Four years ago when former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was seeking the GOP nomination to run for president he had the backing of his entire family - his wife and five sons.
This time around a family vote was lopsided against another run, but Romney went ahead based on the support of his wife Ann and one son, after she asked and he answered one question; "Is it too late for America, or has it gone over the proverbial cliff?"
Mrs. Romney told a hotel ballroom crammed with Connecticut Republicans in Stamford Monday night that her husband replied "It is late, but not too late." He also assured her that as president he could fix what is wrong with the country and get it started back on the path to greatness.
Ann Romney's faith in her husband's ability to turn things around was a deciding factor in her decision to support him in another run.
Four years ago the state party leadership was lined up against Romney and Connecticut went for John McCain. I voted for Romney anyway since he was a far better candidate in my opinion for reasons that I wrote about back then and have written about since so there is no need to rehash it all.
This time, McCain is an asterisk in the political history books and Romney is poised to take an insurmountable lead in the primary race. It is considered a lock that he will be the party nominee at the national convention in Tampa this August.
Nonetheless, the question that Ann Romney asked her husband seems to be the overwhelming issue facing a huge number of Americans. There is no doubt that under the administration of President Barack Obama America has deteriorated – we are a joke abroad, our economy is in the tank while Obama engages in the Blame Game School of Economics, our military is being denigrated on a near daily basis and not one major problem that arose after or existed before Obama took office has been resolved.
I realize that my world is not the whole world but the people who inhabit my world are pretty astute and represent a pretty significant chunk of both the American public and the American voters. Unlike a huge number of pundits who seem to know everything that "The America People" want, need or are thinking, I don't, but I do see and hear what my friends and neighbors are saying.
Universally I hear the phrase "I am afraid for my country for the first time in my life." That's a terrible legacy that is attached to the Obama name and his term as America's first "black" president - even though there is plenty of information on the Internet that he is mostly of white and Arabic descent - has been a train wreck.
Frankly I wouldn't want to leave any job with that kind of a reputation, but apparently Obama doesn't care, or he is smug in his belief that he can pull off an election upset, probably through his minions manipulating the mother boards on enough computerized voting machines to give him the necessary edge.
Unless of course, so many Americans vote for Romney that even rigged voting scanners won't be able to save Obama.
Ann Romney assured the Republicans gathered in Stamford, Connecticut Monday night that "We will win." I believe that is entirely possible and also that it is crucially necessary.
But it is going to take the participation of everyone who believes that America is a worthwhile country, the best in existence on the earth today, representing the best possible hope for the human race. The current president doesn't think so and has made that point repeatedly over the course of his term in office.
Frankly, it's time for him to go, but he won't unless everyone who has a stake in this country votes him out in November. The media was making a big deal the other day of people voting against Obama instead of for Romney.
I could care less about motivation, we just need to get the job done.
I'll be dining with Connecticut's most active and influential Republicans tonight at the annual Prescott Bush dinner, and as part of the bargain I will have an opportunity to hear Ann Romney speak of her husband's vision for the future of America.
Mrs. Romney is the keynote speaker for tonight's event and I hope she says that she is proud of her family's successes and that down the campaign road Mitt Romney will be making the point as often as he can that he is a shining example of all that is possible in America. I don't care that his dad was successful too, so was Joseph Kennedy and I don't hear anyone complaining about the advantages enjoyed by John or Bobby Kennedy.
But I do hear President Obama making comments about people being born with silver spoons in their mouths. Frankly I think it would have been difficult to get any type of spoon in Obama's mouth because he seems to have his head permanently inserted in an area where any further insertions would take surgery.
But take a look at Obama's vision for America. Racial strife, divisiveness, class warfare and a return to the Welfare Mentality that his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton was so proud to help eliminate. This he calls equality.
Contrast that with Mitt Romney's vision - equal opportunity for all, an economic atmosphere that encourages business and job growth, educational opportunities for all, and the chance to follow his example if that is your dream in life.
Romney can, often does, and should continue to portray himself as a person who worked his way to the "shining city on a hill" that Ronald Reagan spoke of, and held out as a true vision of America's greatness and opportunity. We need to return to the concept of American greatness because regardless of whatever difficulties we have faced over more than two centuries - difficulties that usually reflected the world at large not just our culture - we have worked to change and overcome them.
Frankly, I'd like a chance to visit that shining city too, but with the price of gas these days I don't think I can afford the trip.
I am really looking forward to this evening because so much is at stake for our country - just look at France, again leaning toward Socialism which is literally killing Western Europe - and we have to stop the same thing from happening here.
But President Obama embraces socialism - no, actually he embraces Marxism, communism - and trying to downplay his extremism by referring to his viewpoints as socialist is merely creating a smokescreen.
Obama wants everyone on the same level, which is the promise of communism that by its very nature can never be fulfilled. This has been proven decisively in Russia, China, the now defunct Soviet Union and dismal police states like North Korea. You can't have everyone on the same level because you still need someone to lead.
This is where the disputes within communism arise and as a result communist and socialist governments are responsible for an estimated 100 million deaths worldwide in the last century - deaths by slavery, torture, starvation and execution. What an incredible record of achievement.
Yet humanity's achievements come not from our similarities but our individualism in the midst of our universality. Our race despite its failures and drawbacks has proceeded further and faster in the last 10,000 years than any other species on earth. If all societies had been communist in that time much of what we take for granted today would never have been discovered.
Obama speaks of "the poor" in America as if there is some massive hand keeping people down, when in fact, our society presents myriad opportunities to be anything but poor for those who possess a modicum of intelligence and a solid work ethic. Obama speaks of "the rich" as if people who have achieved that financial level are something despicable, something he might have stepped in when he was walking his dog before dinner.
The last I knew, setting lofty goals and achieving them was part of the American dream. Sure there are rich people who have less than admirable personalities and yes there are people who inherited their wealth rather than working for it. But that doesn't negate the fact that America is a land of opportunity where hard work and good sense can make dreams come true and lots of "rich" people also do a lot of work to help others climb the ladder to success.
Let's face the fact and the fallacy of the communist/socialist mindset - You can't give people a hand up if we're all on the same level.
I hope that is what I hear from Mrs. Romney tonight and what I hear from Mitt Romney on the campaign trail in the months ahead.
In the morning I'll be voting for Gov. Romney to be the GOP nominee partly because he is the last man standing and partly because I voted for him four years ago and I see no reason to change my position now. Regular readers of this column know that I have not been easy on him in recent months nor should I have been, but four years ago I took a lot of flak from some of the people I'll be dining with tonight because they were backing John McCain.
Look where that got us.
I'll be voting for Romney again because I believe as I did four years ago that he has the business skills, the leadership skills, the right priorities and the right personality to bring our society back from the brink of extinction.
I don't care what the polls say or the media says ... most people in my world are sick to death of Obama and scared to death of what he would do to this country if he is elected to another term. Enough is enough.
