If Barack Obama and David Axelrod had their druthers, every American voter would have a certain impression of Mitt Romney: An exceedingly wealthy, secretive, greedy robber baron, using his substantial means to identify and exploit small businesses -- sucking them dry of capital, bankrupting them, and laying off all the hard-working employees, leaving a trail of human misery and destruction in his wake. After distributing those pink slips, he cackles and rubs his hands together while depositing his obscene profits into his off-shore bank account somewhere, then it's on to the next victim. This is the cartoon liberals have painted of Romney, spending tens of millions of dollars on negative ads. It's mean-spirited fantasy. Yes, Mitt Romney built an exceptional private sector career. Americans tend to celebrate that sort of thing. But he's also a faithful, honorable, compassionate family man whose generosity and kindness hasn't gotten nearly enough attention, at least until last night. Three speeches during the closing session of the Republican National Convention shed light on the private deeds and values of the party's nominee for president. I'd bet that the Romney's weren't thrilled by the prospect of airing their private (squeaky-clean) laundry for all the world to see because bragging about doing the right thing feels unseemly. But given the assault on Mitt Romney's character and the consequential nature of the election, they relented and decided to allow others to sketch out those elements of Mitt's life on his behalf. Kate touched on one of these speeches earlier. I cannot possibly share these vignettes any better than the speakers themselves. The hall was silent, and few eyes remained dry during these extraordinary testimonials:
My eyes welled up again just posting these videos. I couldn't help by feel pangs of profound compassion for these families, and genuine gladness that a man as fine as Mitt Romney was active in their lives to comfort and help them during their struggles. Where is the monstrous, avaricious, uncaring money robot we're always warned about in these anecdotes? He's nowhere to be found because he doesn't exist. This truth transcends partisanship. Another speaker at the convention was Jane Edmonds -- a member of Governor Romney's Massachusetts cabinet and a lifelong liberal Democrat. She chose to speak out for her former boss because of his integrity, not his platform:
In an interview with Politico, Edmonds explained her decision to appear at the convention of a political party she doesn't support:
“I didn’t come here to talk about our differences — I’m not going down that path,” Edmonds said in an interview. “I’m here to talk about my experiences working for him. My friends have asked me why. I adore the guy. I have seen him behind closed doors in Cabinet meetings. I have seen his compassion. I’m at a point in my life that the character of the human being we entrust to be president is important to me. He would make an excellent president.”
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