Talk:Mitt Romney/Archive 11

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How did Romney pay for graduate school?

Romney was 28 years old when he graduated, in 1975, from Harvard, finishing a four year program there as a graduate student. Given his four years of college and two years of LDS missionary work, that means he never had a regular (full-time) job before he left Harvard. And by the time he graduated, he and his wife had three children. So, how did he find the money to be a full-time graduate student and take care of his family, since his wife was a full-time homemaker? (And Romney definitely was a full-time graduate student; his joint MBA/law degree involved two programs which, separately, required five years in total, and his peers at Harvard have commented on how hard he worked.)

The possibilities for where the money came from (select one or more):

(a) He was a scholarship student. (b) He worked part-time. (c) He got student loans. (d) His expenses were paid for by his parents and/or his wife's parents. (e) He and/or his wife had money/assets gifted to them from their parents previously that they used. [His wife Ann said that they lived off investment income and selling some of their stocks, but it's unclear if this is at BYU or Harvard or both; see: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/117521926.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=May+02%2C+2002&author=JOAN+VENNOCHI&pub=Boston+Globe&desc=THE+CLASS+ACT+OF+ROMNEY+AND+HEALEY&pqatl=google ]

Regardless of which of these (or which combination of these) actually happened, how he funded his graduate school years is rather important in understanding what kind of financial hardship, if any he experienced. Wikipedia doesn't - yet - provide any answers. So, a request for editors to look for, or at least be aware of the importance of, any information on this subject. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

The basement apartment in the Ann story was for BYU, see this 2007 NYT story. As for your question, I haven't seen it and it doesn't seem to be known, per this PolitiFact piece from a couple of days ago. Knowing George, I would guess he paid for Mitt's higher education but made sure he lived fairly frugally in the process. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:56, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. For graduate school, his parents helped financially so that Romney and his wife could buy a house, to live in while he attended Harvard. That seems worth adding to the article, though I'd prefer a source other than PolitiFact. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I still don't see much significance in this. It's the normal case for parents pay for their children's college education when they can afford to. They don't usually buy a house as part of the process, but Mitt was a little older than most students and already had two children. The article doesn't say that his parents paid for his expensive private school education at Cranbrook either, but I think the reader can assume that. Indeed I think the reader can assume his parents supported him until his consulting career started in 1975. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It's clearly not newsworthy when parents pay from private schools between K and 12, or for a BA. And I'd agree with you to some extent regarding his four years of graduate school (though his being older makes it even more unusual), but Romney has made statements like "I didn't inherit money from my parents. What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way." If Romney had in any way acknowledged how fortunate he was to have rich parents who not only paid for his education and family living expenses for far more years than is typical of American families, but also gave him stocks and (some percentage of a) house, then certainly, this would be non-newsworthy. But he hasn't acknowledged that, as far as I know. So adding a fact about family assistance at an usual time, and for an unusual amount would help paint a clearer picture of Romney and his wife and family in the 20s.

If that seems subjective, I think it is only to the extent that editors have to decide what goes into, and not into, any Wikipedia article, and how much text is appropriate for any given area and point - all subjective decisions. In any case, I'll await a more standard source than PolitiFact. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

First, his father was never nine-figure rich the way Mitt is, and indeed his father came up from near-nothing, had little higher education, and made money the old-fashioned way, by success in manufacturing. But yes, there's no question that Mitt grew up in an affluent household and neighborhood and school, and that this environment and his parent's financial support greatly benefited him, just like it does everyone else who grows up in such an environment. (America is not a classless society, no matter what Rick Santorum says.) But the nine-figure wealth Mitt has now he really did earn himself, via the new-fashioned ways of leveraged finance. And I think there are plenty of American families today supporting children living at home or going back to school who are just as old as Mitt was then. In sum, I think this is a dog-bites-man story. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

This article ready for F A nom?

Although a tiny "cadre" of Wasted Time R is currently especially active at this blp of Mitt Romney, I myself have essentially watch-listed it over a lengthy period and having reviewed it, believe it to be, at present, at a very complete level of development and certainly at that worthy of review. E/g- per the following official criteria--

A featured article exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles,Y[Note: see below*] it has the following attributes.
It is—
(a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard;Y
(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;Y
(c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;Y
(d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; andY
(e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.Y
It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of—
(a) a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;Y
(b) appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents;Y and
(c) consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes () or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended. The use of citation templates is not required.Y
Media. It has images and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, and acceptable copyright status. Images included follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.Y
Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).Y
__________

* [Quote]: A Wikipedia article, or entry, is a page that has encyclopedic information on it. A well written encyclopedia article
identifies a notable encyclopedic topic,Y
summarizes that topic comprehensively,Y
contains references to reliable sources,Y
will have a reading list,Y and
will link to other related topics.Y

Any feedback? -- Thanks.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Seconded! As a Featured Article, it would be very timely. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it's ready. Maybe after George W. Romney gets done it's FA nomination we can nominate it. Like Hodgdon's secret garden, I've not been a main contributor, but I've had it on my watchlist for a while and would be glad to help however I can. --Coemgenus (talk) 15:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

This article is at rough FAC level of content and presentation, but I haven't done the fine-tooth combing you need to before FAC. Furthermore I already have an article up there, George W. Romney, and there's a one-at-a-time limit since it's a lot of work to respond to all the comments there. Another concern is that all the currently involved editors need to be convinced this article is ready – earlier today, one of those editors put an improvement tag on this article, which would be an immediate disqualifier at FAC. So that has to get worked out. Finally, it would be good to know whether Romney is the presumptive nominee or not, assuming it gets settled in the next month or so. But overall, yes, I want to take it to FAC, just not right now. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

By the way, it's "one-at-a-time" unless you have a co-nom (but from discussion below it's apparent this wasn't quite ready when nominated). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

You got that right, we're suffering from some structural instability here ... Wasted Time R (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I recommend a peer review by an experienced, uninvolved editor before going to FAC. —Eustress ^talk 19:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Giving...

