Talk:Mitt Romney/Archive 8

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Canadian ancestry?

There is a category which lists him as an American of Canadian descent; however, nowhere in the article is there a mention of any family or ancestral connection to Canada. Should the category be removed?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, even Wargs.com doesn't support it except for one loose partial mention. Now removed. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Good idea.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Good eye, Jeanne. GoodDay (talk) 17:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Romney-related AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2002 Mitt Romney residency issue Wasted Time R (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Structure improvements necessary to become feature article

The structure separating eduction is confusing to the reader. First two headings are too peculiar, picayunish, run-on, and not general and encyclopedic as they should be. Headings should not read like a newspaper. Structure needs improvement to become featured article. Collegiate education chronology should be together, not separated. Does not have to be part of Family life section. Secstions should be simply Early life and education and Personal life - or there should be no separation between the sections. Separating the collegiate education chronology and placing corny headings in two separate is less than feature article organization. The changes made are more appropriate presentation. Thanks. Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 14:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Thanks for discussing here. The two headings in question are "Youth and early education" and "Missionary work, later education, marriage, and family". I don't see how these are "corny" and I've never seen a newspaper story title like these. As I see them, they are straightforward and factual. It's true that collegiate education chronology is usually together, because people usually do that in consecutive years. But for people who don't, forcing it together is artificial and destroys the flow of their life. Take Jill Biden, for example, which like this article is GA. The "Education and career, marriage and family" section has to be combined because her collegiate career starts in 1969 and ends in 2007, with two marriages and a family and several jobs interspersed between. To try to put all the college material together would distort the way her life has progressed and the fact that she's tried to continually improve herself professionally. Or take George McGovern, whose college career was interrupted by eventful military service. Both Romney and McGovern gained a new seriousness of purpose as a result of their interruptions; in Romney's case, he was an underachiever before his missionary work and a super-achiever after it. Readers can't get an appreciation for that unless the narrative proceeds chronologically. Similarly, Romney's 'personal' life is intertwined with his educational and professional ones. He left Stanford but returned to BYU because of Ann Davies, and in part he took the Olympics job because of her health problems. Whatever happens to a person in any part of their life at time T1 can have an effect on any other part of their life at time T2, and keeping the chronology as integrated as possible is generally the best way to handle a BLP at GA/FA level. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's another example that is a featured article already: John McCain. There is no "Personal life" section, because the events of his personal life are intertwined with everything else. His first marriage ended in part because of his long time as a POW, and his second marriage (by virtue of his father-in-law) gave him entry into the Arizona political world. To try to separate that off would leave the biographical narrative impoverished of meaning. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The changes suggested improve the article and do not change the content. Separation of collegiate education is confusing to the reader. Stanford is not "early education" that's misleading. However, if you want to keep the narrative the way it is then there should only be one heading such as Personal background, or Personal life and education. The existing headings are indeed picayunish, peculiar, etc. Make these small changes and it would greatly improve.Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 14:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Your change put his Harvard years after his Stanford year but didn't move his BYU years in between them, leaving the chronology completely jumbled. Let's assume we keep the article text order intact, as I strongly believe we should, and we just want to modify the section headers. I think there's too much material for just one section here. And we can't have any section that says "Personal ..." because personal is spread throughout the entire article. On the other hand, I agree with you that "Youth and early education" isn't great as a title. I'm open to other suggestions. Since all but one year of Romney's collegiate education was later, we could just have "Early life" followed by "Missionary work, education, marriage, and family". Yes, the "Early life" would include the one year at Stanford, but thematically would still be appropriate since that was still the younger, callow Romney compared to the post-missionary more serious one. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

(Undent) I think the only significant thing that really should be changed here is the heading "Missionary work, education, marriage, and family". Both its location and its phrasing should be changed. As for location, it should be moved up one paragraph. As for rephrasing, that's a more difficult question. The section is kind of a hodgepodge. We could simply change it to "1965-1975" but that would be very different from the other headings. Or we could have something like "Between high school and management consulting", with or without subheadings. This uses the last thing in the preceding section, and the first thing in the succeeding section. Kind of elegant if you ask me. I'll be bold and make this change. Note that we already had a heading "Between presidential campaigns" so this is nothing new.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think your idea of moving the second heading one paragraph up has merit, but I have to say I don't like the heading name, because it doesn't describe what's in the section at all and because the endpoints aren't in the other section titles. "Between presidential campaigns" is different because the endpoints are contained in the other titles and because basically all that Romney was doing during that period was preparing for another presidential campaign. I've used your new division point along with my proposal above and called the sections "Early life" and "Missionary work, education, marriage, and family". Because WP articles do not have indices, the Table of Contents sometimes has to serve as one, and that's an advantage of these names over the one you suggested. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"Education" in that heading is misleading. What you mean is "higher education" = "post-secondary education". People looking for high school or elementary school should not be forced to scour this section in vain. If you're concerned about heading length, then either change "missionary work" to "France" or alternatively use a between-type heading with subheadings, IMO.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to "Higher education, mission, and marriage".Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I've changed it to "Missionary and university years, marriage and family", see how that feels. "University" is simpler to frame than "higher education". "Missionary", which always has a religious context, is more easily understood than "mission", which doesn't (could be military, general goal in life, etc). "Family" is important to add to "marriage" in my view, in part because it furthers guides the reader as to the section's content and in part because it's an important factor in Romney's life. In a sea of recent politicos who have yabbered about 'family values' but have multiple marriages, multiple divorces, affairs, sleazy affairs, children not speaking to them, etc, Romney is one of the guys who actually walks the walk. As for length of header, I don't care; there's plenty of whitespace to the right of the ToC. The important thing is to convey the section's contents. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I tweaked the order and put University first, since he went to Stanford before France.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I did it the other way because 7/8 of his university years came after France, but this way is okay with me too. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

^ Yeah that makes sense. It's good to have things in order here. Kudos. (AROUNDNASCAR (talk) 03:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC))

How long Mitt at Stanford?

Ylee made this edit to say that Mitt only attended Stanford for two quarters, not a full year. And there are some web pages and a few news stories that say this ... but I tend to think they are wrong. By far the most in-depth account of Mitt's time at Stanford is in Part 1 of the 7-part Boston Globe series (which if the web gods are cooperating you can see here), where it gets 16 paragraphs and is based upon interviews with several of his former classmates. And at no point is there any suggestion that he spent less than a full academic year there. He started in fall 1965, he was there for week-before-Thanksgiving big football game, and he was still there in mid-May 1966 when the draft test sit-in and counter-protest was held (which you can read about here for example). The article has phrases such as "throughout the year", "as the year wore on", "after his freshman year", and "winding down his freshman year". Now, Stanford's quarter system runs roughly late Sept-early Dec, early Jan-early Mar, and late Mar-early June (a fourth quarter is summer school for those who do that), with each quarter being 10 weeks. Thus, three Stanford quarters is equivalent to a convention schools two 14/15 week semesters. There's no indication from the article that Mitt skipped the middle quarter, instead it talks about how he once drove nonstop from California to Michigan just to see Ann Davies, which seems unnecessary if he took an extra 10-week break back home.

The Barone piece that Ylee sourced has other errors in it (Mitt's missionary stint didn't begin in early 1966, but rather he did Utah orientation in June 1966 and sailed for Le Havre in early July; see here). The other stories and web pages that mention two quarters all look copied from the same underlying bio publicity material, which could well have been wrong. Some other sources, such as the Hewitt bio, say he was there for a year. I think the weight of the evidence favors a full year. Unless someone can come up with something definitive regarding 'two quarters', I plan on changing this back and adding an explanatory Note. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

No objections from me; you make a very good case. The only cause of hesitation is that it's slightly unusual for a missionary to leave so soon after school ends (Romney must've been in the Salt Lake mission home almost immediately after finishing his spring quarter final exams), but I've known people who have done that, so it's hardly indicative of anything. Presumably at that time he planned to return to Stanford, and likely expected to start there at winter quarter 1969 after returning home in December 1968. Ylee (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response; I've changed it back, and added a bit more about the May 1966 counter-protest. I imagine a lot of Stanford students have to rush into summer activities, since those may often be scheduled with the expectation that college students get out in mid-May. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

2012 Presidential Run?

Has NOT been announced, as stated at the top of the article. Please correct this misinformation! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.19.68 (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

the statement that he has announced his presidency should be corrected to say that Mitt Romney has announced that he has formed an exploratory committee for the 2012 presidential elections. Source: NPR — Preceding unsigned comment added by • contribs) 00:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

In practical terms, this is a distinction without much difference. In the 2008 race, for example, Hillary Clinton's only announcement was of an exploratory committee; she never made a traditional formal campaign announcement. Yet clearly she was running. Anyone who doubts that Romney is running hasn't been paying attention. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Hillary simultaneously formed an exploratory committee while explicitly announcing her candidacy.[1] As far as I know, she's the only one who's ever done that. Pending an explicit announcement from Romney, he is not yet running for president, however certain we may be that that will happen. There was a recent essay at Huffington Post on this general distinction, titled "Campaigning Versus Exploring Versus Running". We should follow the sources. The cited CNN source quotes a Romney statement: "this step does not constitute a formal announcement of candidacy....". Let's not claim otherwise.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe in short-circuiting the silly dance, but I'm willing to play along too. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

But we're a little silly to do so. See this LA Times story from yesterday. Legally, Romney is a full-on candidate: "'Exploratory committee' may have an official ring, but it carries no legal significance. ... The distinction between an 'exploratory' phase and an all-in candidacy may not be a legal one, but it serves a public relations strategy." Wasted Time R (talk) 10:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if the law doesn't say one way or the other if he's a candidate, then it would seem to be up to him. In other words, he has a right to explore however long he wants, as long as he doesn't go exploring in any of those places that we need not discuss further at this time. :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Exploratory committees are full-bodied campaign committees. Exploratory means "candidate". Hilary Clinton was the front runner and raised millions with her "exploratory" committee, and was a candidate in primaries, with her "exploratory" committee. Exploratory is a weasel term that allows candidates to announce again and again, and yet again that they are thinking hard about running, yes sir, thinking real hard, raising money, and just in case they raise several tens of millions of dollars, they just might, maybe, oh golly, be a candidate.

