The Mitt Romney You Don’t Know

HT to Charley Jones of Texas Overnight.  The best kept secret in Texas radio seems to have a knack for finding these types of stories – last time it was about Rick Perry.

From the Dedham Transcript in 2003:

Romney rescues capsized boaters
By Elisabeth J. Beardsley / Boston Herald GHS
Posted Jul 06, 2003 @ 08:00 PM

Waltham —

Gov. Mitt Romney rode to the rescue over the weekend during a vacation trip — using his Jet Ski to help pluck a New Jersey family and their dog out of Lake Winnipesaukee after their boat sank.

The drama began at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, as Romney and his family were relaxing at their lakeside summer home in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Gubernatorial son Josh Romney told the Herald yesterday that he and brother Craig were cleaning the beach while their father puttered in the garage when the quiet night air was pierced with screams.

“We heard a whole bunch of screaming,” said Josh Romney, who immediately hopped onto his Jet Ski. “We tore out of there and my dad hopped on the other Jet Ski and came out right after us.”

Roughly 300 yards out onto the lake, six adult family members and their dog were floundering in the water, after their boat suddenly sprung a huge leak — sinking in less than 90 seconds, Josh said.

While water temperatures were a balmy 75 degrees, the deepening darkness obscured other boaters’ vision — prompting the victims’ terrified howls as they were buzzed by other vessels cruising in the entrance to Wolfeboro Bay.

Chasing fleeting glimpses of “bobbling heads” in the water, the Romney trio arrived on their two Jet Skis to find three women and three men wearing lifejackets they hadn’t even had time to buckle.

The governor pulled the two younger women aboard his three-seater Jet Ski and zoomed back to shore, while his sons helped the mother of the family onto their vehicle.

In the middle of the rescue, the governor actually took a dunking himself — thrown off the Jet Ski as one anxious boater scrambled aboard and tipped the craft off-balance.

The rescuing Romneys also managed to snatch the family dog, McKenzie, from a watery grave — grabbing the Scottish terrier first because it was the only passenger without a lifejacket.

“It looked like it wasn’t going to last much longer,” said Josh, who held the waterlogged pooch on the ride back to shore.

With Josh and Craig hovering nearby, the three men treaded water until the governor returned and made two more trips to ferry them back.

The 21-foot wooden Century boat took water so fast that a cell phone was destroyed in the middle of a frantic phone call to 911, said Sgt. Eric Robertson of the New Hampshire State Marine Patrol.

There’s a bit more at the link.  Including this:

The weekend incident actually marked the Romney clan’s second heroic rescue on Lake Winnipesaukee.

Several years ago, the elder Romney — who was then heading up the Olympics — and the boys had to rush out in a boat and scoop up a batch of kayakers who were being battered and run onto rocks by fierce winds.

And via Buzzfeed:

Sometimes, this facet of Romney’s personality isn’t so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy.

Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay’s daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York, and asked them to help find his friend’s missing daughter. Romney’s accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could, prostitutes, drug addicts, anyone.

That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey, where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney’s former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter’s life, saying, “It was the most amazing thing, and I’ll never forget this to the day I die.”

My usual discussions with folks about Romney end up with this reasoning and conclusion: “he’d make better SCOTUS appointments than Obama, he’d appoint better department heads – no enviro-communists or genocidal Malthusian eugenicists, he won’t actively try to redistribute wealth, he wasn’t raised by communists and terrorists; ergo he’s not the worst choice, but I’d rather have (Paul, Cain, Hunter, Perry, Coolidge, Cleveland, Washington, insert name here that isn’t an option)”.  I’ll now have to add that Romney has a lot more personal character than he seems to be given credit for in the media, based on these two (or three) mostly forgotten stories.

So it’s not a complete repeat of the 2004 election, at least.