a generous slice (..abt 6 1/2%) of his income to family foundation likewise notable, accdg to the RSes--so I re-added a sentence in that rgd here.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The sources used in the BLP do not make that claim. Using the primary tax returns is OR and SYNTH if the cites do not make an explicit claim. WP:PRESERVE does not protect OR and claims not directly supported by the cites given. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that putting a "Charitable giving" section in this article is completely unwarranted. Romney is not especially active, or known as, a philanthropist or humanitarian, in the way that say Bill Gates or Andrew Carnegie or George Clooney or Cindy McCain are. His charitable giving figure is high because he tithes ten percent and because he has gads of money and can afford to give some of it away. Furthermore we have no information on his giving (other than tithing) for years prior to 2010, so we have no way of knowing whether the 2010 figures are representative or not. One data point does not make a section! It is WP:Recentism and WP:Undue weight to make this its own section. I have no objection to adding the sentence about the Tyler Foundation, but it should be put in the wealth section, where charitable giving is already described, because one begets the other. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Collect. Sounds reasonably, Wasted Time R. Somebody go for it!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Now done. Note also that one of the sources, and thus this article, got the wrong Tyler Foundation – it's not this one that fights childhood epilepsy, now with a web page disclaimer - but is rather a Tyler Charitable Foundation, with apparently no web page. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Pic change request

I can't edit the page, the picture in the box makes him look like some sort of batman villain because of the shadows around his eyes. [1] would be better. Midnite Joker (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

See Talk:Mitt_Romney/Archive_10#More_recent_infobox_image. Other editors and I prefer the current image because it is recent and candid. —Eustress ^talk 20:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Seamus (dog) merge

As was explained during the AfD discussion, a decision of merging Seamus (dog) to this article would result in no action being taken on this article, because the Seamus story was already included here to the proper extent given its importance and relevant weighting to everything else in this article. Thus I've reverted an attempt to do a wholesale copy of the article into here. Merge != copy & paste. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I restored the section on Seamus that you deleted. While I understand your concern, I think that we must follow the AfD merger policy which says the following:

On the AfD'd article's page, replace the AfD tag (by removing everything as prescribed in keep above) with the following:Afd-merge to|destination article|debate name|debate closure date

On the destination article's talk page, add the following (normally below the WikiProject tags): Afd-merge from|nominated article|debate name|debate closure date

I understand that merger may be not be the best outcome, which is why I changed my vote from Keep or Merge to Keep during the AfD discussions. I think it became obvious to a few of us during the the AfD discussion that merger would be painful. However, I think we need to either respect the result of the AfD or go to deletion/merger review. Otherwise we are going to have an edit war on this page.

User:Dwainwr123

Dwainwr123, in contemplating requesting a review, perhaps these discussion results from subarticles from the last go-round in aught-eight might be of interest?

(1) Prof. Bill Ayers (A quote from discussion: "As the creator of the article I will vouch that it was not created as a POV fork. First of all, the material is eminently notable per the published sources. It has kept attention for a number of months so far as an ongoing matter of nationwide interest. Among these 400+ news sources[1] most are about the connection between Ayers and Obama, and of those most are devoted to the controversy itself, not the biographical or historic details of the events. It is not a fork because there is not a second place where this was forked off of. It is the only place where this material is described. It was spun off the Bill Ayers article because, although well covered, it was not an appropriate part of Ayers' biography. That was done with consensus a few months ago at that article so that merge option should be taken off the table. Ayers' connection to Obama was incidental to Ayers' life. Likewise, it cannot reasonably be merged into the Obama or Obama campaign articles because of weight concerns - there is no consensus to include the material there, so that's not a legitimate outcome. Standing alone it is notable, but compared to the overall weight of the Presidential election or Obama's biography it is not. Weight is a concern applied within articles, not within the encyclopedia as a whole. User:Wikidemo)

(2) the brouhaha about a gregarious lobbyist (A quote from the discussion: "Well sourced. Borock's argument that WP is not news is not policy. WP isn't a source of breaking original reports but is used for memorializing past events. What standard is being used to state that it is not of "lasting importance"? Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia; there are thousands of valid articles that may not fit someone's interpretation of "lasting importance". This was a significant event along with the criticism of The Times it elicited. This well-balanced article is too large to merge into the campaign article. Declaring it is "not a 'stand alone' sort of article at all" isn't an argument. The controversy in the campaign article has two paragraphs, per Wikipedia's summary style. Are those recommending merging wanting this section of the campaign article expanded with all of this detail? That isn't what summary style is all about; hence the need for a stand-alone article." User:Therefore")

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 04:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, this is just brilliant. The article now gives equal space to Seamus and to Romneycare. I hope you guys realize that in nineteen GOP debates, covering everything under the sun from private equity to lunar colonies, Seamus has not come up once. Whereas Romneycare has come up a thousand times. So this is the new way to jam a load of excessive material into a prominent article? Create a standalone article and then lose at AfD? Bleah. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that the outcome of the AfD is not exactly what I desired or expected. At AfD, I clearly argued that merger would be bad -- "More and more, I think that the merger of Seamus article with the Mitt Romney article will be extremely contentious." However, I disagree that this creates a precident of creating a standalone article and then "losing" at AfD. Normally losing at AfD means your article is deleted. This appears to be a case of trying to split the baby, where possibly Merge is seen as a midway point between Keep and Delete. At least in my opinion, there was no consensus on the Seamus AfD page -- 7 votes to Keep, 6 votes to Merge, and 6 votes to Delete, with many in each group having varying opinions on why the article should be kept, merged, or deleted.Debbie W. 04:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I understand what happened, but still the fact is that material which was deemed not notable enough to support an article which was getting about three thousand page views during its week or so of existence, is now transported intact, with a top-level section, into an article that's getting 2 million page views a month. That's a pretty sweet deal to come out of AfD with. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Wasted writes: "As was explained during the AfD discussion, a decision of merging Seamus (dog) to this article would result in no action being taken on this article, because the Seamus story was already included here to the proper extent given its importance and relevant weighting to everything else in this article...." I respond: As was explained during the AfD discussion, a decision of merging Seamus (dog) to this article would result in the importation of considerable detail about the incident here, in violation of WP:SS. My point, Wasted, is that you can't pick and choose AfD comments to support your desired outcome. Another thing that was explained during the AfD discussion was that a decision of merging would produce a protracted edit war here. If you don't like being in a protracted edit war that could easily have been averted by adhering to a long-established and important guideline, go take it up with the closing admin. I'll support your DRV and may bring one on my own if no one else does.

