Posted on 04/02/2007 2:02:49 PM PDT by Unmarked Package
Like a lot of kids, I grew up thinking my Dad was Superman. And like most kids, in my teenage years, my view of him changed from Superman to Supernerd. But by age 16, I realized that my earlier view, though not totally realistic, was a lot closer to the truth. We continued to have occasional disagreements, and we still do. But I've come to realize how extraordinarily lucky I am to have Mitt Romney as my father. I also think that if elected, he would be one of our nation's most remarkable presidents.
I'll never forget one weekday sometime during July 1986 (burned in my memory as a magic year for a crazy Boston sports fan, with the Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox all making it to the championship games). I went fishing in an old row boat in Buzzard's Bay on Cape Cod. I threw the anchor overboard and dropped my fishing line. After catching a few fish, I realized I hadn't tied the anchor to the front of the boat.
I returned to the house with my fish and sheepishly informed my Dad, who had company from work at the house, that I had lost the anchor. He told me to go back out and find it. I told him something along the lines of, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard – I can't find an anchor on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."
Now my instinct as a parent of three would be to send my kid to his room for talking to me that way and then make him work to pay off a new anchor. His reaction was different. He excused himself from his friends, got dressed in his bathing suit, grabbed a snorkel mask, and took me down to the beach with him. For 45 minutes we rowed back and forth, putting our faces into the water to see if we could find the anchor. Amazingly, we did.
I learned three lessons that day. The first is that my Dad really is pretty frugal. There isn't much that bothers him more than wasting money. The second is that my Dad honestly believes he can overcome any challenge with enough hard work and ingenuity. And third, I learned that my Dad cares for me enough to spend his day looking for an anchor in the Atlantic Ocean. He didn't care so much about finding the anchor as he did about teaching me the first two lessons – being wise with money and not letting anything stand in my way.
I've seen that pattern repeat itself dozens of times in his life – at the Olympics, as Governor of Massachusetts, as a successful businessman, and as a father and husband.
When I vote for a Congressman or a Senator, I want someone who is going to be a strong representative for my conservative values. A thinker. A legislator.
But when I vote for President, I also want a doer. No-nonsense. Pragmatic. Proven. Someone who will be able to react quickly to any crises that arise, someone I trust to safeguard my family from threats abroad and threats from within.
I've seen my Dad in action, not just in one crisis, but in dozens. I don't think there is a person alive in whom I'm more confident in placing my trust.
Take a look back to 2002. That was the year he put on an incredible Winter Olympics with a $100M surplus (right after 9/11, and despite a major scandal that almost ruined the games before he took them over), won as a Republican Governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and turned a $3B budget deficit into a surplus without raising taxes.
I recognize that all of that wouldn't matter so much if he were on the wrong side of the issues. We should want someone who not only will lead, but will lead us in the right direction.
Ask yourself who you want leading our nation over the next decade as we face the following challenges: a Jihadist enemy intent on destroying our way of life; liberal elites and activist judges attempting to break down the social values and norms that have existed for centuries; an exploding immigration problem; a serious threat to our status as economic and military superpower from Asia; a looming energy crisis; out-of-control spending in Washington.
What kind of person should we want to be leading our nation at this time of challenge and opportunity? The answer seems obvious – we want someone strong; someone who recognizes our challenges and is willing to deal with them head on; a fiscal conservative; a social conservative; someone whose personal integrity and moral values are unquestioned; someone who has been tested; someone who isn't a career politician; and someone who will get the job done.
There is only one person I believe can do all of that. There's no question that I'm biased—I love my Dad. But my love hasn't blinded me. Like Lincoln in 1860, Roosevelt in 1901, and Reagan in 1980, Mitt Romney is the right leader at the right time for our great nation. He may not be Superman. But he's close enough for me.
This is off topic, but Mitt is going to be on Hugh Hewitt soon!
He will be on The Big Story on Fox tomorrow as well .Spread the word !
Here goes:
I was about nine and my dad (Superman) had spent half the spring and all of summer carrying 100 pound sacks of feed up this steep hill we lived on way back in the holler to feed this pig he bought to raise for meat to feed his starving family of wife, two brats and his old hag mother (my grandma Superwoman).
Finally the day came in mid fall to whack the fat, senseless thing in the head, gut it on a tripod and carry the carcass a bit farther up the steep hill to a wooden shed atop the cellar.
Superwoman told Superman that he didn’t have the slightest idea how to sugar cure a whole hog let alone start on it in an old drafty shed after dark but Superman, being the stalwart sort he was, shrugged her off with a wave of his mighty hand and bade me follow him to the ritual site to assist in the sacred ablutions.
Being a bit sleepy and more than a little nauseous from the day’s sights and smells, I dutifully followed him up the path, around the back and into the tomb-like musty environs.
Instantly I saw at the flick of a switch that he had carefully laid out the operating theater beforehand as there were brushes, bags of sugar, two or three drop cords and a big old wooden table where the now ripe, corpulent carcass awaited.
Like a village smithy he stripped to his waist, bare chest glistening in sweat; with his brow furrowed in concentration he handed me the nearest dropcord with bare bulb affixed and instructed me to hold it high as he began the gruesome task.
As he began massaging the lifeless corpse he grinned and smacked his lips as though he could already taste the succulent ribs to be presented with great flair when the cupboard ran bare.
Me, I began to sag from all the activity and the awful stench that now filled the entire shed. He reached in his pocket as a magician might pull an endless handkerchief and presented me with an all-day sucker.
Unwrapping it, I figured that this was all I was going to get until the ordeal was over and greedily began to suck on it for whatever nourishment I could glean.
