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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnn Romney's father was a wealthy manufacturer and mayor of Bloomfield Hills
which is, and was then, one of the wealthiest communities of its size in the country. She led a life every bit as privileged, growing up, as Mitt did.
Ann Romney has never, not one day in her life, worked a paying job.
Guests at their 250 guest wedding, held at her parents home in Bloomfield Hills, followed by a reception at the country club, included Minority Leader Gerald Ford.
She lived in comfortable and luxurious houses. She had help in the home. They make much of how they purportedly didn't have a nanny, but they haven't made the claim that they didn't have maids and we know they had gardeners. By the by, here's a link to pictures of all their homes- including the little place in Belmont. Tell me that house ran without a staff. They bought the house in 1989 when their oldest was nineteen and their youngest was 9.
http://www.celebrityhousepictures.com/mitt-romney.php
Ann and Mitt bought their first home in Belmont in 1971. They borrowed money from his father to do so. They bought a little pied a terre in Belmont in 2010 for approximately $900,000.
Ann and Mitt like to talk about their hard times financially. They never had any. And I think Mitt likes to brag about how he's a self-made man- except for the stocks that they lived on in college and the money for a house from Mitt's father, but what about Ann's wealthy dad? Did she have an inheritance? How much money to her father give them when they were "just starting out"?
During her arduous years of motherhood, it looks like that's about all Ann did- other than horseback riding. And Boston has some very nice place to shop. She didn't volunteer much evidently. She didn't go to grad school- though she says she wanted too but she was just too busy.
She got MS but she doesn't seem to suffer much from it- evidently it doesn't really limit her activities. She credits a combination of alternative and regular therapies. She had non-invasive breast cancer, had a lumpectomy. It was caught at stage zero. She did not have chemo. She did have radiation. She did not have reconstructive surgery. Her condition was not life threatening.
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Ann Romney, wife of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, was diagnosed and treated for early stage breast cancer in 2008. Soon after her diagnosis, she released a statement saying she had been diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in-situ (DCIS), a non-invasive type of breast cancer that is considered to be a precancerous form of the disease.
After a routine mammogram, the then 59-year-old underwent a lumpectomy, followed by radiation therapy. While DCIS is not life threatening, when left untreated, in some cases it can become invasive.
http://cancer.about.com/od/celebritiesandcancer/a/Ann-Romney-And-Breast-Cancer.htm
I'm not suggesting that her MS and early stage breast cancer weren't trying, but Ann had every possible advantage in treating them and she had no other worries to focus on- like finances or caring for an infirm parent or whatever.
chelsea0011
(10,115 posts)will never do their job because an elected Romney is money in the bank for all of them.
cali
(114,904 posts)just the real story about the breast cancer thing was news to me.
onethatcares
(16,202 posts)it's less money in the bank for the rest of us.
These assholes want to go back, way back, beyond the years of the industrial revolution where only the owners ate and the rest had to fight each other for crumbs.
You know, kinda like the way the u.s. of a . is heading at this moment.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)that Ann Rmoney did all the cooking and cleaning and childcare. Especially since she grew up wealthy and can't possibly have learned how to cook and clean and do childcare in a life of privilege. She herself has said she never even held a baby before she popped one out.
She had housekeepers. Mark my words. And if they say they didn't, they are lying. No one who lives in a huge expensive house like that does their own toilets and floors and dirty diapers.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Its insulting.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)Ditto for the Obama's. Or the Biden's.
cali
(114,904 posts)I'm simply presenting factual information. why do you object to knowing about her background.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)others knowing or making judgments about her background. But her background is immaterial to the vote for the president. Same for Michelle Obama and any other spouse. And Michelle Obama is every bit as "injected" into the Barack Obama campaign as Romney's wife.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)her background most certainly is important. She has absolutely zero idea of what normal women's lives are like. None.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)the blinders she wears. What is significant is that HE uses her logic to deform his opinion. So what is the guy going to do when she's out of town someday when there is a national crisis?
