Mitt Romney for President

Sometimes we just love living in Iowa! One of the funnest things for us is being able to participate every four years much more intimately than normal in the presidential election process. There is an opportunity virtually every day to go out and meet and greet one of the candidates.

A couple of weeks ago, Tammy and the kids drove to a neighborhood library to meet Barak Obama. Hillary and Bill Clinton were in town a week or two ago. Yesterday, Rudy Guiliani was chatting with people at the Bettendorf High School. This morning Tammy and I went and had breakfast with Mitt and Ann Romney at the Abbey Hotel (down the street from our old house).

You can get to know a candidate pretty well watching them in televised debates and reading their speeches and articles about them. But it's often much more insightful to sit in a small room with someone when they're more relaxed and more personable and just listen to them talk about their vision for America and to be able to ask your own questions directly to them. It's really a great experience!

So, in this post, we're going to open up a little more than we usually do about politics and give you an assessment of what we think of the candidates so far. We'll start with Republicans.

We really, really, really like Mitt Romney. I know, some of you are rolling your eyes thinking - he's Mormon, of course you like him. I'll just say that eight years ago Orrin Hatch was a Mormon running for president and we didn't even think about supporting him in the caucus (even after he came to our ward twice). He just wasn't our type. It's really not about his religion - honestly.

Here's what we like about Mitt Romney:

• He's really, really smart. In our minds, this almost comes before anything else in importance. I think he has tremendous capacity to analyze extremely tough problems, to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints and really solve problems. I think a smart president is more capable of standing with confidence behind his decisions and won't have to rely only on advisers. Instead he can take the advice of the advisers and process that to make sound decisions. No more puppet presidents!
• I think he's genuine. That was one of the most impressive things I felt this morning - he really believes in what he's doing for the right reasons. I don't think he's doing this to feed his ego or to try to put his name in the history books - I think he really cares about our nation and feels that he can help it. He has a passion for it, and it comes across clearly when you hear him talk - it's very motivational.
  
• He's got some great leadership experience and it's obvious that he's a tremendous leader - in all the right ways.
• He communicates very clearly and well. His arguments are nearly always well thought-out and well-organized and persuasive.
• It seems he's been successful in every important way in life. His family seems great. We really liked his wife this morning and his kids have been very active and very involved in the campaign. If you haven't read his sons' blog, it's pretty good reading (mittromney.com - look for "5 brother's blog".
  

So those are the things we really like about him. Notice I didn't mention any policies and probably won't say much about them in this post.

Here's my take on policy in general. I believe that the president can come up with all the policies in the world and not ever make a difference if he's not smart, not genuine, not a leader, not able to communicate and persuade, and not successful in his personal life. Nearly every candidate running for president has some good policy ideas, some mediocre policy ideas, and some poor policy ideas - and my judgment of them are going to differ from yours. Some of their ideas will succeed, some will fail. I don't agree with any of them 100% (Romney included). But in my mind, I don't think that policy matters as much as ability in this job.

That's not to say policy doesn't matter. You, of course, have to choose someone who is going to use their tremendous leadership skills to move things in the direction you want them to go. We have spent quite a bit of time learning about the policies of the different candidates and I generally agree with Romney's policies and I think overall I'm more aligned with him than any others.

It's only fair if I mention a few things I haven't really liked about him:

• Tammy and I have never been big fans of the 'war on terror'. All the Republicans (except Ron Paul) talk way too much about it and make it way too much of a focus. The war in Iraq does need to be a focus now because it's costing so much in every way (I'm not just talking about money). I don't know the best way to proceed in that war, but it does need to be an important part of the debate during this campaign. But beyond the war in Iraq, while some attention still needs to be paid to the 'war on terror', I think there are much more important and relevant issues our government needs to be focused on. And it seems that the Republicans (Romney included) are just too focused in this one area.
• Romney is a politician whether he admits it or not. He plays the same games the others play. In some ways that bugs me, I don't usually like politicians. On the other hand, it's another indication of how smart he is - he knows he can't win the game unless he plays the game.
  
• I've not been impressed with the organization of his campaign in Eastern Iowa. Adam and I are planning to go to the straw poll on Saturday and have had quite a confusing time trying to get signed up. That bugs me.

Okay - enough of Romney. I'll speak briefly about the others.

I like Guiliani's personality, but that's about it. I disagree with his stance on important moral issues. The fact that he's been divorced multiple times, doesn't have a good relationship with his kids, and is standing on shaky ground morally all-around makes me think he's not the guy I want as president. Also, some of his policy ideas just don't make sense to me - it seems to me he's not super bright. (Not to mention he's snubbing the Iowa straw poll - which doesn't make Iowans very happy).

I've never really like John McCain personally. He's never really campaigned in Iowa much, so we haven't gotten to know him well. I think it's admirable that he's served for so long and I think he's done some pretty good things in Congress, but Congress seems like a good place to keep him. He seems to be kind of worn-out on politics or something - kind of like, if elected, he'll stay the course but not really be able to improve things.

Of the "lesser-known" candidates, I like Huckabee pretty well. Don't really like Brownback (even though he's from my neck of the woods in Kansas). Most of the others are too extreme or unusual for my tastes.

On the democrat side, we started off liking Barak Obama pretty well. That's part of the reason Tammy and the kids wanted to see him. But we're starting to think less of him as time goes on. He's made some mistakes and hasn't been all that impressive in the debates. I will tell you one thing though - his campaign is by far the best organized of any candidate on either side in our area. Every major community event (4th of July parade and the Bix race to name a few) - his campaign turns out in large numbers recruiting people. None of the other candidates come close in that arena. We get calls from all the campaigns and his have been the best and most informative and friendly of any of the campaigns.

I'm going to say something now I never thought would cross my lips. I've always mocked the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president, but we've honestly been very impressed with her. I talked earlier about the qualities we look for in a good leader. She's right up there with Mitt on most of those things. It would be an interesting race if the two of them were nominees.

Well, if you made it to the bottom of this post, I'm impressed. I know most of you probably haven't even started to look at the presidential race yet, but it's impossible to avoid here in Iowa. It's on everybody's minds and everybody's lips these days. It's been said before that Iowans understand the importance of being the first caucus and we take that responsibility seriously (not to mention it's really kind of fun).

So now I've painted a big red target on my back. Go ahead and fire away! We'd love to hear your thoughts.

If the baby doesn't arrive by Saturday, Adam and I will be off to the Straw Poll in Ames. It's going to be a fun event I think. We'll post again to let you know how it goes.