Arkady
President
In the same despicable fund-raising speech where Romney wrote off the 47 percent of Americans who don't currently pay federal income tax, he also claimed he'd be doing better in his race for president if he were Latino.
Let's stop and imagine for a moment what the world would be like if Romney were born Latino. If his father, George Romney, were Latino, there's almost no chance any of us would even have heard of Mitt Romney. You see, George Romney rose to incredible wealth and political power at a time when much more rampant discrimination against racial minorities was the norm. How many Latino Presidents of major car companies were there in this country in the 1950s, when George Romney was building the family fortune? How many Latino Governors were there in the 1960s, when George Romney was building the family's political power? How many Latinos were appointed to Richard Nixon's cabinet?
The fact is, Romney's whole life has been erected atop what his wealthy, connected father built. Romney was a poor student but got passed along through the finest private education money could by -- all paid for with money he never earned. He was then able to trade on his father's connections during a meteoric rise in the business world, before using his bottomless personal finances to get himself elected to a state governorship without any lower-level political experience. Romney never had to pay his dues. Like countless people on both sides of the aisle (Bush, Gore, Kennedy, etc.) his name and his family money paved the way right up to the brink of the presidency. None of that would have been true if his father had been Latino.
Let's stop and imagine for a moment what the world would be like if Romney were born Latino. If his father, George Romney, were Latino, there's almost no chance any of us would even have heard of Mitt Romney. You see, George Romney rose to incredible wealth and political power at a time when much more rampant discrimination against racial minorities was the norm. How many Latino Presidents of major car companies were there in this country in the 1950s, when George Romney was building the family fortune? How many Latino Governors were there in the 1960s, when George Romney was building the family's political power? How many Latinos were appointed to Richard Nixon's cabinet?
The fact is, Romney's whole life has been erected atop what his wealthy, connected father built. Romney was a poor student but got passed along through the finest private education money could by -- all paid for with money he never earned. He was then able to trade on his father's connections during a meteoric rise in the business world, before using his bottomless personal finances to get himself elected to a state governorship without any lower-level political experience. Romney never had to pay his dues. Like countless people on both sides of the aisle (Bush, Gore, Kennedy, etc.) his name and his family money paved the way right up to the brink of the presidency. None of that would have been true if his father had been Latino.