In the eyes of Federal election law, Romney is a candidate, whether he wishes he were not, or disclaims that he is not. The Federal election law is a good deal clearer on the matter than Romney's equivocating. The Federal Elections Commission does not recognize the term "exploratory" in its registration and reporting processes, and "exploratory" is not a distinguishing term for a presidential campaign, or its committee in any way from all of the standard requirements of reporting on candidate campaign activity. Such "exploratory" committees must attend to all of the standard legal requirements of announced candidates. The only distinction the FEC makes is between "testing the waters" efforts, where the candidate is not a candidate at all, not campaigning, not referring to herself as a candidate, not asking for votes, and not raising more money than might be sufficient for polling. Romney did not make a claim to be "testing the waters", and he is actively soliciting funds. Quoting from the Federal Elections Commission's statement demarcating candidates from "testing the waters" individuals, Romney is clearly a candidate, especially as his committee is actively and publicly asking for money:

Certain activities, however, indicate that the individual has decided to become a candidate and is no longer testing the waters. In that case, once the individual has raised or spent more than $5,000, he or she must register as a candidate. Intent to become a candidate, for example, is apparent when individuals:

- Make or authorize statements that refer to themselves as candidates (“Smith in 2012”or “Smith for Senate”);

- Use general public political advertising to publicize their intention to campaign;

- Raise more money than what is reasonably needed to test the waters or amass funds (seed money) to be used after candidacy is established;

- Conduct activities over a protracted period of time or shortly before the election; or

- Take action to qualify for the ballot. 11 CFR 100.72(b) and 100.131(b).

Furthermore, the so-called "exploratory" committee has the same FEC ID number, C00431171, as the committee entitled "ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT INC." See the filing for 10/15/2010 and compare to the filing of January 15, 2011 and the registration indicating the name change on April 11, 2011. Although Romney disclaims his candidacy, he admits that he is required to register his committee for the 2012 cycle, has his activities fall within the requirements that all candidates must comply with, hence he must disclose the activity in reports to the FEC. See the electronically filed letter by Romney dated April 11, 2011. In the eyes of Federal election law, Romney is a candidate, and we get to be informed of his activity as a fundraiser, and know who is authorized to act on his behalf because he has reported as much, as a candidate.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 04:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

---

That's interesting original research, YellowDesk. Just out of curiosity, do you want to use Wikipedua as a tool to "out" Romney as a candidate, in order to deprive him of the public relations benefit of deciding and declaring for himself? Or do you want the opposite, but feel compelled by your original research to take this position which you intensely dislike taking?Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• The talk page is where the value of statements and potential inclusions into the article can be assessed, and that is what I supply here. Romney's "view" that he is not yet candidate does not align with the reporting requirements he is obliged to comply with, which evaluate his activity as a "candidate". The provided citations to published documents available to all, from a reliable authority are for all editors to contemplate. For the article, I can doubtless find more than a dozen of citations to additional media discussion of the perennial "exploratory committee" dance in previous presidential campaign cycles, to supplement the above citations to documents indicating where the Romney committee fits into that discussion's assessment. In general "exploratory" is a metaphorical fig leaf of no consequence. Citations to primary documents are acceptable to indicate and substantiate facts, which is why they are supplied, so editors can verify them. Romney cannot be outed, as he he is already "out," and has to report on his activities, since he actually is a candidate under the FEC law (and for all other intents and purposes)...as was Clinton for the many months her campaign was called "exploratory" in 2007 and 2008. You could look it up. The Romney explanation about how little consequence the term exploratory means from the FEC perspective, in 2007: Press Release: Governor Mitt Romney Forms Presidential Exploratory Committee, Wednesday, Jan 03, 2007
  -- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Yellowdesk on the facts and merits of this matter; there's no original research involved. It's especially unfortunate that this article doesn't make clear that Romney is already running, not just "exploring", because several other high-profile possible candidates are by all accounts genuinely unsure of whether they will run (in particular, Huckabee, Palin, and Daniels). The reader who is somewhat unfamiliar with current political events may falsely think that Romney is in the same group with them, when he is not. That said, both Romney and Anythingyouwant are adamant about keeping to this "exploring" palaver. To my mind, it's not worth an edit battle, although I'll support changing the text if anyone else wants to push it. Yes, to the uninitiated the current text makes Romney look foolish (he's spent all this time since the end of 2008 without a job and preparing for another presidential campaign, and he still can't make up his mind!?), but one of my theories of BLP is that if the subject wants to look silly, it's not our job to stop them. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:43, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

If you want to cite a reliable secondary source that says he's unofficiallly running, or virtually certain to become an official candidate, then fine. But don't string together a bunch of statutory language and FEC forms to assert that he's already officially running. He's not, and the fact that he's not is meaningful. "Money raised through the committees may only be spent ahead of a candidate’s official presidential announcement."[2]Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:35, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 72.37.171.100, 28 April 2011

There should be some information added to the comments on his appearance. While there is mention of 'clean cut', it fails to mention that he adheres to the Mormon tradition of wearing religious undergarmets at all times.

72.37.171.100 (talk) 14:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. — Bility (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Believe it or not, the article could mention Romney's underwear. It's not known if he actually wears the ones specific to his religion but, be that as it may, this could be mentioned, should this become substantiated. It appears to have been a challenge for the media to word mention of this item in an appropriate fashion, for some reason, and maybe WP can plow the ground and show professionals how it's done with dignity and finesse: Use the formal name for the clothing in question. I/e better to call an observant Jew's prayer shawl or nun's covering just those things--or, in the former case, a tallit--rather than getting overly personal and specific: say, though specifying "an underlaid religious sash" (...or, it should go without saying, rather than going for pure bigotry by terming a nun's covering "a holy bonnet" or or whathaveyou). 'Tain't rocket science. So, if it becomes confirmed that Romney dons it, term it his "temple garment"?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 23:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

My post above notes that it seems out of place to get all National Geographic about such things. That is, wrt today's Royal Wedding, we wouldn't obsess at length about the ladies' elaborate, feathered headgear and the men's light-grey felt tophats; rather, we might say simply that the ladies favored feathered millinery (if that turns out to be the case: I haven't turned on the telly) while many of the men arrived in their morning coats and hats.

IAC I'll Google this question about Romney and report back. ('Tho its pertinency has yet to be determined. Sure, within Madeleine Albright and Hilary Clinton's public image sections, maybe note their trademarks of conservatively retro skirt-and-jacket-with-pearl-eagle-pin for Albright and contemporary pantsuit-with-multi-strand, beaded necklace for Clinton--but there'd haveta be a lllllottttt of speculation out there to warrant mention of habitual scapular pendants of traditional crosses or even a contemporary W.W.J.D. monogram. Btw both are Christian--Albright, a Catholic-to-Episcopalian convert; Clinton, a pious Methodist.)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• All I've come up with:

  I know somebody who has seen Romney's underwear.[...]

  On the eve of the 2002 Olympics, The Sun's Candus Thomson was one of a handful of reporters invited to dinner at Mitt and Ann Romney's Park City, Utah, home, a $5 million "cabin" on Rising Star Lane.

  [... ...]

  Thomson ended up in the one off the Romneys' master bedroom.

  [... ...]Thomson, ever on duty, noticed a pair of underwear hanging on the back of the door as she reached for the knob to leave.

  Not that she'd really care about her host's undies. (Assuming, of course, they were his and not somebody else's.) That is, unless five years later[...]TV talking heads were wondering aloud if he wore regular underwear or the Mormon kind[...].

  [... ...]

  The answer[...]: regular, off-the-rack Fruit of the Loom briefs, size 34.---LAURA VOZZELLA (Baltimore Sun, Dec. 12, 2007)

My conclusion is that he doesn't wear them except when he's going to a Mormon temple. Maybe he doesn't want to draw too much attention to this aspect of Mormonism...or, politically--and personally--to his religion? Of course, I'm just speculating. I'm next Googling Santorum and crucifixes; after that, Lieberman and tefillin.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 16:52, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Contrary to your assertion, at least one major media outlet has raised this issue. From this 2005 piece in The Atlantic by Sridhar Pappu (already used as a source in several places in this article):

"Do you wear the temple garments?" I asked uncomfortably, referring to the special undergarments worn by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (The underwear has markings denoting the covenants of the Mormon faith, and is meant to serve as a reminder of the high standards Mormons are expected to uphold. The rules governing its wear and disposal seem as complex as those pertaining to, say, the American flag.)

He answered, "I'll just say those sorts of things I'll keep private."

So between that and the Baltimore Sun story, I think there is a whole lot of nothing to go on here. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:51, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment - Within U.S. presidential history, heretical status toward the "left"-side of the religious spectrum (whether the candidate in question is on the political left or not: i/e Deism or Unitarianism) has been but a negligible impediment to candidacy, whereas the only Catholic elected--and he wasn't particularly religious--was JFK. So IMO it should be expected to see more and more questions about Romney's non-Protestant religion as time goes on (eg: R's polygamist family background; LDS eschatological beliefs as to whether the Christ's 2nd Coming will involve His return to the American continent instead of or in addition to His return to the Holy Land in the Middle East; whether the Garden of Eden was where Missouri is located now; any tendency for R's political opinions to align with those typical among LDS Church heirarchy; R's personal opinion when he was growing up with concern to his church's former policy of non-ordination of African Americans [R's civil-rights supporting father was known to want the policy to change, of course]; and so forth. However, you would expect the same treatment given to Chris Christie as a national candidate: would his kids continue to go to parochial school? would he hew to the Church's line conerning capital punishment as well as Christie's already-stated position of being pro-Life? Will he eat meat on Fridays? Probably Gore was asked at some point whether Tipper would allow R-rated (well, you know what I mean) music in the W.H. The question is how such candidates respond to these Q's. Christie would probably put the questioner and his audience at ease with a joke and then, depending on his mood or the situation, either subtly make fun of the question or else hold forth about generational change between his mother's generation of Catholics and his own after Vatican 2.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 03:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Net worth of politicians (eg Trump, Romney, Huntsman, etc.) in infoboxes

