Matt (not Mitt) Romney Visits Missoula

By Sutton R. Stokes, 2-02-08

Friday evening, Mitt Romney’s son Matt told a Missoula audience that he “absolutely loves” his father and would “do anything” to help him win the presidency, two facts I would not have thought were in doubt but which attendees seemed to find impressive nonetheless.

We were in the Blackfoot Room of the DoubleTree Hotel on Madison for what had been advertised as a “meet and greet” with Mitt’s wife, Ann; apparently having taken ill, though, she sent Matt in her stead. Hotel staff had set out chairs for about 180; these were a little more than half full by the time Matt walked to the podium, about fifteen minutes after the scheduled six p.m. start time.

I’ve heard Romney supporters described as “the Kool Aid drinkers”, which is to say that some observers feel that Romney has positioned himself as the candidate for anyone who thinks Bush has done nothing wrong. But I have to admit that no one in attendance was actually drooling red. In fact, they all looked like regular folks — plaid shirts, some Filson vests, nice neat haircuts.

I took a seat next to a middle-aged man with the intense, inquisitive expression of someone Still Making Up His Mind and a legal pad balanced on one knee, as if he were waiting for Mitt’s son to finally clear up a few things about American politics for him. When I sat down, he was reading a handout that quoted Romney as calling for “a strong military, strong economy, and strong families,” the kind of political rallying cry that seems designed to say more about your opponents’ positions than yours.

Matt’s (very brief) remarks in favor of his father’s candidacy revolved around several main themes: Matt and his four brothers love their father; Matt and his four brothers are fun-loving, youthful and brash; Mitt is just like Ronald Reagan (mentioned at least three times) and Teddy Roosevelt (twice); Mitt wants low taxes (plus strong families/economy/military/America, etc.); and we’re all doomed if John McCain wins. (You see, “he hasn’t always been the best friend of Republican ideals.” )

In addition to telling us of Mitt’s taste for cherry Metameucil (NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT), Matt shared a story about a prank he played on his father in which he called him and pretended to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, apparently to make Mitt think he might be getting the Governator’s endorsement (which, at this point, just seems cruel). Apparently there’s a YouTube video (au courant!) of this prank, made possible because Matt taped himself making the call, and of course someone is nearly always videotaping Mitt. There’s also a Five Brothers blog, you might be interested to know (au TRES courant!).

But even Matt knows that the fact that Mitt raised five rascally, tech-literate sons is not the best reason to vote for the guy, so he told another story about a time when, as CEO of some company in New York City, Mitt learned that an employee’s daughter had gone missing. Mitt closed down the offices and sent his staff out into the streets (also Central Park and “raves”) to help search and post fliers, “in suits” no less.  (This was confusing, since, as far as I and Wikipedia know, all of Romney’s CEOships have been in Boston.)

“To me, this really underscores what my dad cares about,” said Matt after the kidnapping story, going on to gesture at the generosity of a man with Mitt’s money-making potential lowering himself to run for president. “He could still be doing really well at business,” Matt pointed out.

Matt took a handful of questions at the end, the first one coming from a fellow in a tight t-shirt sitting toward the front. “Speaking of strong families,” the questioner said, “there’s no greater joy for me than going out in the woods with my father and shooting our AR-15 rifles.” Opining that Romney has been “kind of wishy washy” about whether he supports or opposes efforts to ban assault weapons, the questioner asked “what would Romney do to protect my family’s rights?”

Matt made the obligatory obeisance to the Second Amendment, although I didn’t hear anything conclusive one way or the other about assault weapons.

Another questioner looked at the big picture. After the Florida “disappointment,” and based on the current polls, “isn’t it going to take an act of God to turn things around?” asked a white-bearded fellow in the back row.

“I don’t think so,” Matt said, smiling that Romney smile. “But I’d welcome his intervention.”

Late update: As for the assault-weapon ban, it appears that Mitt both supports and opposes it.

For more like this, read the rest of the Missoula Notebook.