Should Barack Obama not show up for a Commission on Presidential Debates event with Mitt Romney, our former governor might make history by losing a debate against an empty chair. The latest self-created controversy is, does Romney care or not care about the poor, and that spurs us to wonder what Mitt really is about, and that turns us to the valuable The Real Romney by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.
So I read the book, and I think I’ve found The Passion of the Mitt. Here is a short excerpt from my column in CommonWealth Magazine, The Real Romney – not the book, but my reflection upon what it tells us about Mitt Romney:
Near the end of The Real Romney, as he meets with Wall Street titans who had pledged to raise money for his 2012 run, Romney finally shows some fire in attacking the sort of populism Gingrich would come to use against him: “The populism I’m referring to is, if you will, demonizing certain members of society: going after businesspeople, going after Wall Street, going after people who are highly educated, people who are CEOs.”
The book also discusses what the Romney team saw as his three biggest problems as they prepared for 2008, the “three M’s: Mormon, millionaire, Massachusetts.” The book offers valuable insights into those challenges, and I offer my own take on how Romney is handling the three M’s in 2012 in The Real Romney in CommonWealth Magazine. I hope you’ll take a look.
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