A bizarre apparent past consensus of Wikipeans is to wp:censor net worth from the infoboxes of politicians but not the infoboxes of generic individuals--and this in light of the many RSes making timely note of this biographical data regarding prospective candidates for high office, as well as the obvious fact that wealthy politicians can and often do at least partially self-fund campaigns. Should this be so?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment. The 'bizarre' consensus can be seen at Template_talk:Infobox_officeholder/Archive_8#Net_Worth.3F_Really.3F from 2008 and a confirmation at Template_talk:Infobox_officeholder/Archive_15#Net_worth_as_a_parameter in 2010. Your claim of censorship is silly; the article text clearly states the net worth of Romney ("As a result of his business career, by 2007 Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts.[49] Although gone, Romney received a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities.[49] An additional blind trust existed in the name of the Romneys' children and grandchildren that was valued at between $70 and $100 million.[50]") and describes the funding he did of his senate, gubernatorial, and presidential ("Romney spent over $7 million of his own money," ... "Romney contributed over $6 million to his own campaign during the election, a state record at the time.[85][76]" ... "Romney spent $110 million during the campaign, including $45 million of his own money.[154]"). The question rather is one of editorial judgement about whether net worth deserves inclusion in the infobox. There are reasonable arguments both for and against this. One particular problem among the 2008 candidates was John McCain, whose finances have always been kept separate from his wife. On his own, his net worth was under $1 million, but hers was over $100 million. Neither figure, when put in the infobox, accurately conveys the situation and the editors never did find a satisfactory solution. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:infobox says basically that--similarly to articles' ledes--infoboxes are designed to summarize article content. But, since the info is contained lower down in the article, there is no real harm in leaving it out up there at the top, I guess. Be that as it may, I STILL think that that consensus--to leave off mention of candidates' net worth up at the top--is waay overly prissy--- Hence my saying it seems pretty damn bizarre: after all, wp:BLP says well-known folks should have notable information about them stated neutrally and clearly, despite the mere possibility some folks might interpret it negatively. And politicians, of all folks, should be able to take it. Heck, that's why they're required to fill out financial disclosure forms that this information is culled from in the first place.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 18:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The infobox and the lede are complementary, not similar. The infobox presents certain kinds of cut-and-dried facts in a standardized fashion, while the lede presents a capsule summary of the whole article. Look at Woodrow Wilson, to pick one example at random. If you just read the infobox and nothing else, you learn a lot of dates and names but come away knowing pretty much zilch about Wilson and his importance in history. For that you need the lede. Going back to the Romney case, even if the infobox gave his net worth, that wouldn't indicate its importance, which is that he's used it to help fund all of his political campaigns. And I realized that the lede didn't say this either. So I've updated the lede to give an idea of his wealth and to indicate its use in self-funding. As for whether to include net worth in the infobox, personally I'm sort of neutral on it, but there is an existing consensus against it. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• Opposed to including net worth in the infobox, given that it's already adequately described in the lead and elsewhere in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:27, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support - on a case by case basis. For Mitt Romney, it is a large part of his persona and hence should be listed in the infobox and make it easier for readers to find. Other cases may be different so I would be adverse to this being used as consensus in all cases. BelloWello (talk) 06:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Infoboxes aren't really about persona; the current infobox, for example, has lots of info unrelated to persona, such as kids' names. More generally, the less information an infobox contains, the more effectively it can summarize an article. If we were to include financial information, it seems like there are a lot of relevant figures aside from net worth, such as the amount used thusfar to self-finance campaigns, or the value of personal residential property, or the amount of charitable donations. Once we start, it's hard to know where to stop, especially if we do it differently for different candidates.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't talk about all those other things. The question is, should the infobox contain his net worth? I say yes, it is highly relevant and something that many people will likely come to the article looking for, and the first place they'll look is the infobox. BelloWello (talk) 08:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's force the lazy bums to read the lead. :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

We are here to make it easy for people to access information, not to make it harder. BelloWello (talk) 21:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but that doesn't mean it would be helpful to move everything from the lead into the infobox.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Kudos. Loonymonkey's comment from the archive, "...in many cases, it has seemed to be motivated by something other than a simple desire to list as much information as possible," gives the jig up. No way something as pitch perfect a lampoon--of hyper-vigilant sensitivity typically shown by contributors to articles with an especially prevalent ethnic or political component--can be anything other than a joke. Do editors able to write scores of feature article-quality pieces really think we'll believe them anything but astute at how to handle political subjects? What really tips off the spoof is that arguments in the archives are just about unanimous. I mean come on, if Copernicus had said somewhere toward the bottom of his piece, "These observations can most simply be explained via heliocentricity but we know for sure that such an explanation can't be the case," we'd know, if the entire scientific community agreed, that they were in on the joke (it being only the rubes that otherwise would be grabbing pitchforks and torches that would take such a caveat at face value). Likewise, only those who would actually believe that a news article such as this in USA Today is an example of how the media have been co-opted (to unfairly paint all business conservatives as fat cats or something) could possibly believe such statements were meant to be taken seriously. These editors felt that trying for Wikipedia Hoaxes was too easy and wanted to create a supposed "controversy" believable enough to be inducted at Lamest Edit Wars. Meanwhile, the prank gets itself played over and over again with minimal further effort by its original perpetrators. When Trump declares his candidacy and his net worth becomes removed from his article's infobox, these editors will get to gleefully laugh among themselves no matter what the people coming to the talkpage do, whether they gasp at the absurdity or if they take the spoof argument as being intelligent or even if they are in with the joke and play along--no matter what, it's as funny as hell. Kudos to all involved.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 20:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The USA Today piece you point to illustrates some of the problems with including net worth in the infobox. Romney's net worth was $190-250 million as of 2007, but that was before he blew $45 million on his campaign and before the 2008 financial collapse. Who knows what it is now? Huntsman's net worth is given as $11-74 million as of 2009. That's a pretty big range! If it's $11 million, he may think twice about funding his own campaign if he wants to have anything left over. If it's $74 million, different story. Infobox details are normally supposed to be exact: born this date, married so-and-so, held this office from this date to that date, held this other office, etc. Net worths are very inexact, in both amount and time. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

My edit, of course, included a parenthetical "2007" after the cited figure, as is appropriate for all such data. Should Mitt enter the fray this cycle, that figure would change to citing his then-current, mandated disclosure, with its parenthetical dated 2011.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

• Wikipedia's success only appears to be because of its avoidance of fringe theory paranoia, when in reality it is because it cleverly promotes them. Surfing through the site, I discovered that whenever net worth is in somebody's infobox and they enter politics, that field suddenly becomes invisible. Why, I wondered? Because editors pretend to believe that readers are too stupid to handle such information without knee-jerk negative reactions beyond all pale of sense or reason. I was directed to where this standard was hashed out in the archives and it turns out -- wait for this -- it's due to John McCain's marriage to an heiress and editors were concerned people might take that badly. I kid you not. Silvio Berlusconi's net worth is contained in the lede to his article not his infobox; Donald Trump declares, poof! same thing happens--because readers might have seen the cold-hard data of McCain's net worth in his infobox and been dissuaded from voting for him in 2008.

  But I don't for a second believe the editors arguing that point believe this. This is where the cleverness comes in. Do you really think that Cindy McCain's wealth did not become an issue during 2008 'cause of hyper-vigilance on the part of a handful of Wikipedians? That's ridiculous. These guys are responsible for scores of feature article-level bios among 'em and there is simply no way people smart like that could believe something that patently absurd. What is really going on is that these folks pretend to give such fringy paranoia heed. It's why Wiki editors are anonymous; a reporter or academic would experience negative consequences if they were to openly argue that public info should be squelched in the name of Readers-are-too-stupid. But they assume such a persona to appeal to the strong segment of the reading public prone to believe in that kind of outright hogwash. All the while these editors produce high-quality articles overall, which only leads one to accept the obvious fact that they are just faking it when they play their troll cards.

  It's like when Louis C. K. asked Rumsfeld if he was a lizard person. C.K. doesn't believe in lizard people. But he's a comedian--it's part of his shtick to ask impertinent questions. But the sheer genius of such a gambit is that there are fringe people out there that adamantly believe in such stuff and through his question C.K. energizes them. And I've observed that that is what Wikipedia does with regard ethnic and political questions: it pretends to believe in "they are out to get you and me" worries--say, with regard to the simple reporting of publicly released info about potential public servants. And it's working. Wikipedia is one of the most-visited sites. Simply masterful.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC) strike text--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 14:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Since I'm on to Wikipedia's workings, I've decided to post a pointer to here on user:Jimbo Wales's home page.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

To be blunt, I have no effing clue what you are talking about. The decision about whether to include net worth in the infobox is an editorial judgement. It may be wrong, it may be right, but it has nothing to do with anonymity (which I for one am not, by the way), fringe theories, or lizard people. The fact that this treatment may be inconsistent among biographical subjects in different occupations or nationalities is just another instance of WP's tendency towards glorious levels of inconsistency; I could name dozens of other differences more glaring. And there's a lot of other things we don't put in the infobox for politicians either: whether they are liberal/moderate/conservative, libertarian or statist, isolationist or interventionist, pragmatists or ideologues; their ACU or ADA or National Journal scores if in Congress; their election results; their favorability poll ratings; how many campaign promises they've kept versus broken; and so on and so on. All of which the average reader probably cares more about than net worth. If you want to find any of this good stuff out, you have to read the article. Is that so hard? There's an expression in the computer biz, RTFM, and it applies here too. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Now I know how Jonathan Swift felt. Anyway, I'll cease and desist my attempts at humor, apparently my being the only one amused by the extent that editors who say they've adopted a stance of neutrality toward an essentially arbitrary stylistic rule nonetheless go to, to rationalize it or at least explain its provenance. --Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 14:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Change my !vote to Put in infobox. My parody aside, I think it's most elegant to allow this option, when appropriate. After all, my reading of the sacrosanct "effing manual" (which Wasted Time R extolls so vociferously...after, interesting enough, his saying that he remains neutral on the merits of the basic question in the first place) is that it cautions against editors being unnecessarily bound by the more temporal or situational of its pronouncements.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 23:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Add {{outdated}} to this article.

