Salon.com > George Romney

Longtime George Romney aide attacks Mitt

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Walter De Vries, a longtime aide to George Romney, wrote a letter slamming Mitt for his frequent shifts in policy positions, calling Romney's campaign “a far cry from the kind of campaign and conduct, as a public servant, I saw during the seven years I worked in George Romney’s campaigns and served him as governor.”

De Vries, who worked for George Romney from 1961-1967, criticized Mitt Romney in an essay he distributed to reporters.

“While it seems that Mitt would say and do anything to close a deal – or an election,” De Vries wrote, “George Romney’s strength as a politician and public officeholder was his ability and determination to develop and hold consistent policy positions over his life.”

“George would never have been seen with the likes of Sheldon Adelson or Donald Trump," De Vries told the New York Times.

Here's the text of the full letter (or as a .pdf), via the Times:

Mitt’s mom on family’s “welfare relief”

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:29:00 +0000

BuzzFeed dug up this clip from a 1962 Romney for Governor infomercial, in which Mitt Romney's mother, Lenore, talks about his father being on "welfare relief" when he was younger.

"We've only owned our home for the last four years," Lenore Romney says. "He was a refugee from Mexico. He was on relief - welfare relief - for the first years of his life. but this great country gave him opportunities."

Watch:

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Mitt Romney, self-made man

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Yes, we know that Mitt Romney thinks almost half the nation is made up of welfare-grubbing leeches unwilling to separate their maws from the teat of Big Government. But what's honestly more remarkable to me (because the "too many non-rich Americans don't pay taxes" line is an ancient one, and one that the Wall Street Journal editorial page has been repeating since 2002) is that Mitt Romney actually doesn't understand, apparently, that he is a child of privilege.

Contending that he is a self-made millionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, "I have inherited nothing." He remarked, "There is a perception, 'Oh, we were born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and so forth.' Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America."

George Romney: Braver than Mitt

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 12:00:00 +0000

By 1970, Richard Nixon badly wanted to be rid of his Housing and Urban Development secretary, a liberal Republican and former governor of Michigan named George Romney. Romney had a strange dedication to racial integration and had been generally making a hash of the president's "Southern Strategy" by withholding housing funds from projects that barred black families. But Nixon found it difficult to fire people himself (he preferred to have H.R. Haldeman or John Ehrlichman do it, until he had to fire them), and so he instead got Romney to agree to cease promoting integration in suburbs. The president’s strategy was to convince Romney to go away. Romney, who seemed to have gone into government out of a sincere desire to serve, stayed on.