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Chad Ellis
United States
Brookline
Massachusetts
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I think Mitt Romney is probably a very good guy.
Happy Jon? 
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Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim..
United States
Cleveland Heights
Ohio
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quozl wrote: But this thread isn't about voting for him or his suitability for any political office. It's about what he did in this situation and for some strange reason, people seem to be afraid to say they like what he did if they don't like him as a presidential candidate.
I'm not afraid to say I don't like what he did. The sentiment is honorable, but the execution was poor, inefficient and could have made things worse. When you run a multi-million dollar company, you can better spend the money spent sending all these white-collar people with no experience of the dark-underbelly of New York into the streets, by hiring more (I know he hired some) professionals and pressuring the media and authorities to help. It's well-intentioned untrained people like Mitt who make professionals jobs harder. What if his blundering actions actually would have gotten her killed instead? It was dumb risky move, presumably made from the heart and with good intentioned passion.
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Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim..
United States
Cleveland Heights
Ohio
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Darilian wrote: But the real question is,
Is Mitt Romney kind to animals????
I mean, that is the IMPORTANT issue.
Darilian
Hey, George W blew up frogs as a kid and look where that got us. There is precedent.
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Posted Thu Feb 2, 2012 10:00 pm
