Mitt Romney's father ran for president, giving us a fascinating glimpse into how a leading Mormon and Republican once navigated the path toward the highest office in the land. And immediately, you see a huge difference: George was an open book, frank and proud about his religion, and completely transparent when it came to his finances and taxes. The secrecy and extreme privacy that Mitt Romney exudes – on both religion and money – is not necessarily a function of his Mormonism, or of his family. It's a function of him.
Take taxes. Mitt has several accounts – of sums unimaginable to most human beings – in off-shore tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere. We know this because he released just one of his annual tax returns, after refusing to do so at any time previously in his political career:
[Mitt Romney] declined to release any returns through one unsuccessful race for the U.S. Senate, in 1994, one successful run for Massachusetts governor, in 2002, and an aborted bid for the Republican Party presidential nomination, in 2008. Just before the Iowa caucus last December, Mitt told MSNBC, “I don’t intend to release the tax returns. I don’t,” but finally, on January 24, 2012—after intense goading by fellow Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry—he released his 2010 tax return and an estimate for 2011.
His father, in stark contrast, released a full twelve years of his returns, a then-unprecedented amount of openness, arguing that "one year could be a fluke, done for show." George Romney had no off-shore accounts – his money was in America. And his tax returns showed he kept only one third of his income with the rest going to taxes or charity. Yes, his release of the returns was partly a device to put Johnson on the spot. But it was a strikingly open gesture nonetheless. Then there's the question of Mormonism.
Here is George Romney's approach, via McKay Coppins:
In their 1967 book The Republican Establishment, David S. Broder and Stephen Hess write that George Romney essentially kicked off his candidacy by inviting 40 traveling reporters to attend a Sunday morning church service in Anchorage, Alaska, during which he and his wife were scheduled to deliver sermons:
"On Sunday morning, reporters, awakened early by the Romney staff, rubbed the sleep from their eyes and noticed on the mimeo-graphed schedule that the only event preceding the fight back to Seattle was listed as: 8 a.m. Alaska Standard Time. Governor and Mrs. Romney attend LDS Stake Priesthood Service…
The Romneys were escorted to the platform; the reporters, a bit self-conscious in the strange surroundings, to a front pew. The opening hymn was spirited; George and Lenore, a handsome couple, sang with gusto about the day 'when all that was promised the Saints would be given.'"
How refreshing. Even more refreshing was George's candor to the NYT:
I am completely the product of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I'd love to vote for the real Romney over the plastic one, wouldn't you? You know, the one real enough not to dye his hair at the age of 65.
(Photos: George Romney at the 1968 Republican Convention; Mitt Romney by Alex Wong/Getty.)
The Dish 