Former Gov. Mitt Romney Participates in a Townhall Meeting

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Former Gov. Mitt Romney Participates in a Townhall Meeting

FORMER GOV. ROMNEY PARTICIPATES IN A TOWNHALL MEETING

NOVEMBER 30, 2007

SPEAKER: FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS.

[*] ROMNEY: This is a big crowd for the middle of the day here in Kirkwood. I appreciate the willingness of the community college to open its doors. There must be, I don't, 200, more than that, people here.

And I wonder what they told you to get you here. (LAUGHTER)

There's no lunch. My guess is someone lied. You know the old story about the politician who had a bit of a problem with the truth. He's 70 years old and he shows up one day, he's been always single, he shows up one day at the country club with a 25-year-old girl holding onto his arm and the fellows at the club say, "Come here. What's going on here? How'd you find that 25-year-old girl to go out with you?"

He said, "We're not on a date. We're married." They said, "You're kidding. How did you get a 25-year-old girl to marry a 70- year-old politician?" And he said, "Well, I lied about my age." And they said, "What did you do, tell her you were 50?" He said, "No, I told her I was 90."

(LAUGHTER)

Well, I want to talk to you today -- oh, yeah. I want to talk to you today about the process of running for president. I didn't know I was going to be doing this.

I started off my life, as you have, as a little guy in a home with some terrific parents and went to school and fell in love in school with my high school sweetheart. We're still going steady. I think it's going to last.

And, actually, as a result of some of the experiences I've had in my life, I now find myself in a position where I can run and am running for the presidency of the United States.

Why do it? How in the world -- this is not my career. I didn't spend my life planning on getting into politics. I spent 25 years in business, and there were good times and bad times.

I started with a consulting firm and it had good times and some pretty scary times and I was able to help get it turned around. And then I started my own business, small, which grew to be very large. And by virtue of those experiences, I got asked to go off and run the Olympic Games out in Salt Lake City, Utah, when they were in deep trouble, to help turn them around and, together with a remarkable team of people, we did just that.

And then when I was finished with that, some friends in Massachusetts that were Republican asked me to come and run for governor.

It's not easy to win in Massachusetts as a Repu...

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