She can say any fool thing she wants--but a vote is defined by his response.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)he uses her opinion. To "inform" his decisions and response. Although, in this case, "deform" works too.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)If they hadn't deliberately said they were going to unleash Ann onto the public to help Mitt on women's issues.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)She's made repeated statements giving her personal opinion on why Romney is a good man and a concerned citizen. Should she be able to offer such opinions without any challenge to her own bias and what life experience may have led to that bias?
I completely agree that if the USA was more like the civilized countries in their elections, in Europe for example, where the wife and children never show their faces and the people aren't interested in knowing them anyway, it would be inappropriate to mention family members.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)This is a contest between two men regardless of what their spouses say or don't say.
edt: add a missing word
cali
(114,904 posts)MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Do you mean to tell me the supporters of Romney like Ted Nugent should not have their credibility and background open to scrutiny and comment? They're not one of the two men. Spouses should be afforded zero protection if they choose to interject themselves by becoming supporters and promoters. Why should someone be off limits merely by virtue of marriage to the candidate if they are as active as the candidate's other vocal supporters who are subject to criticism and whose credibility is examined? If they open the door, they suffer the consequences. If they choose to be silent and private like in the elections of many other countries, then they should be afforded their privacy and peace as long as they don't try to influence the election. Ann Romney is doing everything she can to influence an election. Young children who aren't politically active should remain out of the picture, however.
cali
(114,904 posts)has been.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)b/c of a 100 other reasons including negative GOP prompts and the media motor that wants to keep spinning out stories. Regardless, Ann Romney is not the person you will vote for one day.
cali
(114,904 posts)Obama campaign, but far more had been written about of her. You don't like my "picking" on poor little Ann? Tough.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)Perhaps you take offense where none is given.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)-Do you mean to tell me the supporters of Romney like Ted Nugent should not have their credibility and background open to scrutiny and comment? They're not one of the two men.
No, I didn't mean or say that.
-Spouses should be afforded zero protection if they choose to interject themselves by becoming supporters and promoters.
Explain what you mean by "interject"? We may have more agreement than disagreement.
-Why should someone be off limits merely by virtue of marriage to the candidate if they are as active as the candidate's other vocal supporters who are subject to criticism and whose credibility is examined?
In my view, we are not voting for the spouses. Or for the supporters. It can be instructive to examine how the candidate responds to the spouse or the other supporters but at the end of the day, we are not voting for the family/friends etc.
-If they open the door, they suffer the consequences.
Define "open the door". Michelle Obama raises awareness about healthy eating/foods and she was lambasted for that. Is that opening the door?
-If they choose to be silent and private like in the elections of many other countries, then they should be afforded their privacy and peace as long as they don't try to influence the election.
Ann Romney cannot influence your vote if you don't focus on her but rather on her spouse. Although I don't care for the woman, isn't she permitted to take part in the electoral process as much as you?
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)You seem to agree that Ted Nugent's background is fair game as is the background of any other supporter. Ann Romney has taken on the role of a supporter. But you just don't base your decision to vote on their opinion as you are just voting for the candidate. Is that correct?
I don't vote just for the candidate as a person and how they part their hair but for the candidate's ideas. I can only judge those ideas in the context of the times and the nature of the people and institutions who had an effect on those ideas or support them. Like in a courtroom, a series of expert witnesses is called upon to either challenge or reinforce a candidate's ideas. Conservative economists are heard in the media, reassuring Americans that Romney's plans for the economy are sound. Liberal economists give us contrary opinions. Conservative experts on national security speak out on how Romney would do a better job handling Iran. If those experts are neocons and took us into a terrible war like Cheney, we need to know. Those challenges or reinforcements can be very persuasive, depending on the expert's credentials and credibility. Ideally, the media should cross-examine those experts to enable us to judge the soundness of their opinions. Ann Romney is also an expert witness. She offers us unique insight into the character of Romney and the campaign is using her opinion aggressively as a sword. She tells us Mitt Romney is a regular guy who isn't out of touch and who has been through hard times in his youth. We are right to want to know something about how hard a life Ann and Mitt had after college. She tells us that Mitt has empathy and a sense of humor, good character traits, and she spent several days telling us that he was a fun-loving guy in his youth. We were exposed to quite contradictory evidence this past week. Ann tells us that the Romneys are just regular folks and she's a normal stay-at-home mom, in a very obvious effort to try to rehabilitate her husband's image with the female vote. We have a right to information that contradicts this opinion, such as how may dressage horses she owns and works out during her "normal" stay-at-home-mom day, how many maids and butlers and gardeners and nannies and chauffeurs she has helping her, how many Imelda Marcos--like shoe collections she has at her various mansions, etc.