Wasted's interpretation of the "Merge" !votes is that those editors meant "Turn this article (Seamus (dog)) into a redirect to Mitt Romney and don't make any changes in the Mitt Romney article." If that's what they meant, why didn't they just !vote "Delete" instead? That would've been the most sensible outcome on a close as Delete. It's not reasonable to read the "Merge" !votes as saying only "Delete, but make sure you leave a redirect behind." JamesMLane t c 05:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

To Wasted Time R: I have to agree with JamesMLane that by not including the information from the Seamus article into the Mitt Romney article, you have decided that a decision to Merge equals a decision to Delete. I would definitely support you in any discussions with the closing administrator, Phantomsteve that these two articles cannot be merged.Debbie W. 05:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Be reasonable James. There is simply NO WAY that all that information or even a large fraction of it can be included in this article. This was a single event over 25 years ago that recieved almost no coverage until recently. To make any claim that this was a significant aspect of Mitt Romeny as a person is simply increadible. It is certainly no more notable now that it was four years ago. This seems to me to be a case of not likely the outcome of the AfD. Arzel (talk) 05:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

To Arzel: I must disagree that this is a new issue. There was noticeable coverage of this incident in 2007 and 2008, the last time Mitt Romney was running for President. I don't think anyone on this page likes the idea of fully merging the Seamus article, and the Mitt Romney article. It's that the AfD decided that the two articles would be merged, and we need to abide by its decision, ask the closing admin to recosnider, or go to some form of AfD review.Debbie W. 05:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Arzel, I agree that this is a case of not liking the AfD outcome. You don't like it because it was "Merge" rather than "Delete". You have to deal with that, just as I (at least for now) have to deal with the erroneous failure to keep the article. JamesMLane t c 16:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Compromise request: Could someone try to rewrite and summarize the Seamus controversity in a more reasonable number of words (more than the actual 10 words, less than 500)? And IMHO there are parts of the current article that would be more adequate to the many articles about 2012 presidential campaign, as the Newt Gingrich ads or the Axelrod tweets. Cavarrone (talk) 08:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the #romney fiddler dog on roof and #Possible wording talk sections, the editors of this article had already done that. It was handled with one sentence in the main text and a paragraph-sized explanatory Note that gives more detail. Such Notes are how this article deals with supplying sufficient background for a certain event without getting the main text bogged down with excessive detail or undue weight. There are 20 such Notes in the article and it seems like the ideal mechanism for dealing with the Seamus incident, a quirky episode that has intermittently captured the public imagination but otherwise is of little biographical consequence. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Cavarrone, I've put one paragraph, plus a repetition of the explanatory paragraph, into the campaign article. Wasted, if we confine ourselves to your suggested approach, a great deal of properly sourced and encyclopedic information will be lost, which was not the dictate of the closing of the AfD. JamesMLane t c 16:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• Closed Case. Cavarrone (talk) 20:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

POV

Why is this article written like a conversational advertisement? It sounds like it came out of a book he wrote himself. Dumaka (talk) 03:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

These kinds of comments don't do us any good unless you give some details. Please supply four or five specific sentences or paragraphs that you object to. And did you make it to the "2008 presidential campaign" and "Political positions" sections? Something tells me he didn't wrote those. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Political affiliation

I think it should be mentioned that Romney was technically a Democrat for a brief period when he voted in 1992. Also according to the article I linked below he also debated running as a Democrat in 1994. I think these facts are worth including. I do not want to put them in right away as I fear they would be instantly deleted. You can find these facts in this article http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/mitt-romney-was-a-democrat Thoughts?--Politicsislife (talk) 00:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Not worth a lot. Interesting, the Buzz-feed ref shows a picture of registering in 1976, without checking [ ] Democrat; [ ] Republican; etc. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 01:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Lots of people vote in the other party's primary, either because they are attracted to a candidate despite their affiliation or because they want to pick the most acceptable candidate to them in case their party loses or because they just want to cause trouble (e.g. The Rush Limbaugh Show#Operation Chaos). It doesn't make them members of that other party, even if there's some temporary technical piece of paper that says so. Romney was clearly an independent from 1976 to 1993 (don't know what he was before that, presumably in Michigan). As for "there had been speculation at times that he would run for office as a Democrat", that needs a better source. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is he was technically a registered Democrat, even though he meant to be an independent. Obviously if included it would be more explained upon, and yes I think it should be included. Also the fact that he had speculated running as a Democrat in 1994 is definitely worth mentioning don't you think?--Politicsislife (talk) 02:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is that this is marginally sourced trivia of very limited value for readers seeking to find useful information about a living person. About as useful as saying a person violated a law because he let a parking meter expire <g>. Collect (talk) 03:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The fact of him technically being a Democrat is more on the trivia side, though still worth including I think. However I see no way that Romney considering running as a Democrat, which is very well sourced before this, can be simply written off as useless trivia.--Politicsislife (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point made earlier.MadZarkoff (talk) 03:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Where is that he considered running as a Democrat "very well sourced"? This PolitiFact writeup quotes an Oct 1994 Los Angeles Times story as saying, "He briefly considered running for the Senate seat as an independent as well, his wife says, before rejecting the idea as impractical." I haven't seen anything yet to support BuzzFeed's contention, which they don't give a source for. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Support for Israel

in section =2012 presidential campaign= add:: Romney want more US dfor Israel and criticized Obama for planning puling troops out of Asia (where Israel lie) . There is no single word like isra* pur ineptie?