Add {{outdated}} to this article. 99.119.128.251 (talk) 18:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Uhh, why? It's actually very up-to-date. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Some is and some isn't. 99.56.121.111 (talk) 08:02, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Any specifics you care to share with us? Wasted Time R (talk) 10:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Reaction to article being listed for GA

Mostly disinterested reasonable observer here. I just skimmed all and read about 50% of the article. Seems to me that half of what I read came straight out of the Romney 2012 "grassroots" office. Not saying he doesn't deserve accolades - he very well might - just saying the article reads like someone really badly wants people to have a favorable opinion of him. Pär Larsson (talk) 20:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. But in order for this kind of reaction to be helpful, the editors need specifics. What is in the article that shouldn't be? What is not in the article that should be? What deserves to be in the article but needs to be worded differently? Because without such specifics, your stance seems to come down to, "This article says some good things about Romney that are true. That shouldn't be done because someone might get a favorable impression of him as a result." Also, be sure you read, not skim, the "2008 presidential campaign" and the "Political positions" section, because they say some definitely-not-good things about Romney. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:39, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Not saying the concern isn't real. By my count, since the article took its present form, there have been four or five commenters saying it's too positive towards Romney (50.10.57.75, 99.21.35.206, JamesMLane, Parjlarsson, and probably 76.173.194.214) versus only one saying it's too negative towards him (Anythingyouwant). But it's been very difficult to get specifics out of any of first group. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Overall impression is all you're gonna get out of a slacktivist like me. Unless you find me a job where I can get paid to tally up NPOV and fix stuff. Good luck.Pär Larsson (talk) 19:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. As a main editor on this article I'm paid a hundred times what you're paid to read it, thus my being willing to spend much more time on it ;-) Wasted Time R (talk) 02:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Even though I am not paid as much as the editor is to read as they are to edit, I found that this article is lacking in important information. Over-all the article is dense with unhelpful data. For instance, if I want to look up Mitt Romney's political positions, I might choose to go somewhere else that is not Wikipedia. Under political stances, Romney's social stances include: "Romney has been consistent in many of his political positions. However, Romney's position or choice of emphasis on certain social issues, including abortion,[97] some aspects of gay rights,[nb 11] some aspects of stem cell research,[nb 12] and some aspects of abstinence-only sex education,[nb 13] evolved into a more conservative stance during his time as governor." Apparently, Romney has some positions on everything. This section lacks in factual information. What are these positions that Romney takes? Although his positions on social issues have been described as "conservative", they say absolutely nothing about what he actually believes in. The editor should consider furthering their pursuit of information about Mitt Romney's stance on the social issues of abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, and abstinence-only sex education. Instead of saying "some", the editor should write about what exactly it is that Mitt Romney agrees with. Jabberwock07 (talk) 17:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

If you want to look up all of Mitt Romney's political positions, I would think you might choose to go to the Political positions of Mitt Romney article, which you are directed to by the cross reference "For more details on specific Romney positions on many issues, see Political positions of Mitt Romney." But this main article itself also describes the ones you question: abortion in the same paragraph, same-sex marriage in a whole paragraph in the Governorship section, stem cell research and sex eduction each in their own 'Note' at the bottom. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Although actually I realized that the abortion view change while governor is alluded to in several places but never actually described. I've done so by adding a couple of sentences to the governorship section.

Also, as an experiment, I've put the cross-reference text to the Political positions of Mitt Romney subarticle in red, to see if that makes it easier for readers to see. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the OP, Mr. Larsson. This article appears to be sanitized and any possible negative information written as to be seen in the best possible light. I suggest that WPDia be especially concerned with members/operatives of the Church of the LDS having influential roles in the writing or editing of this, or any other, article(s) about Romney. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 16:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

As for your claim, please list three to five specific pieces of information that you think have been written in the 'best possible light' and indicate alternate wordings for each that you think would be better. As for your concern, I can personally assure you that the editor most responsible for the current state of this article is not a member or an operative of the LDS Church. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I assume the 'editor' you're referring to is yourself, which poses a question. Why do you appear to have assumed proprietary interest in, and control of, this particular article? I don't know you from Adam (or Eve), but it's obvious from reading your commentary that, at minimum, your ego is involved here and reading between the lines it's not a stretch to see you have some personal biases at work. I suggest that it's never in the best interest of WPDia to have one person assume as much control and oversight per article as you've taken upon yourself. Doing so is a slippery slope which leads to articles having a personal slant instead of a presentation of facts in an impartial manner - especially when it comes to articles of a political interest. Also (all your assurances aside coming as they are from, and given the full weight of, an anonymous screen name on the internet), it allows the possibility of agenda driven manipulation of content, which certainly doesn't suit the purpose of WPDia, and IIRC (from my previous work here which is of a narrower and more specific focus) is directly against WPDia policy.

One other thing, my understanding is that these discussion pages are to work towards improvement of articles by rational communal discussions of issues raised on articles, not for someone to assume control of an article and the discussion and make demands of participants that do raise issues on articles - raising issues on articles are not personal attacks and shouldn't be taken as such. The demeanor you've exhibited in discussion here appears intended to drive off both participants and discussion and assume a proprietary control here - and that's not what the WPDia project is all about. It's certainly not the intended purpose of these discussion pages.

The focus of this discussion should be the article so why not drop the proprietary and non-productive attitude and see if we can encourage participants to both return and express their concerns so we can have a rational communal discussion leading to the possible improvement of the article? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 12:40, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually not anonymous – you can click the links in the first section of my user page and quickly find out who I am and what I'm about. You can then draw your own conclusions about whether I'm an LDS agent. As for making demands of participants, I honestly do not know what changes you think need to be made to make the article less "sanitized". When all you make is a general statement like you did, and like other commenters have, that gives me and the other editors very little to go on. When I look at the article there are only two things that jump out at me: the use of "political figure" instead of "politician" in the first sentence and the statement that most of his political stances have been consistent. Both were the result of long discussions with another longtime editor here who felt strongly that without them, the article was slanted against Romney. Personally I think the first is silly and the second, while true, is rarely stated in that way. But such is life on WP; you never get an article looking exactly like what you want, there is always compromises that have to be made along the way. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I fail to see how those links support your claim. In fact, several of them are dead links.

As for you not particularly seeing problems with the article, it's most likely because you've generally edited the article to suit yourself - along with your personal biases and prejudices. It's obvious others don't see it that way. For some reason you appear far too quick to dismiss that, and with you asserting proprietary control over the article and these discussions it's not hard to understand why most have walked away with their concerns unaddressed. 184.17.120.133 (talk) 02:26, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Quote on Fed mandate

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2005-07-04-health-insurance-usat_x.htm "We can't have as a nation 40 million people — or, in my state, half a million — saying, 'I don't have insurance, and if I get sick, I want someone else to pay,' " says Romney, a Republican who says he might run for president in 2008.

That isn't hope this new idea catches on. This is we can't stay as we are now and we need a federal mandate. Shall I just distort his record back to truth by quoting his words verbatim? Hcobb (talk) 15:49, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

This is why I used the language "While Romney has not explicitly argued for a federally-imposed mandate, ..." He has never, to my knowledge, formally stated that he is favor of federally-imposed individual mandate backed by fines or tax penalties, such as is found in the PPACA. The 2005 quote you give (which is still used as a source in my edit) suggests that he thought the problem of the uninsured had to be solved somehow, but it doesn't explicitly say he wanted a federal-level individual mandate. (An alternate approach is simply to require that states come up with measures of some kind to meet a certain threshold of universal coverage, without stating what those measures have to be.) And if you look at this WaPo piece that I also used as a source, in 2007 he was saying, "I’m a federalist. I don’t believe in applying what works in one state to all states if different states have different circumstances...Now, I happen to like what we did. I think it’s a good model for other states. Maybe not every state but most, and so what I’d do at the federal level is give every state the same kind of flexibility we got from the federal government as well as some carrots and sticks to actually get all their citizens insured. And I think a lot of states will choose what we did. I wouldn’t tell them they have to do our plan..." I think that comes closest to accurately describing Romney's position at the time. Wasted Time R (talk) 18:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

So let's quote him instead of interpreting him. Primary source is clear (as are the secondaries you reject for excessive truthiness), but either is better than Synthing ourselves. Hcobb (talk) 19:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we should cherry-pick one quote from 2005 (before his plan had even passed at the state level) in preference to likely dozens of quotes he gave in 2007 and 2008 during his campaign. And in general, this main article is supposed to summarize and paraphrase, not be a quote farm. The quotes are better for the Political positions of Mitt Romney‎ article, which can devote a lot more space to the matter. Looking at the "Health care" section there, it could definitely be improved, especially with regard to Romney's ideas and past statements regarding federal-level proposals. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Here again, an editor, assuming proprietary control, has substituted his/her judgment and bias in place of allowing facts to speak for themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 00:55, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 64.139.97.115, 12 June 2011

Grammar and/or spelling note. Under Business Career, the seventh paragraph begins.. 'Leveraged buyouts such as those Bain Capital did sometimes led to layoffs.' Either the 'did' should be omitted or the 'led' should be 'lead'.

64.139.97.115 (talk) 22:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The sentence was probably grammatically correct, but seemed both stylistically lacking and somewhat "weasel-worded"; I changed it in an attempt to fix both issues. Fat&Happy (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Infobox: R resides in Belmont, Mass.?

Per Mother Jones: "Massachusetts defines residence as 'where a person dwells and which is the center of his domestic, social, and civil life.' Using that definition, Karger spent some time interviewing Belmont residents, including members of the Romneys' local Mormon Temple, where they’d been regulars, and asked people when they’d last seen the the former Massachusetts governor or his wife around town."--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

R said he resided in Belmont in his byline to this letter to the editor of the WSJ in May.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This article says "Romney maintained his voting registration in Massachusetts, however, and bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010.[166][168]" The first of those cites, this AP story from April 2010, says that "They still do not own a property in Massachusetts, forcing them to claim temporary residence at a basement apartment in the Belmont home owned by their eldest son, Tagg. It's the address Romney used to vote in Republican Scott Brown's recent victorious Senate special election race, all legal with town officials. Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said the Romneys are buying their own home in Belmont, but a March closing was pushed back to June because of 'contractor delays.' That has put forced the Romneys to watch the number of days they spend in California, ensuring they do not raise questions about their primary residency for tax, voting or other legal purposes." That Belmont residence was subsequently finished and closed on, per the second cite. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• Daily Caller: "Brian McNiff of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Elections Division told TheDC that the state will not investigate the matter. 'This was adjudicated before,' McNiff told TheDC, saying that the issue was resolved 'in 2002, when he ran for governor.' McNiff said that although the allegations relate to changes of residency after 2002, 'the time to bring this up was when he voted.'”--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

2002 Mitt Romney residency issue got deleted. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Why was the residency issue deleted? It was a controversy at the time and therefore part of Mitt's history. Speaking of controversies, why is there no section delineating any controversies surrounding Romney? The lack of one appears to be prima facie evidence of bias with this article and that this article is being/has been 'scrubbed'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2002 Mitt Romney residency issue explains why it was deleted. But this article does mention it, if you read the "2002 gubernatorial campaign" section: "Massachusetts Democratic Party officials claimed that Romney was ineligible to run for governor, citing residency issues involving Romney's time in Utah as president of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee.[84] In June 2002, the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that Romney was eligible to run for office.[84]"

As for there being no section devoted to Romney controversies, that is quite intentional. Such separate sections or subarticles are a poor practice and are considered a violation of WP:NPOV, WP:Content forking, and WP:Criticism. In particular, back in 2007 a special effort was undertaken to rid all 2008 presidential candidates' biographical articles of such treatment — see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States presidential elections/Archive 1#Status of "controversies" pages for the history of that effort — and the same thing has been done for any of the 2012 contenders. (If you see one that has such as section, let me know.) Instead, all appropriate "controversial" material is included in the mainline biographical narrative of the articles, in correct chronological context (just like the residency issue in the example above). That's how a real biography you'd buy in a bookstore would do it, and that's how it's done here. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

That's hardly an explanation as to why it was deleted. The only reason to be gleaned from that previous conversation is that you decided unilaterally that it was to be the way you wanted it.

