Fact-Checking Ann and Mitt Romney's HARDKNOCK EARLY YEARS

[Segami]

Like Ann Romney, Chris Christie talked about his hardscrabble early years, when he and his wife moved into a "studio apartment," as if it's the norm of a young married couple to move into a suburban McMansion straight out of college. Let's go through the lines of Ann Romney's speech to see where the cute-poverty rhetoric doesn't quite match up with history:

Their first apartment


Ann Romney Tuesday: "We got married and moved into a basement apartment. We walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, and ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish."

Ann Romney in 1994: When Mitt Romney was running for Senate in 1994, his wife gave a candid interview with Jack Thomas of The Boston Globe, published October 20, 1994. She told Thomas that after their Hawaii honeymoon, Mitt transferred to Brigham Young University. Back then, she still thought of that time as tough. But she wasn't as good at describing it, suggesting that it was rough living off stock options:

"They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income... Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time."

Whether Mitt was 'handed success'

Ann Romney 2012: "Mitt will be the first to tell you that he is the most fortunate man in the world. He had two loving parents who gave him strong values and taught him the value of work. He had the chance to get the education his father never had. But as his partner on this amazing journey, I can tell you Mitt Romney was not handed success."


Ann Romney 1994: "Remember, we'd been paying $ 62 a month rent, but here, rents were $ 400, and for a dump. This is when we took the now-famous loan that Mitt talks about from his father and bought a $42,000 home in Belmont, and you know? The mortgage payment was less than rent. Mitt saw that the Boston market was behind Chicago, LA and New York. We stayed there seven years and sold it for $90,000, so we not only stayed for free, we made money. As I said, Mitt's very bright.


"Another son came along 18 months later, although we waited four years to have the third, because Mitt was still in school and we had no income except the stock we were chipping away at. We were living on the edge, not entertaining. No, I did not work. Mitt thought it was important for me to stay home with the children, and I was delighted."

cont'


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/08/fact-checking-ann-and-mitt-romneys-hardknock-early-years/56321/

[WCGreen]

1. Fuck I lived in a hoval AND had to work....

[Segami]

2. WHAT?...You didn't have ' stock option ' student assistance?

[rbrnmw]

3. I worked fulltime and had a second weekend job

I still barely got by

[LibertyLover]

4. Perhaps you could

have asked your parents for a loan to buy some stock that you could have later sold at a profit in order to get by?

[rbrnmw]

7. bingo why didn't I think of that?

Oh yeah it's because my parents both had to work their asses off to pay their own bills

[Segami]

16. Who paid for their Health care with a baby on the way?

Must have been great stock options to have.

[marew]

5. She doesn't get it! n/t

[DavidL]

6. so we not only stayed for free, we made money."

"As I said, Mitt's very bright. "

UM NO! Housing prices in Boston escalated fast from the 70's to the 80's as in many areas of the nation. I know, I was there. People were buying Condo's for $20K Houses for $30-50K. Now, 30-40 years later, of course, those same Condo's sell for $200K, the same houses $300-500K. Housing prices are 10 times more than they were in Boston in the mid seventies.

Mitt's brains had nothing at all to do with it. It's called inflation and the laws of supply and demand.

[rbrnmw]

9. Now now no facts allowed

[DavidL]

19. LOL I will try to avoid them

I forget, we should all become part of the fact free zone and realize what Republicans realize, Mitt was SO SMART to have 40K to buy a house in Boston during a high inflation period.

[Sparkly]

8. Pasta and tuna fish -- THE HORROR!!!!

It's a wonder they survived!!!!

[rbrnmw]

11. what no caviar? OMG those poor deprived people

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. It was probably all that she knew how to prepare!

@ Ann.

[progressoid]

13. Sounds like dinner for us tonight.

[Segami]

14. LOL! Sounds like mine also!!

[Brother Buzz]

10. So they were forced to clip coupons, and I don't mean coupons.

[formercia]

18. That would make a great cartoon

Mitt and Ann, sitting at the table, cutting coupons from a bunch of financial instruments.

[nc4bo]

15. Trying to disguise herself as a commoner just doesn't work well. For Mitt either.

I don't hold her expensive choice of clothing against her. I don't hold Ann nor Mitt's wealth against them.

Just don't sit your righteous ass in front of people who make pennies to your dollars, explaining to us how much you struggled. The Romney's have never struggled - perhaps to lift up a pen to cash in some stocks or an IOU from Papi Romney.

Don't you believe what they're selling.......they are as fake as that $5 "Gucci" bag you bought at the flea market last Saturday.

(will be most of my responses over the next several days).

[napkinz]

17. hey, you people have no right to mock them!