Romney campign sheer ineptitude last October, when Mr. Obama announced the pullout of the last soldiers from Iraq[2]. Please add At least one word Israel . The omition of 'Israel' is rather quite antisemantic. Mr Romeny pledged fight for Israel but this article do not have one word about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.197.87 (talk) 10:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Belongs in Political positions of Mitt Romney, not here. Although oddly there was nothing on Israel there, so I started a section on it. Not with your content though. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

hm there is not to much refs, if in next debate he give answer to "how many US solders have yet to die for Israel' & will he be more bright.. include it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.197.87 (talk) 15:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

"Of Mexican descent" category

Mitt's great-grandfather Miles Park Romney became an American-born resident of Mexico for 19 years (1885-1904) and Mitt's grandfather Gaskell Romney lived in Mexico for 27 years (1885-1912). Such categories surely can't be all about weighing mestizo blood (akin to the term "Mexican" being applied to chicanos whose ancestors have lived in the western United States since before it was part of the United States -- or akin the blood purity determinations within many states' anticegenation laws during the early 20th century/before) or even about self-description but surely must be wholly about about whether the person is descended of people who lived in Mexico, or whatever country.

Cf. comic Louis C. K., whose Jewish dad is from Mexico. ( -- Etc.; etc.) Between 1821 and 1865, Jewish residents of Mexico were not granted Mexican citizenship;http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/677-jews-in-mexico-a-struggle-for-survival-part-1] yet, would not a descendant of a Jewish, nearly three-decades-long resident of Mexico be "of Mexican descent"?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There's also the Wikipedia Category:American Jews of Latin American descent.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Romney has said he does not consider himself Mexican. We discussed this earlier, it might be archived by now. Briefly: he is neither by blood nor by self-identification a Mexican-American. --Coemgenus (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The question isn't whether he considers himself Mexican-American but whether he is of Mexican descent. For example, I am of Swiss descent (four--or half--of my great-grandparents) but I would not necessarily be "Swiss-American," in many contexts.

Porfirian law had deferred to the fact that most immigrants did not wish to obtain Mexican citizenship. As most foreigners, including Franz and Luise, declared against naturalization, their children hence aquired the citizenship of their father. Although Carranza and Obrigon had promised to end all legal vestiges that gave foreigners special status, it took until 1933 until a law was established ius solo--the idea that the place of birth determines one's nationality--as the principle of Mexican citizenship.---Tools of Progress: A German Merchant Family in Mexico City, 1865-Present (published 2004, Univ. of New Mexico Press), p. 94

Descendants in the U.S. or elsewhere of such colonias alemanes en Mexico would surely be of "Mexican" descent, would they not?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Of what importance to the BLP is this issue? Collect (talk) 00:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopedic completeness/accuracy.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Is Mitt Romney of Mexican descent?

His father was born in Mexico to an over-two-decades-long resident of that country. Before the Mexican Revolution, European and North American immigrants to Mexico and their children tended to opt to retain a status of their being foreign nationals and to emphasize their non-Mexican origins; nonetheless, descendents of such long-term Mexican residents--many of which "foreign nationals in Mexico" were actually born there--IMO ought to be categorized on Wikipedia as descendents of "Mexicans" as the catch-all, rather than subclassed as e/g "descendents of German nationals in Mexico," ad infinitum.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC) His great-grandmother, Hannah Hill Hood Romney died January 1, 1929 at Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:17, 6 February 2012 (UTC) "In the Nuevo Casas Grandes area, about half the Mormon land is owned by Mormons of Mexican descent. The rest is owned by Mormons of American descent."---William Stockton, The New York Times, 1986--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 02:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

From which Mexican is he descended? Which reliable source identifies that person as Mexican? --Coemgenus (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, Mitt has spoken on various occasions about his forebears' residencia de las colonias mormones porfiristas de Chihuahua. (Here he mentions his great-grandmother): "Lives of the Saints," The New Yorker, Jan. 21, 2002.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing in that snippet refers to Romney or his forebears as Mexicans, and this has already been talked to death. Search the archives for "Mexican" and you'll see what I mean. --Coemgenus (talk) 01:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, quotes of Romney from this archives section indicate that on a number occasions he has proudly procalimed himself the son of a man who came to this country from Mexico.

-Broadcast journalist's piece on George Romney's self-characterizations

-Jorge Ramos interview with Mitt Romney - "...my dad was born in Mexico, and I am proud of my heritage. But he was born of U.S. citizens who were living in Mexico at the time, and was not Hispanic. He never spoke Spanish, nor did his parents. So I can’t claim that honor. But he lived in Mexico until he was five or six years old." [Viz., Romney, although he can't claim the honor of he or his forebears speaking Spanish, does proudly proclaim them to have resided in Mexico.]

-2nd Florida GOP debate video - "I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico."

-At about 1.0 minute mark in this Spanish-language news report, a snippet of Romney on the campaign trail somewhere saying: link - "My father, by the way, was born in Mexico...."

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 02:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Phrase used by ABC News' The Note: "...Romney’s Mexican-Born father...."

Perhaps of use to consider--the Oxford Engl. Dict.'s def. of Anglo-Indian: "Of mixed British and Indian parentage, of Indian descent but born or living in Britain, or (chiefly historical) of British descent or birth but living or having lived long in India" ?

--Hence, for example, an Anglo-Indian Canadian.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Mmmm....SYNTHy....--Coemgenus (talk) 09:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Strikingly irrelevant Unless a living self-categorizes as bing in a specific group, it is not up to Wikipedia editors to engage in research to determine categories in which to place him or her. If and only if Romney makes such a self-categorization would this RfC make sense. He has not made such a claim, thus it is improper. I would note my position also extends to what nationality of a person whose birthplace has changed countries over the years - the issue should remain that we use what the person's own opinion was as best it can be determined, and not what current editors seek to show is "right." Collect (talk) 01:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

He may consider trachery of Mexico to rats out Mexican Revolution. By the way his anestral name is Rombel not Romney and Rombel may be somehow related to England Spanish speaking migrants, during inkvisition time). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.197.87 (talk) 08:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• On balance, no. The facts of Romney's family history are not in question, simply whether Category:American people of Mexican descent should be included in this article. It's obviously a bit of a tricky case, since they were living in Mexico but not really part of Mexico in terms of citizenship, language, ethnicity, or intermarriage. So on balance, I would say no. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• No Where is the source that states he is Mexican or Mexican descent? If none don't add the category. SD (talk contribs) 01:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Screenshot of lede to Wikipedia article "George W. Romney," May 2011

 

 <--Proof's right here! '~) <--that's a wink!--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 11:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

References

Q.: Christened W. Milton? or W. Mitt?