Then the true boredom set in and the lollipop lost its flavor and my eyes began to droop as my hand holding the dropcord began to tire. I switched hands from dropcord to sucker and back as the night dragged on, now becoming quite dark and mixed with unitelligible cursing as the “curing” process appeared to be going terribly awry.
As my head was about to drop to my chest, Superman yelled for me to wake up and slapped his huge hand on the sow’s swollen belly for emphasis.
With a start I lifted the lollipop high in the air, licked the lightbulb and the whole scene disappeared in a wink.
Man, do I hate pigs.
There were fewer restrictions on gun ownership in Massachusetts when Romney left office than when he entered office. As a gun owner in Texas with a concealed carry permit, I was very pleasantly surprised by his record on guns with a fiercely anti-gun, 85% Dem Legislature eager to override any veto.
From the column, his “kid” is at least of voting age and has three kids.
Romney signs off on permanent assault weapons ban
- July 08, 2004
Governor Mitt Romney has signed into law a permanent assault weapons ban that he says will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on these guns.
“Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen’s groups and gun safety advocates. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
Like the federal assault weapons ban, the state ban, put in place in 1998, was scheduled to expire in September. The new law ensures these deadly weapons, including AK-47s, UZIs and Mac-10 rifles, are permanently prohibited in Massachusetts no matter what happens on the federal level.
“We are pleased to mark an important victory in the fight against crime,” said Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. “The most important job of state government is ensuring public safety. Governor Romney and I are determined to do whatever it takes to stop the flood of dangerous weapons into our cities and towns and to make Massachusetts safer for law-abiding citizens.”
http://www.iberkshires.com/story.php?story_id=14812
Operative line!
“These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”
The Second Amendment was written to keep and bear arms that are “instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.” You’re ignorant.
Correction:
The Second Amendment was written to protect the right to keep and bear arms that are “instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.” You’re ignorant.
By the way, while I will be nice and give you the benefit of the doubt by saying that you’re merely ignorant, I’ll cut Mitt Romney no such slack. As the elected chief executive of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts he had a duty to have at least a passing knowledge of God-given, unalienable rights. So, I would call his breach of faith with the people a willful violation of the Constitution, not ignorance.
The new bill had the support of law enforcement and Massachusetts gun owners because it also added several measures they favored, including a lengthening of the terms of firearm identification cards and licenses to carry, namely;
1) Extending the term of a firearm identification card and a license to carry firearms from four years to six years,
2) Granting a 90-day grace period for holders of firearm identification cards and licenses to carry who have applied for renewal, and
3) Creating a seven-member Firearm License Review Board to review firearm license applications that have been denied."This is truly a great day for Massachusetts' sportsmen and women. These reforms correct some serious mistakes that were made during the gun debate in 1998, when many of our state’s gun owners were stripped of their long-standing rights to own firearms."
(MA State Senator Stephen M. Brewer (D), July 1, 2004)"I want to congratulate everyone that has worked so hard on this issue. Because of their dedication, we are here today to sign into law this consensus piece of legislation. This change will go a long way toward fixing the flaws created by the 1998 law. Another key piece to this legislation addresses those citizens who have applied for renewals. If the government does not process their renewal in a timely fashion, those citizens won't be put at risk because of the 90 day grace period that is being adopted today."
(MA State Representative George N. Peterson, Jr. (R), July 1, 2004)"There are a lot of good things in the bill," said Jim Wallace, legislative director of the Gun Owners Action League, the state's leading pro-gun group. "In all, the bill represents a healing process, or the beginning of the healing process, between lawful gun owners and the Massachusetts Legislature."
(State moves on assault weapons ban, Boston Globe, June 24, 2004)The assault weapon ban signed in 2004 prohibited the sale of the same 19 weapons in Massachusetts banned in the 1998 legislation but loosened other restrictions imposed by the 1998 gun bill. Therefore, after Governor Romney signed the gun bill in 2004, gun owners in Massachusetts had fewer restrictions on gun ownership than at any time since 1998.
Anyone who believes the fiercely anti-gun, 85% Democrat Legislature of Massachusetts would have allowed the 1998 state ban on assault weapons to expire on September 14, 2004 is naive in the extreme (dreaming). I especially appreciate that Gov. Romney enacted more lenient provisions for licenses to carry in a liberal state.
Oh high and mighty. You don’t get to chose what I read and not read. I am very able to know what a barf story is or not. Thanks for your concern though.
Great story — thanks for the ping!
I didn’t say you couldn’t read it. And if you know what qualifies as a barf story, then you certainly don’t show it. A story about a Republican presidential candidate is a logical thing to find on a conservative website. Logic doesn’t seem to be your strong point though.
I agree with you that we should be having conservative candidates on a conservative website, but I just don’t think that Romney is conservative. Just my opinion which some people don’t agree with me on. That is just life if FREEPER LAND. Have a great evening.
“Americans should have the right to own and possess firearms as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. I’m proud to be among the many decent, law-abiding men and women who safely use firearms.” - Governor Mitt Romney, 01-12-2007,2005
Also, in 2005, Romney designated May 7 as “The Right to Bear Arms Day” in Massachusetts to honor “the right of decent, law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms in defense of their families, persons, and property and for all lawful purposes, including the common defense.”
Romney on guns:
“Americans should have the right to own and possess firearms as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. I’m proud to be among the many decent, law-abiding men and women who safely use firearms.” - Governor Mitt Romney, 01-
12-2007,2005
Also, in 2005, Romney designated May 7 as “The Right to Bear Arms Day” in Massachusetts to honor “the right of decent, law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms in defense of their families, persons, and property and for all lawful purposes, including the common defense.”
Thank you redgirlinabluestate for the link!
Bill
Thank you UP for the links!
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