That is a very poor policy - for numerous reasons, and your interpretation that it is 'poor practice' and in violation of WPDia policies NPOV. CF, and Criticism is erroneous in the extreme - as your 'real biography' assertion as well.

Dismantling 'Controversies' sections is very poor policy and does the readers a disservice. Controversies surrounding any candidate should be immediately available to readers without the necessity of any prior knowledge or enduring a total article read to find any controversies - if they are included at all - surreptitiously hidden within the mass of the article.

I can see why candidate's agents want controversies to be unobtrusively hidden in the depths of the articles, but that shouldn't be a concern of WPdia, the readership and their ease of access/information should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 01:47, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Would you please read Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2002 Mitt Romney residency issue again. I didn't take a position on it, but rather just made a comment. Your beef is with Purplebackpack89, who nominated it, with Ravenswing and Sgt. R.K. Blue, who favored deletion, and with BigDom, who closed it as a delete despite not much input.

As for controversies, yes there are some readers who want what you want, a one-stop shop of all the reasons to dislike Politician X. But that isn't what Wikipedia is for, and that's not just me talking but many other experienced editors as well. Fortunately there are websites that supply just such a service. In this case, there is already the "Anyone But Mitt" site and the"Multiple Choice Mitt" site, and I'm sure others will follow. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:05, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, your assigning demeaning and malicious intent to your assumption of my 'wants' isn't going to make this issue disappear nor make your actions any more palatable.

I suggest that you and all your anonymous 'many other experienced editors' don't understand that the purpose of WPDia is information. You don't get to decide the purpose for which the readers want that information or how they might use that information. For you and these 'other' editors to do that and to decide what factual information is actually available for readers in an easily accessed format isn't anything less than censorship on your parts, and should be directly against WPDia policy and purpose. It also poses the question as to why you are so adamantly against it if you supposedly have no vested interest in anything other than the improvement of the article and WPDia? 184.17.120.133 (talk) 03:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Biased Article?

I believe that this article is quite biased towards Romney, especially with the line: "Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, white teeth, and full head of dark hair graying slightly at the temples, Mitt Romney looked like a president." That is just ridiculous. There are other examples that you can find as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Odinulf (talk • contribs) 18:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny, that line struck me as biased against Romney, since it basically says he's just a pretty face.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not enough to say "there are other examples as well", you have to list them out for your comment to be of any use to the editors. As for that one line that you do mention, you are confusing a fact about appearance with a value judgement or a prediction. It's a fact that a number of writers and political observers have said Romney looks like a president. That's relevant, since in America one's superficial appearance is always at least somewhat important. But saying this doesn't mean he should be a president or would be a good president if he won. It also doesn't mean he will be a president; people said the same thing about Romney's father, and so far between their two presidential campaigns, neither one has gotten past February. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is another instance where it's obvious one editor is controlling not only the article, but also the participants raising issues about the article, and the discussion about the article.

It's patently obvious this article has numerous problems with bias - as evidenced by the issue being repeatedly brought up by a variety of participants - and that the editor is ensuring that the problems with this article are not being addressed, as evidenced by the tone of these discussions and the obstacles being thrown at participants attempting to improve this article.

All which pose, at minimum, two questions: 1) Why IS this article locked? 2) Why is this article observably proprietary to Wasted Time R? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 00:35, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

You may have a point about the article being locked. I've put in an unlock request. We'll see what happens. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The request was denied by the administrators: "Unprotecting a prominent politician in the middle of a campaign is an idea that has never worked - not once." I tried ... Wasted Time R (talk) 10:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the comments that the article is biased in Romney's favor. In particular, in discussion of his time as gov of MA, the text repeatedly uses the word "fee" instead of "tax" in why I assume, is an attempt to disguise the fact that taxes rose under his leadership. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.250.175.26 (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for a specific instance of concern! That's what we need more of. And looking over this part of that section, I agree it needed improvement. There was a flat-out mistake where it said "The combined state and local fee burden ..." when that really meant combined tax burden. I don't know where that crept in. Moreover, that analysis only makes sense if there is a discussion of the pressure the state spending cuts put on local property taxes, so I've added that. I've also clarified a bit what the gasoline fee was about.

Now, as to your claim that fees and taxes are the same, I have to disagree. Fees are paid by those using particular government services while taxes are generally paid by everyone regardless of whether they are using a particular service or not. This is a distinction that libertarians among others hold to be quite important. However, one downside of fees is that they tend to be regressive, and I've included in the article criticism of Romney's reliance on fees increases to that effect.

Now in political campaigns, everything that could possibly be labelled a tax tends to get counted as one, so that a negative ad can be run saying "Joe Shlobotnik raised taxes one hundred and eleven times! Send Joe Shlobotnik back home." But we're not concerned with playing that game here; we trying to describe what Romney did and didn't do. He raised fees and he didn't raise general taxes. It's up to readers to decide for themselves whether that was a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:45, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, there isn't very much coverage of his controversial policies.HypatiaX (talk) 03:35, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Please specifically name some of the 'controversial policies' that do not get enough coverage. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Looking back over the lead section, I decided that the "... though his stances on many other issues have been consistent" clause should go. It's already implicit from the wording of the previous phrase and seems like explanatory overkill, especially in a broad summary. And my guess is that phrase is psychologically triggering a lot of the 'this article is biased' comments. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Proprietary Control of Article & Discussions on Improvements

This article and these discussions have a problem with proprietary control being exerted them. It appears the problems several participants have pointed out concerning bias etc. are stemming directly from that.

When did WPDia allow and condone such control over articles? It's a very bad idea/policy. It leads directly to the inclusion of one person's personal judgment and biases - something which should be a primary concern of all contributors.

Articles should be objective and not subjective. That can't occur by allowing obvious personal bias to enter into the equation.

One suggestion is to have more oversight on editors - especially editors who 'adopt' articles as their own domain.

Let's discuss... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.17.120.133 (talk) 01:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

If there are disputes about article content, WP:Dispute resolution discusses several steps to take in order to to resolve them. Bitching and moaning about other editors on the article talk page is not one of those steps, and is generally ineffective in resolving issues. Fat&Happy (talk) 01:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Pardon me, but the primary problem with the improvement of this article is allowing proprietary control over it. It's either WPDia policy or it's not. If it's WPDia policy, and it's a VERY bad policy if it is, contributors and readers need to know/see that. If proprietary control is not policy, then it needs to be stopped immediately - not only on this article, but across the board on WPDia. 184.17.120.133 (talk) 02:11, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Really? Some people might say the primary problem with the improvement of this article – and many other articles here – is editors who don't understand the purpose of an encyclopedia or concepts such as maintaining a neutral point of view and not giving excessive weight to any particular event or issue.

If you truly don't know what WP policies are, you might want to review them before criticizing or proposing changes in what you think they are. The links provided by Wasted Time R and me above are as good a place to start as any. Fat&Happy (talk) 02:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That's a problem with this article being brought about by proprietary control.

We're discussing a specific issue here - proprietary control - and if you wish to contribute, then you can do so by either substantiating your position that WPDia allows or condones proprietary control or WPDia doesn't. Otherwise, how do you have anything to contribute to this particular discussion? 184.17.120.133 (talk) 03:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

An article talk page is not the place to discuss the behavior of another editor. If you had read the link posted above, you would know this.

There are designated ways and places to complain about the behavior of another editor. If you had read the link posted above, you would know this.

There are procedures in place to request assistance in resolving disputes about article content. If you had read the link posted above, you would know this.

Since discussion of other editors is an inappropriate topic on article talk pages, I suppose the best way for me to "contribute" will be to close and archive the discussion if it continues here. On the other hand, you are welcome to make suggestions for content changes to improve the article, which is the appropriate topic on article talk pages. Fat&Happy (talk) 04:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Apparently you: 1) don't get the point of this discussion; 2) are intent on controlling and stifling the discussion of this issue by the use of threats.

If it's 1, allow me to clarify this issue for you.

This discussion is about WPDia policy and whether that policy allows or encourages proprietary control of articles, content, and even discussions such as this one, as exhibited with this particular article and it's discussion page. This discussion is directly related to both the improvement of the article, the content contained therein, the function of these discussion pages, and WPDia itself. With proprietary control being exerted over both an article and the corresponding discussion page, making 'suggestions' for improvements (as has been done repeatedly on this discussion page) remains an exercise in futility and an experience in censorship - something you are doing here - which, in fact, encourages contributors to walk away, thus assuring the retention of proprietary control over the article, content, and discussion page - a slick way to 'game' the system in your favor.

This gaming of the system is an untenable process and works to the detriment of WPDia, allowing for some self-important people to inflate their egos and exert their 'power'. Now I completely understand how those people might be disturbed at the prospect of discussions such as this, but the WPDia project isn't about egos, personal power, or control.

Therefore, you overstep your bounds with your threats while exhibiting a precise example of an issue I'm raising here. 184.17.120.133 (talk) 18:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

What proprietary control has led to in this article is a violation of WPDia's NPOV policy - a biased article. From there, the system of the discussion page has been corrupted by proprietary control ensuring the article isn't brought into the NPOV policy.

Both the article and the corresponding discussion page have been, and are being, gamed - another violation of WPDia policy.

I suggest that instead of gaming the system to ensure the results you wish, the time should be taken to craft a cogent argument for your position - as I've been doing for mine. The compelling argument succeeds, the abuse of power doesn't - a point on how this is supposed to work. 184.17.120.133 (talk) 00:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll try one more time.

If you really don't know, the guideline you are interested in can be found at WP:OWN. But it seems a bit ridiculous to allege violation of that policy when you have not named one specific instance of content which should be added, deleted,or changed.

Proper use of the talk page includes:

• Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions focused on how to improve the article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal.
• Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize, pick apart, or vent about the current status of an article or its subject. This is especially true on the talk pages of biographies of living people. However, if you feel something is wrong, but are not sure how to fix it, then by all means feel free to draw attention to this and ask for suggestions from others.

This section so far has not conformed to either of those rules. Fat&Happy (talk) 00:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

1) A point I've been making is that those issues of content have been raised on more than one occasion by contributors - a fact evidenced by simply reading this discussion page - and the article's lack of a NPOV hasn't changed. Instead, the process has been gamed to ensure the non-NPOV of the article hasn't changed. It's not necessary to raise specific instances of content to make this point, only show that those issues have already been, and are being, raised by other contributors.