A.: Willard Mitt:

Romney - Mitt is my given middle name[...].

Brian Lamb - Why did you pick Mitt over Willard?

Romney - Well, I actually used the name Billy when I was in kindergarten. And there was a song when I was a boy called "Oh Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Oh Where Have You Been, Charming Billy?" And it talked about kissing and your mother and so forth. And I decided that was a terrible song. And I came home and said, I can’t live with that name any longer.

---C-SPAN's Q&A, March 19, 2006 (video)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 06:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Tax plan analysis by Brookings and Tax Policy Center

Please add the following to the "Political positions" section:

According to an analysis of his tax reform proposal by the Brookings Institution and the Tax Policy Center, Romney's plan would charge parents earning minimum wage about $1,000 more per year, while affording those earning over $1 million per year about half of his proposed $600 billion per year tax cuts.

The actual language for the first clause of that sentence is, "about 15 percent of those in the $10,000 to $20,000 income group would get an average tax cut of about $140, but 20 percent would get hit with an average tax increase of $1,000, mostly because Romney would bring back the less generous versions of those refundable child and earned income credits" but I assume such a summary is permissible per WP:CALC. If not, please modify it to conform as needed. Thank you. 67.6.175.184 (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The "Political positions" section in this main article doesn't get into specifics like this, otherwise the article would become overwhelmed with such items. You have already added it to Political positions of Mitt Romney‎, which is the right place for it to go. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm interested if others think a one sentence summary of his tax proposal is more substantive than, for example, the five paragraphs that I count in this article's current "Political positions and public perceptions" section which say nothing whatsoever about his specific political positions. 67.6.175.184 (talk) 02:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Political positions of Mitt Romney got 125,000 page views last month, and has gotten 25,000 already in the first few days of this month. A Google search for <Mitt Romney positions> finds that article as the very first hit; this main article doesn't appear until the third page. So it's not burying it to put it there. Also, your edit doesn't actually describe what his tax proposal is, it just describes the effects of it upon two specific income brackets. It would take more than one sentence to describe the whole thing. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this article, which gets about twenty times as many page views, should have less irrelevant commentary and more actual specific political positions in its political positions section. Why does this article conflate political positions with public perceptions, anyway? In what way are those two things related? 67.6.175.184 (talk) 04:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Because trying to explain a lot of political positions fairly in a short amount of space is an inherently difficult exercise. For example, do you really think your one-sentence description of Romney's tax plan is a fair one? It doesn't describe the plan itself and it cherry-picks some of the plan's effects to make a political point of your own. Your source uses 15 paragraphs to describe the plan, and for what it's worth its first paragraph – "A new Tax Policy Center analysis finds that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would cut taxes for millions of households but bestow most of its benefits on those with the highest incomes. At the same time, it would significantly cut corporate taxes and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit." – is a much fairer summary than what you put forth. But I could still imagine a lot of people quibbling with that (the highest earners will still pay the biggest share of the taxes, what about dynamic scoring, etc). Wasted Time R (talk) 05:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that all of the remaining Republicans' tax proposals would cut taxes for millions of households, bestow most of their benefits on those with the highest incomes, significantly cut corporate taxes, and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. That information should certainly be included too; certainly moreso than the five paragraphs of essentially content-free commentary and reflections in the position section now. But only Romney's plan would charge minimum wage-earning parents extra; let alone $1,000. And only Romney's has a 50% benefit above/below point so high. For example Gingrich's would give half of his plan's cuts to those earning over $300,000. What is dynamic scoring? And again, what do public perceptions have to do with political positions? 67.6.175.184 (talk) 05:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, between the source's first paragraph and your first proposed text and your new explanation, we now have two paragraphs on this issue alone. Multiply by the 47 separate issues in Political positions of Mitt Romney and insert into this article ... not too feasible. So now editors argue about which of the 47 should go in here ("Tax policy is really important!" "Yes, but no incoming president's tax proposal ever survives first contact with Congress, all these details won't make it to the final bill even assuming it doesn't get filibustered." And so on.) One way to look at it is that the main BLP article describes what a political figure has done, while the political positions article describes what a political figure says they would do. As for dynamic scoring, see that article. As for "public perceptions", it represents a small portion of that section and seeks to give a bit broader perspective. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Not done: The source also does not support the claim of "an analysis of his tax reform proposal by the Brookings Institution and the Tax Policy Center, ...". The source is a blog on taxpolicycenter.org which has this disclaimer: "Posts and Comments are solely the opinion of the author and not that of the Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute, or Brookings Institution." It would only be fair to say that "Howard Gleckman's interpretation of an analysis ..." Celestra (talk) 15:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The official analysis is here and of course it is in agreement but in less accessible language than the blog summary. 67.6.175.184 (talk) 18:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

References

Conflict in his church name

In your section "church leadership" you describe his church as LDS but in the first paragraph you state that we went on a Morman missionary. Isn't Morman a nick name for LDS? Should you just use LDS. Prepahs just state he went on church missionary in the first paragraph and under church leadership you can explain that he is member of LDS more commonly99.7.171.138 (talk) 08:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC) referred to as the Morman church. 99.7.171.138 (talk) 08:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Cmt - Fwiw there's an in-house style manual page related to referencing the LDS on WP here: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Latter Day Saints.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Like he says. The relevant part of that is: "Therefore, the word Mormon should be used to refer to Latter Day Saint movement adherents only in the following situations: In reference to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, the informal appellation Mormon church should not be used outside of directly quoted material – following a convention of Utah newspapers, the abbreviation LDS Church should be used. Members of the LDS Church may accurately be referred to as Latter-day Saints or as Mormons. It is usually best to follow the predominant form found in the sources used for a particular Wikipedia article." Sources about Romney use both "LDS Church" and "Mormon", and so does this article. In particular, note that the Missionary (LDS Church) article says in bold in the first sentence that they are commonly referred to as "Mormon missionaries". Wasted Time R (talk) 11:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Clergy, Jew

• clergy as a bishop - addition of related category may be needed. Also template ~{prevuis bishop next}
• In 'Nevada vote ' article (see hist) are refs about who he as other are Jews and what this sincere believe implicate. Add a related cathegory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.197.87 (talk) 11:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Huh? "Bishop" in the LDS is a far cry from other church's use of "Bishop". It is a short-term title, and not particularly one of high significance to anyone. And I have no idea what your reference to "Jews" means at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

For the word Jew read "Mormons who sincerly believe they are the true Jews.