Ann Romney, like any expert witness called upon in a court of law should be subject to cross-examination in the press. She isn't saying these things to get elected. She's saying them to show her husband in a favorable light and to get her husband elected. If the favorable opinions of a candidate's supporters including the wife didn't help, we wouldn't have candidates running across the country seeking endorsements from political figures, business leaders, newspapers, and a variety of institutions. I believe they have a great impact. I believe that Ann Romney's active participation in the campaign should subject everything she says and does in support of her husband's election goal to scrutiny including her credibility.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)The fact that Ann Romney supports her husband is neither here nor there. They all do. What I may think of her comments as a private citizen who is not running for public office has little bearing on my choice. To be fair, I listen to Michelle Obama and tho' I like her better, I still don't vote for her.
There is credibility and there is credulity. Ann Romney lacks credibility with you and likely others, because she appears to want to take advantage of the readiness or willingness of some to believe she is the proverbial, "stay at home" wife/mother.
This seems to be the crux of the objection that people have. For me, Ann Romney is dated in her ideas about women regardless of what she did and why. In an era when we are moving decisively ahead with issues such as marriage equality, her comments merely appear quaintly 60ish. Very upper income Mad Men like.
But, as I said, Mitt Romney is the candidate. I won't be voting for him.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)If candidates do not want their family members scrutinized, they need to stick to the non-verbal smiling & waving stuff
If they insist on using their family as crutches to explain their own inadequacies, that family member becomes an adviser, co-candidate/policy-maker, and is a part of the campaign.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)They can say whatever they want. Free speech and all. But we don't vote for a package. That was the complaint among some voters re: Hillary Clinton. That she was a co-candidate or policy maker. As for the being an adviser--I can't imagine any spouse of a president not giving their 2 cents. Eleanor Roosevelt freely gave her husband "advice".
It may be interesting to listen to the stuff Romney's wife puts out but she is not the candidate.
Initech
(100,117 posts)dems_rightnow
(1,956 posts)Thanks for the nudge.
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)Romney has his eye on money--our money. Women's issues are not his interest, with or without a wife.
riverwalker
(8,694 posts)Well said. We need to make it clear how out of touch BOTH of these aristocrats are.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)Upscale Detroit suburb, wealthy and powerful people have little else to expect but to continue to be wealthy and powerful...
If you grew up in Pontiac MI and played sports against kids who went to Cranbrook, the ones with the crisp, upscale uniforms and private coaches and team bus, you learned to either fear or hate their those kids and/or their attitude. It seemed to come along with everything else they had, which was always going to be better than what YOU had.
But, having recalled hearing this story from a person who grew up like this, it only reinforced real values, which is so much more than Ann and Mitt seem to have.
tigereon
(8 posts)Ann Romney put out an ad this moths day, I guess as a response to the lady who said that she never had to work a day in her life that offended Ann so much. Whats amazing is that Ann still does not get it.
While any mothering is admirable work, to insult Americans by saying we dont get how hard it was for you to raise your 5 boys only further proves that she and her husband really have no idea what real Americans are going through.
To compare what she went through with a loving husband who was the governor and $250milin the bank to a 23 yr old single mom who makes minimum wage with no support is one of the most ridiculously insulting things I have heard anyone say in quite sometime.
I have remade the ANN ROMNEY AD, if it had been made based in reality.
Gemini Cat
(2,820 posts)That is the reality of so many children.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)One thing he forgot to point out, though, is that hardcore and extreme conservatives, the latter in particular, are many, many, many times more likely to abuse children than those with no particular affiliations, poor or wealthy.
cali
(114,904 posts)If you have any stats backing up your claim, please post them.