As a side note here, one can't even read through the article's introduction without becoming aware of the non-NPOV.

2) Neither one of those points you're raising about the talk page support your contention that this section is non-compliant. As a matter of fact, one can hardly discuss improving this article without discussing the issues I've raised here - those issues are what led to the article's non-NPOV and what prevent the discussion page process from working properly. The system can't be gamed as it has been and be expected to produce credible work product. 184.17.120.133 (talk) 01:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

You continue to "criticize, pick apart, or vent about the current status of an article" and indicate an unwillingness to instead "discuss ways to improve an article". Would you like to try engaging in an appropriate discussion of improvements you see as desirable? Fat&Happy (talk) 01:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

"Republican candidate for United States presidential election, 2012 in infobar? The hell?

I don't know if this is plagiarism or what, but it seems like the infobar suggests he's already been nominated? I don't see a similar indicator on any other Republican candidates' pages. Please fix this.--24.165.108.211 (talk) 18:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

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Add section of his position regarding Global warming/Climate change.

Add section of his position regarding Global warming/Climate change. 99.109.126.237 (talk) 22:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

This main article doesn't get into specific positions like that, unless they are central to his biographical story, which this one isn't. However the Political positions of Mitt Romney article does do that, and there is already an "Environment" section in it that covers climate change. However that section, like much of that article, needs updating for Romney's post-2007 views. Your contributions would be welcome there. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Add {{outdated}} to this article? 99.181.132.99 (talk) 04:48, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Political positions of Mitt Romney already has a "This article's factual accuracy may be compromised because of out-of-date information" tag on it. As well as a "This article needs additional citations for verification" tag. Meaning if you're interested in the subject, it's time to pitch in and improve that article. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:30, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Romney's recent statements have been added by another editor to Political positions of Mitt Romney. They've gotten some press attention for bringing him flack from Limbaugh et al, for example here and here. But it's a little early to say whether this is Romney's Sister Souljah moment or just a blip along the campaign trail. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

What of this from Talk:Tea Party movement:

One thing that Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have in common: These GOP presidential contenders all are running away from their past positions on global warming, driven by their party's loud doubters who question the science and disdain government solutions.

from GOP presidential contenders are cooling toward global warming (Denver Post) per Talk:Tea_Party_movement#Add_Energy_Policy_section.3F_Resource:_Get_the_Energy_Sector_off_the_Dole. 22:27, 14 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.87.29.188 (talk)

A trend for the Climate change policy of the United States article to describe. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:11, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Please elaborate Wasted Time R (Special:Contributions/Wasted Time R) ... 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

See Talk:Climate change policy of the United States for current United States Supreme Court event associated with the powers of the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the Environmental Protection Agency. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Wasted Time R; I don't see what this has to do with either Mitt Romney or Political positions of Mitt Romney? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

It matters much less if he doesn't become the leader of the Executive Branch of the United States, but the recent Supreme Court ruling increases the related power. Read the references on Talk:Climate change policy of the United States ... 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Any more response Wasted Time R? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

What trend are you implying Wasted Time R, what is your reference; please use completed sentences ... 99.181.140.243 (talk) 04:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

A cut/paste from another talk page is headed "What of this from Talk:Tea Party movement". What of it? Rather than badgering another editor to expand on a perfectly clear response, perhaps it would be more useful to expand on the suggestion for article improvement this minimalist comment purportedly makes. Fat&Happy (talk) 05:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

97.87.29.188/99.181.140.243, my view on this has not changed. The Supreme Court decision regarding federal vs state powers re greenhouse gas emissions belongs in a non-Romney article. The overall trend of Republican politicians to back off their previous positions re climate change belongs in a non-Romney article. Romney's actions related to climate change during his time as governor belong in Governorship of Mitt Romney#Environment, where there seems to be reasonably good coverage now. Romney's other positions, past and current, on climate change belong in Political positions of Mitt Romney#Environment, where what is there now is quite poor – it mostly replicates the Governorship article and has almost nothing of Romney's positions after 2005. (It would be great if you would do some work to improve it, since you're so interested in the topic.) But climate change has never been a major issue in Romney's political career and I don't think it merits inclusion in this main article. If it becomes a big issue during the 2012 campaign (seems unlikely but you never know), then it could be included. If and when he becomes President and either instructs or forbids the EPA from issuing power plant emissions regulations (the possibility you seem to be focusing on), then it could merit inclusion. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Well stated, Wasted Time R. 99.35.15.215 (talk) 20:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Section header redux

User:Thomas Paine1776 is again trying to change the section header "University and missionary years, marriage and family", this time to "Personal life and higher education". This was previously discussed at Talk:Mitt_Romney/Archive_8#Structure_improvements_necessary_to_become_feature_article, and the "University and missionary years, marriage and family" title was agreed to by three editors.

"Personal life and higher education" is doubly inaccurate. First, it omits Romney's missionary years, which are one of the main topics of this section. Mormon missionary work is an important part of many Mormons' lives, but it certainly cannot be considered "personal life" – in fact it's the opposite: it's difficult, frustrating work done wholly for the church with very little social or other personal life allowed for during that time. So the missionary work needs to be part of the section title. Second, Romney's personal life is described throughout the article, in the context in which it happened, not just in this section.

I get the feeling that because a lot of WP political BLPs include a section called "Personal life" that Thomas Paine1776 thinks this one should have one too. But there is nothing in WP:MOSHEAD or WP:MOSBIO that says so. Indeed, it's generally the lesser-quality articles that do this, for example Tim Pawlenty, whose sectioning is so disorganized that it presents his 2012 presidential campaign before his time as governor, and considers his time as governor to be not part of his political career. But if you look at political BLPs that are Featured Articles, you see the sectioning much more like this article. For example, section titles involving "Marriage and family" or something similar are used by Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and Gerald Ford, all FA. Other FA articles just include such information in their relevant chronological sections, such as Terry Sanford, George F. Kennan, Harvey Milk, and Edwin P. Morrow, and don't have family- or personal-related section titles. We could do that here, and just call the section "University and missionary years", but given that WP articles don't have an index, it seems helpful to inform the reader that other important events happened during this timeframe. Thomas Paine1776 also seems to object to the length of this title, but other FA articles have similar ones, such as Calvin Coolidge with "Early career and marriage" and "Legislation and vetoes as governor" and "Radio, film, and commemorations"; John McCain with "Naval training, first marriage, and Vietnam assignment" and "Commanding officer, liaison to Senate, and second marriage"; Neville Chamberlain with long section titles throughout, such as "Road to Munich (March 1938 – September 1938)". Again, there is nothing in the MOS that forbids or discourages a section title such as "University and missionary years, marriage and family", and given that Thomas Paine1776's change went against previous agreement on it and made the title less accurate, I am reverting it. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I was part of the previous discussion. Consensus can change, and Mr. Paine is not without common sense. The heading is clunky. Unlike later headings in this article, it fails to establish the time period. I would prefer "Experiences from 1965 to 1975". That clearly indicates right up front when the "early life" ended and when the "business career" began. Moreover, the present heading doesn't clearly indicate the rationale for aggregating this info in this section, and of course the rationale is that it happened from 1965 to 1975.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree, the heading should change to be more of a general description and more encyclopedic. Its too itemized and doesn't establish the time period. This article is likely to become a high volume article. Personal life and higher education does seem to capture it. Missionary years, marriage and family are 'personal life' topics. The heading is attempting to over-itemize and there are other aspects in the content. The heading doesn't have to say 'University and Missionary years, marriage and family', people can read. The content desbribes much more including early political beliefs and children. The content order is much improved since Stanford is no longer in the Early life section. Subheadings for Religion are sometimes used in biographies; however, since the preference seems to be to keep it in chronological order to 'enrich the content' the heading should be more general. I would agree with Experiences from 1965 to 1975.Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I don't like the new title, but at least it is accurate if not informative. We'll see how it flies. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I expect it'll fly, but you never know around here. Another reason not to get too nostalgic about the old heading is that it gave readers the idea that that section was the go-to place for info about the Romneys' marriage and their family, when actually that material is scattered later in the article (e.g. "Both locations were near some of the Romneys' grandchildren,[164] who by 2010 numbered fourteen.[166] The San Diego location was also ideal for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis and lumpectomy for mammary ductal carcinoma....").

Anyway, this is 99% your article, so when will you nominate as featured? I nominated McCain because I felt like more than 1% of that article was my doing, but I would not nominate this one. It's yours. Why not do it?Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• For the record, there are a few other editors that have made significant contributions to the structure, tone and sourcing of the article over the years, and Wasted Time R's participation is neither the leading contributor, nor 99% of all contributions; in terms of volume, and I note that Anythingyouwant has as of this date, the most voluminous number of edits. You could look it up. Contributor counts to Mitt Romney article
  -- Yellowdesk (talk) 03:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was involved with this article back in 2007-2008 during the last election cycle, before WTR got involved. He substantially re-wrote the article between election cycles. Simply looking at number of edits does not reflect when the edits were made, or whether the edits stuck.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the heading, I'd be willing to dump the old "... marriage and family" part and just go with "University and missionary years", after seeing how many FA articles have headings solely based on career periods. As for FA of this itself, the ratio of 'biased for' vs 'biased against' complaints needs to be more even; maybe the changes made a month ago will accomplish this, but the article still needs a little more soak time to see. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The heading seems okay to me, but I'd be willing to pad it a bit: "University years, 1965-1975". Those years began and ended with university, and he was in the U.S. for 75% of that time; I don't think the missionary part was more significant in his life than the marriage and family part. Putting in the years helps readers a lot, IMO.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

To address the objection that the heading was uninformative, I've changed it to "University and other experiences, 1965-1975". Regarding "soak time", keep in mind that NPOV is determined by balancing sources, not by balancing editors.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I've gone back to "Experiences from 1965 to 1975". The notion that his university years were the most important of the four experiences during this time is unsupported by the sources. In fact, it's arguably the least important. If you doubt the importance of the Mormon missionary experience in general, try reading this recent Business Week story. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The present heading is fine if you prefer. I did not mean to take any position about what's most important in the section; the section begins and ends with university, 75% of that decade was in university, and the time period is selected to cover time at university. But like I said, the present heading is still much better than the hodgepodge one. I also think you're maybe a little too defensive about your writing. The section could be more concise. Whether the French were secular Catholics or devout Moslems, your point about the difficulty of conversion related to alcohol. Likewise, you've already repeatedly said stuff like he was "affluent" and "privileged" so when it comes time to say that he faced "deprivation" there's no need to give so much stress by saying "for the first time in his life" (which would apply to many other statements such as getting married). Likewise, why describe arguing about Vietnam in so many words? Giving more weight to something you think is important should never mean being wordy instead of concise, IMO. I could go on and on, but will be concise. :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the first 'defense', whenever you talk about missionaries trying to convert people to religion B, it's always relevant what the predominant existing religion A is. Regarding deprivation, your edit removed what kinds (could also be social, spiritual, etc) but I agree 'for the first time in his life' could be seen as redundant and I've removed it. Regarding Vietnam, for anyone who came of age during that time, what they thought and did regarding the war is a major biographical point and deserves to be described accordingly. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:31, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I'm really not sure of the difference between a "political figure", linked to politician, and an actual politician, which is how most current office-holders and those running for office are characterized. As to the way "Republican" scans, there's a valid point there, but I think the problem is the too-early introduction of party affiliation – most of the political articles I recall seem to hold off on party until at least the second sentence, possibly for reasons similar to those which discourage introducing Frank Sinatra as an Italian American singer. How about changing it to:

Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

If it's absolutely necessary to have a link to the party itself early on, the phrase "A member of the Republican Party," (or simply "A Republican,") could be pre-pended to the second sentence. Fat&Happy (talk) 02:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The avoidance of "politician" was the subject of a whole long debate and compromise during Talk:Mitt Romney/GA2, that seems kind of silly in retrospect (actually, it seemed kind of silly then too). I'm fine with your proposed wording, although I would still be tempted to say "... candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination". Plenty of Americans would not know if some foreign politician described as a Liberal meant political ideology or party affiliation. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it's silly to insist on changing the longstanding "political figure" to "politician". The latter term often has pejorative connotations, which doubtless is why the subject does not identify as one: "America wants a leader not a politician."[3] It's also doubtless why the Barack Obama lead does not identify him as a "politician". I don't see any indication that Fat&Happy has looked at the previous discussion about this in the good article review. I'll revert once, and then you can skew it in whatever silly way you want.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

First of all, the "political figure" usage isn't "longstanding" ... it's been there for all of three months. Regarding the lack of "Party", I'm concerned that foreign readers won't know it's implicit ... how many American readers would read William McMahon's opening of "Sir William 'Billy' McMahon, GCMG, CH (23 February 1908 – 31 March 1988), was an Australian Liberal politician and the 20th Prime Minister of Australia" and think the guy was a small-l liberal rather than a member of the Liberal Party of Australia? But maybe I'm in the minority on this one.

The greater issue is that since the article took its present form, there have been nine commenters saying it's biased in favor of Romney (50.10.57.75, 99.21.35.206, JamesMLane, Parjlarsson, (probably) 76.173.194.214, 184.17.120.133, Odinulf, 192.250.175.26, HypatiaX) versus only one saying it's too negative towards him (you). I'm trying to figure out what's caused this imbalance and do something to change it. I thought maybe the odd "political figure" term (rarely used in this context) might have something to do with it. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

That's incorrect. I did not say that this article is too negative toward him. I referred only to the silliness of changing one term in the lead. As for party, I did not change anything, or propose to change anything, and I don't care how you and fatso work it out. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:54, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The "silliness" occurred three months ago when the common term "politician", which was first used in the article seven years ago, was replaced by a forced construction without any in-line explanation of its meaning – a textbook example of the old canard that the camel was a horse designed by a committee. The fact that some meaning was attached by linking the term to the forbidden p-word adds to the ridiculousness of the situation. And this because some people think "politician" can have a pejorative interpretation? If "politician" is now to be equated with "terrorist" as a word that cannot be used to describe the subjects of BLPs, perhaps it should be added to a guideline somewhere. Fat&Happy (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

"... he's a politician; that's like a notch below child molester." (Woody Allen; Annie Hall) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Politician

Fat&Happy, no one but yourself has suggested any equivalence of the words "politician" and "terrorist". As WTR has explained, the word "politician" is simply more "negative" than the term "political figure" (which is a very common English term as can be seen from a simple Google search). Since you apparently deny this, following is proof, which I'm putting here more for the record than to convince anyone such as yourself:

"2. One who seeks personal or partisan gain, often by scheming and maneuvering: 'Mothers may still want their favorite sons to grow up to be President, but . . . they do not want them to become politicians in the process' (John F. Kennedy)." American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.[4]

"2 ... b : a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons". Merriam Webster Dictionary 2011.[5]
Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The Blaze

Is a blog post at Glenn Beck's blog consistent with WP:RS? I kinda doubt it. And why wlink Mormon repeatedly? A wlink on first use should be enough. And should we really announce in a heading that Romney's public image is religious?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There are only two variations of "Mormon" linked in that entire section, Mormon and Mormonism (which link to different articles). As for other elements of Romney's public image, they could also be relevant, but at present this entire section only contained material related to his "Religious" standing. Thus, the sub-section was renamed accordingly and linked to the other article which was also nearly all about the public reception to his Mormon faith. Since the topic is obviously notable, can you think of a more neutral way to say it rather then "Religious public image of Mitt Romney" (i.e. Religious reception of Mitt Romney)? As for The Blaze news blog by Glenn Beck (himself a Mormon), do you factually dispute any of the information garnered from it? It is really just announcing the upcoming release of a related documentary - and could even be further sourced if needed.  Redthoreau -- (talk) 06:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

See WP:SPS. The factual accuracy is not the main issue with using a blog as a source.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Per criteria laid out at wp:NEWSBLOG, The Blaze qualifies as a weblog with editorial oversight, which is a different beast than one that is self-published without such oversight. (The blog's editor-in-chief, btw, is Scott Baker (journalist)).--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 17:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A blog hosted by a newspaper or magazine is allowed by WP:NEWSBLOG. What newspaper or magazine hosts the material now at issue?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Fusion magazine.--19:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the number of sources now cited, I don't see any need to discuss a film that hasn't been released yet, given the wealth of other material available about Romney. See WP:Recentism and WP:Crystal ball. Nor was there any point in linking a use of "Mormon" that is not the first use in the section (and that first use obviously doesn't have to be linked given that's in a parenthetical directing people to click on the LDS wlink), so I agree with removal of the wlinked "Mormon" in the image section.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment, and I've removed it. Let's wait and see what effect, if any, the film has on Romney and/or the election. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Image

I have replaced the heading "Religious public image" with "Religious aspects of public image". We shouldn't be implying that his public image is 100% religious.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Considered "Christian"

I've got my doubts about several things in this section, including the new title, but one thing stood out the most and I've removed it: "However, the question of whether or not Mormons are considered "Christians" remains a sensitive and controversial issue, with possible political implications." That's just one of many reasons why people may dislike Mormons, distrust them, have a bias against them, etc. It's not within the scope of this article to go into that whole topic; it's a subject for articles like Anti-Mormonism, History of the Latter Day Saint movement, Portrayals of Mormons in popular media, Criticism of Mormonism, and so forth. This section should stay more focused. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Wasted Time, that line was included because it was in the utilized Washington Post reference, which states: "The question of whether or not Mormons are considered ‘Christians’ is sensitive and controversial. It is also consequential for Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney ...".  Redthoreau -- (talk) 12:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

There's a lot of stuff in that WaPo piece, and this particular part is not much use to us here. A lot of other things are consequential for Romney too that shouldn't be discussed in this particular Wikipedia article (e.g. whether Perry is able to raise a lot of money, whether Bachmann has a migraine during a debate, whether Giuliani thinks he can win more than New Hampshire, whether the unemployment rate goes up or down, etc.).Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

If we edit out the "General negative stuff about the LDS Church", then we should also edit out the "General positive stuff about the LDS Church". I'm removing this content footnote:

The notion of the Mormon mission as a crucible is a common one, and has been used to help explain the prominence of Mormons in business and civic life.[28][29][30] It also has helped prepare Mormons for later engaging and prospering in non-Mormon environments.[31]

It's not related to Romney's specific mission experience. By contrast, it's appropriate for the article to include properly sourced information to the effect that Romney himself attracted support because of his mission experience, or that he encountered opposition from people who didn't consider him Christian. I don't agree with Anythingyouwant's analogy. The Romney bio should include significant information about Romney that affected his campaign. An article about the 2012 election could reasonably include everything from Romney's religion to Bachmann's fundraising. For purposes of the Romney bio, however, the former is relevant and the latter is not. JamesMLane t c 17:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

After thinking about all this, this is what I would propose. When I reworked/expanded this article, I left the "Public image" section in only to give an anchor for the "Public image of Mitt Romney" subarticle. That article has since been recast as Religious public image of Mitt Romney, as Redthoreau correctly assessed that the non-religious material in that article was worthless. I would further recast that article as Mormon candidates for President of the United States, because that's what a lot of it concerns already. And more can be added to it on G. Romney 1968, Udall 1976, Hatch 2000, and Huntsman 2012. Although the focus will still be on Mitt, since he's come the closest of all of these candidates and because his "Faith in America" speech most directly addressed the question.

Note that the renamed article would be parallel to the existing African American candidates for President of the United States. (I thought there was a parallel article for women candidates, but I only see List of female United States presidential and vice-presidential candidates.)

Once that is done, and listed as a "See also" entry from this article (and perhaps from the nav template at the bottom), the current "Religious aspects of public image" section material can be dispersed into the "2008 presidential campaign" and "2012 presidential campaign" sections as appropriate, and the section itself can go away, thus rendering moot the question of what to call it. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that serious and thoughtful proposal. However, I'm leaning against, for several reasons, not necessarily in order of importance. First, while there is indeed an article about African-Americans who have sought the office, I am not aware that such articles exist by religion. Why start now? I think that kind of article inherently inflates the role of religion, and kind of balkanizes the political landscape in a religious way.

The second reason why I lean against is because I'm actually not very uncomfortable with the name and location of this section of this article as it stands now. For people with a special interest in this subject, the section provides what they want, without unduly forcing everyone else who reads the prior parts of the article to endure it. If we were to partly disperse the contents of this section into the chronological sections then several unwelcome things might happen: (1) we would lose a safety valve for including religious info that some editors may insist we include; (2) some info would be removed entirely from this article provoking ongoing editorial battles; (3) the headings would no longer mention a particularly prominent aspect of his life, thus subjecting us to whitewashing criticisms; (4) there would be pressure to include more religion info within the chronological sections, even though those chronological sections already include plenty of that.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

So what would you do with the Mormon-related material currently in the "2008 presidential campaign" section?