This is the Broken English IP Address Editor, who has frequented these and similar pages recently. Nothing posted by him/her/it makes much sense. Might be a troll or some kind of bizarre AI experiment. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

IP, I've found the proper (lay-)clergy cat you requested (Category:Stake presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and have added it. Thanks. (.....Oh n btw don't let the doubters scare you away from contributing your thoughts--however competently/incompetently expressed in English--on WP's talkpages!)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Update- IP, oops! the cat was already there. '~) <--that's a wink --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 03:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

References

The Mail says...

(link) he wears basketball-length briefs.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 07:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTFORUM, please use this talk page appropriately and stay on task. —Eustress ^talk 07:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This is in reference to a past discussion, see Talk:Mitt Romney/Archive 8#Edit request from 72.37.171.100, 28 April 2011. This new story is mostly speculative, and I'm still in favor of the article saying a whole lot of nothing about this. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Out of Date

Dozens of edits everyday, but this page is weeks out of date. The 2012 Primary seems to end with Florida but fails to mention the 3 losses and 2 wins subsequent. [Don't ask me to edit this page as it seems kind of point less when every edit I make is undone by this page's overseer -- WastedTime.]Jfmcel (talk) 06:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012 article is the place for the most detailed accounting of Romney's campaign (although for some reason that doesn't include the Maine results). The problem here in this article is to explain what's happened so far in February concisely. That's hard to do, because only Romney and Paul put a big effort into Nevada and Romney was expected to win because of the large Mormon vote in GOP primaries, Missouri was a meaningless beauty contest that only got attention because it was part of a Santorum sweep, that sweep was abetted by Romney spending little or no money or attention in those three states and Gingrich disappearing completely and Paul underperforming, then there was Maine where again only Romney and Paul competed and it was partly a beauty contest and it had some weird goings on that night that the Paul people are unhappy with ... so what does all this add up to? Santorum has surged in the national polls, but so far in this race that's been a trailing indicator of who got the most media attention for the last primary win, not a predictor of anything (Gingrich has led in the national polls twice, in December and after South Carolina, and both times lost it within a week or two). This main BLP article can't report the result of all 50 primaries and caucuses, it's got to summarize general trends once we're past the initial big four, but it's hard to summarize. My hope was to wait until after Arizona and Michigan and hope they clarified things, but I agree the article looks un-updated. I tried adding this which I thought captured the spirit of the above, but an admin didn't like it and changed it to this which mentioned Santorum's three wins by name but not Romney's two and didn't clarify Missouri, so I backed out the whole lot. But I guess it's better to have something than nothing, so I've just restored the admin's Santorum-centric version. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Olympics spending

Here's what I think the Olympics spending numbers are:

• Direct Games budget - $1.32 billion
• Federal spending in support of this - $382 million

• Federal spending for additional infrastructure that would have happened eventually anyway - $1.1 billion

• Total federal outlays related to Olympics - $1.5 billion (pretty much equals $382M + $1.1B)

See changes to the article for sources.

I think this reconciles all the figures being used in the sources, except the $600 million number quoted from Romney in the first AP article added. I think that may represent the new monies that Romney got, both for direct aid and infrastructure, after he took over as SLOC head. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're right in the way you've added this up. You dismiss the $600 million figure, which comes from a reliable source, because you decide to assume that the AP reporter who evidently checked the records and interviewed some people about Olympics financing nevertheless made a $200 million error. Beyond that, I'm absolutely sure that it's wrong for us to assert as a fact that the infrastructure spending would have occurred anyway, or even that the federal government thought it would. Some of that infrastructure was arguably unnecessary except for the Olympics. Furthermore, it's not irrelevant that even spending that would have been done anyway at some point was accelerated, thus displacing non-Olympics projects that otherwise would have had higher priority. This is all part of the picture of federal support. Finally, as to "earmark", I don't see why we would need contemporaneous sources. At a minimum, we should note that the spending has been characterized as an earmark, but even that would be misleading if it falsely implies that there's a good-faith dispute as to the accurcy of that description. Has Romney argued that it wasn't an earmark? I thought his spokesperson's answer was to implicitly concede it was an earmark and to say that an earmark for Olympics security was more important than an earmark for the Pittsburgh zoo. JamesMLane t c 14:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the government has paid for roads etc. in many other states - it is not up to Wikipedia to suggest that such was not the case for Utah as well. If it were one of only a few, then some implication of causality might be noted, but absent such, this insertion of road costs is improper entirely. Do you have a source saying the road costs were all specific to the Olympics, and were unusual in scope for any place at all in, say, a ten-year period before and after the Utah games? Hint: look at the expenditure on the Boston Big Dig for relative amounts. It came to over $20 billion. Cheers. `Collect (talk)

Your wish is my command, Collect:

According to the GAO, about $513 million of the above was provided or planned to be provided for projects or activities such as providing security or transporting spectators. That $513 million, says the GAO, would not have been spent had the Games not been held in the United States. [3]

I don't understand your point about the Big Dig, which certainly was unusual. Do you have a source that contradicts the GAO and asserts that all these expenditures would have been made anyway in sparsely populated Utah? JamesMLane t c 14:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Which means that $513 million could be mentioned ... "the additional $1.1 billion" is thus not actually relevant. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

About.com? Is that considered a reliable source now? --Coemgenus (talk) 15:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

