Mitt Romney Biography

Political Figure

Name at birth: Willard Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 until 2007, when he began an unsuccessful run for president of the United States. Romney is a successful businessman with a political pedigree: his father, George Romney, was the governor of Michigan from 1963-69 and ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1968. (He was defeated by Richard Nixon.) Mitt Romney graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971, and earned both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard in 1975. Romney worked for the management consulting firm Bain & Company before founding the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984. Romney became a national figure in 1999 when he took over as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from money and ethical problems. The Salt Lake City Games went off on time and on budget in 2002, and later that year Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts. He served one term, then declined to run for reelection in 2006. In February 2007 he announced a run for the presidency; he ended his run in February 2008, after falling behind John McCain in early Republican primaries.

Extra credit: Romney married the former Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998... Romney ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, losing to longtime incumbent Edward Kennedy... Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often called the Mormons)... Romney wrote the 2004 book Turnaround : Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games... According to a 2006 Associated Press report, Romney "was named for his father's friend J. Willard Marriott. Mitt, his middle name, comes from a relative who played football for the Chicago Bears -- Milton Romney." The official site of the Chicago Bears reports that Milton Romney played quarterback for the team from 1925-29.

Romney joins Barack Obama and many others in our loop on Candidates 2008.

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