This was not an analysis by About.com. It was an About.com paraphrase of what the GAO concluded, and About.com hosted the actual GAO report here (as is expressly stated in the reference I cited), so you can review it yourself and decide if the paraphrase is accurate. Or are we supposed to take seriously an insinuation that the document hosted by About.com was not the actual GAO report, but rather was fabricated by About.com? If you suspect that, invest a little effort to see if you can find the GAO report elsewhere. JamesMLane t c 15:47, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It was a legitimate question. There's no need to suggest malign intent. --Coemgenus (talk) 16:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest malign intent, and if you drew that inference, I apologize. Frankly, however, I did mean to suggest a distinctly lesser offense -- carelessness. It seemed to me that you had dismissed the citation based solely on its URL, without reading any further. JamesMLane t c 23:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Some responses to the above:

• I'm not trying to find figures that are high or low, just that are internally consistent and don't involve the article being unsure about the numbers.
• The GAO report is from 2000, I'd rather use sources that come after the games were over and use actual figures rather than estimates.
• "Earmark" normally refers to obscure local projects, not nationally visible events that hundreds of millions of people watch. It also has a technical definition within Congress. It's also become a loaded term, for no good reason (Congress is supposed to decide who what and where gets federal money, and the total amount of earmarks is trivial compared to defense and entitlements). So I wouldn't use it unless it really fit.
• We should be careful about projecting 2012 campaign 'argument of the day' weighting onto what happened 10 years earlier. As far as I can see, Romney did what every organizing committee head does, which is find all the revenues they can from every source they can (TV rights, other media rights, ticket sales, merchandising, federal funding, provincial funding, etc). He'd be delinquent in his duties if he didn't. Other than McCain, who was at the height of his contrarian maverick phase back then, I don't think Romney's get federal monies for the Olympics was controversial. Just because Rick Santorum decided to make an issue of it recently doesn't mean we should. And just because Romney may (possibly hypocritically) be attacking Santorum for his past spending habits, doesn't mean we should either.
• Utah may be sparsely populated overall, but Salt Lake City and Utah Valley have been growing rapidly for decades. I-15 bears a lot of traffic and it would be no surprise it would get federal funding for improvements sooner or later. And if you've ever been in one of the smog inversions there, you would think the Salt Lake City light rail system is a very necessary thing!
• I'll work some more on trying to get the right numbers. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

And yet, even though he's currently supporting Romney for the Republican nomination, McCain still refers to it as an "earmark"; he did an extremely cute tap dance on This Week yesterday, explaining that he fully supported saving the Olympics, but it was the process of using earmarks instead of direct appropriations to secure the funding that he opposed – and apparently still opposes. Fat&Happy (talk) 01:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Earmarks is one of those subjects where you can almost guarantee there will be more heat than light. Anyway, here's a Los Angeles Times story from 2008 which says the total non-infrastructure federal cost was "about $400 million" (up from a planned $342 million due to post-9/11 added security costs) according to "subsequent reports". Still haven't found those subsequent reports themselves. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

And one more point with respect to what JML said, about why I think the AP story's $600 million figure may be wrong, is that it didn't come from AP research or interviews, but rather says: "All told, according to Romney's account, the government spent about $600 million helping the Salt Lake Olympic Committee." So this appears to be second-hand from Turnaround, which I've tried avoiding using as a source for the usual reasons. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Wasted, I agree with you that the fuss over earmarks is a lot of baloney. At the moment, however, the leading purveyor of this baloney on the national political scene is one Willard Mitt Romney. I'm not saying that we should join in Santorum's attack, but we should present all the relevant facts so that readers can decide for themselves. Regardless of how the spending was referred to by contemporaneous sources (about which I have no information), the fact is that it has now been characterized as an earmark (the definition of which doesn't depend on a project being local as opposed to nationally visible). That it was an earmark doesn't mean that the spending was wrong, but we should give the information.

As for the tie to the Olympics, your version flatly asserts that federal officials said the spending would have been done anyway. Certainly some of it would have, but the GAO said not all of it. Yes, the GAO report was from 2000, but it's not plausible that the federal government reduced its Olympic-necessitated spending thereafter. I find it much more plausible that somebody commented to an AP reporter that a lot of the spending would have occurred sooner or later anyway, and the reporter mentioned that in the story, in a throwaway line that you're trying to interpret as a thoroughly researched conclusion that every penny would have occurred anyway (and this contrary-to-common-sense assertion is taken as definitive even though it comes from the same agency that, according to you, made a $200 million mistake on the same subject).

Overall, the whole section suffers from Wikigeniusing -- the Wikipedia editors are looking over the evidence, deciding which view is correct, and stating that view as fact, while suppressing contrary viewpoints. Where there's a good-faith dispute, that's a violation of NPOV. In light of the GAO report, there's some question in my mind as to whether the throwaway line in the AP story is enough to create a good-faith dispute the other way -- but at a minimum, the reader should be given the information we have, which is that the GAO projected more than $500 million in spending that wouldn't otherwise have occurred, that the expenditures are considered by some to be earmarks, and that the expenditures are considered by some to be a boondoggle. JamesMLane t c 20:11, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: Upon closer review, I see that the figure of more than $500 million was for all three of the Olympics covered by the GAO report. The projected amount for Salt Lake City was $254 million (see GAO report, p. 36). The GAO doesn't state directly that the rest would have been spent anyway, but it refers obliquely to other projects as having received "priority" because of the Olympics (p. 40). On page 8, however, the GAO cautions us against expecting precision in these figures:

According to federal officials, the majority of the funds would have been provided to the host cities and states for infrastructure projects, such as highways and transit systems, regardless of the Olympic Games because many of the projects had been planned long before the cities were selected to host the Games. However, some federal officials were not always able to document which of the specific infrastructure projects would or would not have been funded if the Olympic Games were not held.

I agree that using the projection from 2000 isn't optimal, but it should be included unless and until we find more definitive post-Olympics numbers. JamesMLane t c 20:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the addendum, I think we now have reasonably consistent numbers. In 2000 the GAO says direct federal spending for the games will be $254M and the extra spending for highway and transit projects will be $1B. Then costs go up some, the direct amount becomes $342M before 9/11 and $382 (aka 'about $400M') after 9/11 with added security costs. Meanwhile the highway/transit number rises a bit to $1.1B. So the 2000 GAO figures are consistent with the later post-Games numbers – just overtaken by events and rising costs as estimates usually are – and don't need to be in the article. I looked through Turnaround at the library tonight, and he doesn't give a lot of numbers, but there's nothing in there that I could see to support the AP article's $600M direct cost "according to Romney's account". He says the pre-Romney SLOC's initial request of $4B (!) from the feds ended up at $400M, the cost of the I-15 rebuild/expansion through the whole of the Wasatch Valley was $1B, and the SLC light rail (which he didn't think really necessary for the Games) was whittled down. So these numbers are more or less consistent with the others. As for how to describe the $1.1B, I've avoided my original "that the government considered would have eventually been spent anyway" language that you didn't like and replaced it with a simple "indirect support in the form of highway and transit projects". Wasted Time R (talk) 02:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

As for your other points ... It cannot be the litmus test for material inclusion and weighting to respond to the daily back-and-forth of American political debate. If it were, the Obama article would have top-level sections titled "Kenyan or not", "Muslim or not", "Socialist or not", "Jeremiah Wright disciple or not", "Bill Ayers cohort or not", "Does the Ghost of Saul Alinksy control him", etc. The section on the Olympics should read as it would in 2006, before his first presidential campaign, or as it will in 2026, long after his political career is over. Wikipedia is not a voter guide or a fact-checking service on campaign debates or commercials. These articles are biographies and have to be judged as such. Biographically, what's of note here is that Romney did a good job in getting federal monies for the Olympics, and to say how much and the two categories of what for. That's all the weighting this deserves. I've done Google News Archive searches for 1999-2002 under various search terms, and at most I can find one maybe two references to 'earmark' in this context (without getting through the paywalls can't be sure). Compared to the total number of articles written on the 2002 Olympics finances, which is quite many, that's a very small number. So 'earmark' does not belong in the description of what happened in 1999-2002. If Santorum's attack on Romney for Olympic 'earmarks' turns out to be a critical breaking point in the primaries (which I highly doubt), we can include it in the 2012 campaign section. And if you want to, you can include all of these daily attacks and counterattacks in the presidential campaign subarticles. As for suppressing other viewpoints, what are those? I'm not aware of any significant opinion that thinks that the I-15 rebuild/expansion was a waste or the SLC light rail. The best treatment I've seen on the legacy of the Olympics is a recent multi-part NPR series, tied to the 10th anniversary, here is part 2 that covers the effects of the infrastructure improvements.

And finally, I'm looking forward to that WP:NOGENIUSING guideline! :-) Wasted Time R (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Had an e-mail exchange with the AP author and she pointed me to where she got the $600 million from: it is in Turnaround, page 47 of the paperback (you can see it on Amazon's 'Look Inside'): "So SLOC had three budgets: the official base budget of $1.5 billion, the matching budget of $0.2 billion, and the federal budget of $0.2 billion (the actual federal support we would need turned out to be much larger, closer to $0.6 billion)." I missed it on my electronic search because I was searching for "600" not ".6" and I missed it in browsing the book because I was looking at the numbers on page 226 in the chapter on federal support, and this was somewhere else. Still not sure why this number is so much larger than the others I've seen for total direct cost, will keep looking at this. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

George Romney pic

I've added a pic of Mitt's father to the page, since he held several high-profile positions and had a strong influence on Mitt's life, even influencing his decision to attend law school, as discussed in the article. —Eustress ^talk 00:05, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I get your motivation, but I'm not crazy about it, especially with Nixon there. George W. Romney is now an FA article, I'm hoping curiosity about what he looked like will compel readers to click through and read it :-) Wasted Time R (talk) 02:30, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

We could use another George Romney pic, but I thought this one at least showed him in action (EV). And yes, the FA is a plus. —Eustress ^talk 03:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm - speaking of wiki feature-art.s , why isn't this 'un nommd?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There's still some MoS conformance work to do. And I'd like to see the results in Michigan and Arizona. But if you are going to do any of your expired copyright/no copyright/historical fair use magic to get some images of Mitt before age 55 into the article, now's the time to do it ... Wasted Time R (talk) 13:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Severely conservative

There's lot of political commentary about this. Some say it is because he is a fake conservative. Real conservatives don't call themselves "severely".

We should not call him a fake conservative but reporting it here should be strongly considered. Midemer (talk) 02:21, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Reporting what? WP is not a newspaper. Arzel (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Romney's had a lot of verbal miscues during the campaign – this Politico piece from today lists a bunch of them, and doesn't even get to "severely". At some point the miscues as a whole might be worth mentioning, especially if Romney loses the nomination, but "severely" itself doesn't warrant special treatment (it was a botched ad lib to the prepared text of his CPAC speech). The suspicion that he's not a genuine conservative long predates that word and is already covered in the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:50, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Grammar

I just did a rollback of a host of grammatical changes, most of which were problematic. For instance:

• A comma splice was introduced to the article -- the second phrase in "Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006" should not be offset by a comma because it is not an independent clause.
• "$3 billion deficit" was erroneously changed to "$3-billion deficit"
• Non-breaking spaces were removed, while WP:NBSP calls for them in most situations
• Changing "that" to "and" in the prepositional phrase about additional blind trust fund changes the meaning

I did see a verb tense change about Ann's relilgious conversion that I thought was merited, so I went back and did that manually. If any other changes should stay, please discuss them here first, since the edit summaries were group together and not very explanatory. —Eustress ^talk 23:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with most of the rollbacks of Kgrad's changes, although I restored a couple of other comma insertions that I thought were correct. I think Kgrad realized that taking the non-breaking spaces out was wrong, based on some user talk discussion, and was trying to reinsert them. In any case, I've made a pass over the article and inserted a bunch more, although I'm sure there are ones I missed. However, I disagree with both you and Kgrad about the Ann's conversion text. That's told going back in time compared to the main narrative, and thus the past perfect tense is the right one to use. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks for catching those additional comma fixes. I reverted my edit of the past perfect tense regarding Ann's conversion because I think you're technically correct, but I'm still not completely satisfied with the wording. —Eustress ^talk 02:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)