"The candidate's Mormon religion was also viewed with suspicion and skepticism by some in the Evangelical portion of the party;[136] polls indicated that about a quarter of Republican voters, and a quarter of voters overall, said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who was a Mormon.[137][138]" and "Persistent questions about the role of religion in Romney's life, as well as Southern Baptist minister and former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls based upon an explicitly Christian-themed campaign, led to the December 6, 2007, "Faith in America" speech.[138] In it, Romney said he should neither be elected nor rejected based upon his religion,[143] and echoed Senator's John F. Kennedy's famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign in saying "I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."[138] Romney largely avoided discussing the specific tenets of his faith, instead stressing that he would be informed by it and that, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."[138][143]"

Move it into the "Religious aspects of public image" section? Because as of now, that's where the Mormon-related material for the 2012 election is. What's your criteria for what goes into a campaign section and what goes into this "Religious aspects of public image" section? Wasted Time R (talk) 13:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The chronological sections ought to have an amount of info about his religion that's appropriately weighted relative to the stuff in those sections that's non-religious. Any additional religion material that we want in this article should go in the religious image section, IMO.

We could insert a lead sentence into the religious image section to make it clear that the info therein is supplementary to what's in the chronological sections; alternatively, the religious image section could include all of the religious material in the article with some repetition of what's in the chrono sections (just like the Notes repeat some of what's in the main text).Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

So which section should contain the description of the "Faith in America" speech? Wasted Time R (talk) 18:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

If it were up to me, that speech would be concisely described in chronological order, and any further elaboration would go in the religious image section.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Have done so. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Uninvolved

This article says Romney was "largely uninvolved in the long and somewhat controversial construction of a Mormon temple in Belmont." And then we provide an image of the temple. So, let's remove the image.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Was looking for a way to illustrate the section, now that material is being coalesced into it. Was going to put in photo of the Salt Lake Temple, with caption saying he was married there. But thought this would be a little more different. He did/does attend services there ... Wasted Time R (talk) 01:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a pic of him at the GHW Bush library would be best. He gave his "Faith in America" speech there in 2007.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Boring. Religions are full of memorable icons and imagery, but a guy talking at a library isn't among them. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

What if there were some angels fluttering around? Photoshop can make it less boring.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:36, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

rewording?

From Note 9: Romney and wife were on board an Air Canada flight waiting to take off from Vancouver to Los Angeles when he got into... Maybe it's just me but the way this is worded is awkward. The plane was waiting to take off from Vancouver, not from Vancouver to Los Angeles. Thoughts? Also, on a separate topic, is it common to hide accessdates? I'm still newish, so I have plenty to learn. Spalds (talk) 23:54, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I've tweaked the wording. As for accessdates, there are many practices in WP articles. This one takes the approach that except for undated web sources, they are unnecessary to be seen by the reader, but may be helpful to editors if a source goes missing in a checklinks reports or the like. Hence they are commented out (and I've now commented out a few more). Wasted Time R (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Without raising taxes

The lead stated that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney closed a large budget deficit "without borrowing or raising taxes". I'm not sure that language accurately reflects independent, reliable sources, although it does jibe with Romney's campaign material. For example, the Boston Globe wrote:

Romney and the Legislature did approve an austere budget to deal with nearly all of a projected shortfall, which never fully materialized because tax collections came in more than $1.2 billion above preliminary estimates. The spending plan also raised at least $331 million through increased fees for permits, licenses, and services - about a 45-percent jump - and $128 million in tax code tweakings to close "loopholes" affecting businesses. Another $181 million in "loophole" closings - businesses called them tax increases - followed in the next two years.

Romney has asserted that the fee increases totaled only $260 million in fiscal 2004 but that ignores at least $71 million in new fees implemented shortly after he took office. One major fee hike was clearly excessive - a 2-cent-per-gallon increase in a special gasoline fee, implemented during the fiscal crisis without fanfare, even though it affects every motorist in the state. ([6])

Do we accurately represent this? Clearly, Romney characterizes his actions as "closing tax loopholes", but the businesses affected saw these as tax increases. Similarly, the difference between "raising taxes" and imposing new fees is perhaps rather fine.

In any case, according to the Boston Globe, "Data compiled by The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, shows that during Romney's four years as governor, the state and local tax burden in Massachusetts increased from 10 percent to 10.6 percent of per capita income." So the tax burden did actually increase during Romney's governorship, yet our lead doesn't reflect this (in fact, it claims the opposite, that taxes were not raised).

The Globe article notes: "Romney's success in steering the state through the fiscal maelstrom was one of his key achievements, but in the retelling he and his aides often overstate the accomplishment and understate the side-effects: big fee increases and pressure on local property taxes." We should probably avoid falling into same trap. MastCell ^Talk 18:37, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree with removal. Gasoline fees = Gasoline taxes. Spalds (talk) 21:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

All valid points, but I don't think we should conflate decisions on the part of local towns to raise property and other taxes with Romney's actions. I think the way it is covered now ("During his term, he presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $3 billion deficit.") is satisfactory. NW (Talk) 23:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

There's a real difference between taxes and fees, but for the purposes of the lead, I agree that the new wording is quite adequate. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Revision of "No Apologies" book

This Wikipedia article now mentions that Romney made some edits to his book when it went from hardcover to paperback. Some of the updates were pretty straightforward and due to intervening events; no one objects to them. The update that our Wikipedia article now focusses on is removal of the following healthcare-related sentence fragment: "We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country...." I take it that this Wikipedia article is thus trying to convey the notion that Romney removed this sentence fragment in order to conceal his (hardcover) support for a federal healthcare law like the one he implemented in Massachusetts. But that's incorrect. Here's what the hardcover book said, with that sentence fragment in context:

The notion of getting the federal government into the health-insurance business is a very bad idea....My own preference would be to let each state fashion its own program to meet the distinct needs of its citizens. States could follow the Massachusetts model if they choose, or they could develop plans of their own.... It’s portable, affordable health insurance–something people have been talking about for decades. We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country, and it can be done without letting government take over health care.

Perhaps Romney removed the sentence fragment because it could so easily be misunderstood out of context (or twisted by a partisan journalist). In any event, I think this material can be sufficiently covered in the sub-article, but cannot be sufficiently covered in the present article without giving it undue weight disproportionate to coverage of the matter in reliable sources.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:23, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of what the change was, it's not worth covering here (but of course can and should be in the article about the book itself). This genre, the before-the-presidential-campaign book, has one and only one purpose: to promote the (putative) author's presidential ambitions. Thus it should come as no surprise that the contents may be tweaked (for any purpose) between editions. If anything, this bio article gives too much weight to the book already, by mentioning it in the lead. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, the cited source (a large New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza) specifically cited that sentence, and its removal, in its final paragraph. I'm fine with not covering it here, if that's the consensus. On a slightly different subject - that of Romney's irresistible physical charms - I still think this (now-reverted) edit was an improvement. I did read the sources, and they do clearly cite specific aspects of Romney's appearance, but I think we can convey the same information in language that's more encyclopedic. But again, I don't feel strongly if others disagree. The language just sort of stuck out when I, as a first-time reader, went through the passage. MastCell ^Talk 03:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, at risk of incurring a lightning strike or throwing the planet's orbit off-course, I tend to agree with MastCell about listing physical traits. It's somewhat of a close-call, but it comes off sounding somewhat sarcastic, or trivial, or denigrating, or infatuated, depending on how you read it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The language that I reverted – "Romney's physical appearance was also cited as an advantage, with a number of observers noting that he looked Presidential" – tells the reader nothing about what aspects of his appearance made him look presidential, and thus is an inferior formulation in my view. (This is especially an issue for foreign readers. If I read that a Japanese politician had a physical appearance that made him look like a prime minister, I would not know at all what characteristics those were.) I As for "sarcastic, or trivial, or denigrating, or infatuated", yes indeed, I've read writers and commentators that had each of those reactions to Romney's appearance. So the language works. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's what the Wikipedia article now says: "Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, white teeth, and full head of dark hair graying slightly at the temples, Mitt Romney looked like a president." This is in Wikipedia's voice. Putting it in Wikipedia's voice makes Wikipedia sound sarcastic, or trivial, or denigrating, or infatuated, depending how you read it. Wikipedia should not express a POV about Romney's graying temples.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:22, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the article says: "Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, white teeth, and full head of dark hair graying slightly at the temples, Mitt Romney looked like a president.[42][93][131][132]" Meaning that it's not actually Wikipedia's voice, since as usual it has none; it's the collected, paraphrased voice of Messrs and Mesdames 42, 93, 131, and 132. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think your use of italics there will convey to many readers everything that you apparently intend to convey; maybe you could spell out in the article what you intend to convey? Moreover, in many Wikipedia articles about subjective things like books or movies, there's often a section titled "critical reception" or the like; the views expressed in those sections are attributed inline to critics or reviewers, even if they're unanimous. That's a better way to do it, if this sort of material must be included.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:39, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Everything a politician does is subject to critical reception, with roughly half the observers giving a thumbs down, so that kind of approach wouldn't be too useful. But I've dumped the italics and changed the second part of the sentence to "..., Mitt Romney matched a common image of what a president should look like." Wasted Time R (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Could I humbly offer this sentence for consideration: "Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Romney fit a popular perception regarding how a president should look." Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's what it says now: "Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Mitt Romney matched one of the common images of what a president should look like.[42][93][131][132" I prefer that we refer to a plurality of common images (as we do now), instead of a single popular perception. The latter phraseology kind of hints at sexism, racism, et cetera; it's bad enough that the sentence already suggests Romney's supporters are superficial morons.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:22, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay. but "matched one of the common images of what a president ..." seems a little awkward/atificial. More tries:

"Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Romney projected one of several ways a president is expected to look."

"Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Romney claimed one of several looks expected for a president.

"Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Romney captured one of several looks imagined for a president.

"Moreover, with his square jaw, handsome face, and ample hair graying at the temples, Romney netted one several looks associated with being president.

Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

If you'd like to simply replace "images" with "perceptions" then that would be unobjectionable, but I don't see why to do more than that.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Sources.

"Political observers and public opinion polls place him as a front-runner in the race." This begs for several sources. Sin2x (talk) 19:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

The lead section does not include footnotes for anything. The lead merely summarizes what's later in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Resource for global warming towards Climate change mitigation / Adaptation to global warming ...

Global warming is a litmus test for US Republicans - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney crossed a dangerous party line when he stated his belief in anthropogenic climate change by Raymond S. Bradley August 3rd 2011 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC) This relates to Talk:Mitt_Romney#Add_section_of_his_position_regarding_Global_warming.2FClimate_change. and Talk:Tea_Party_movement#Add_Energy_Policy_section.3F_Resource:_Get_the_Energy_Sector_off_the_Dole 97.87.29.188 (talk) 20:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This Raymond S. Bradley? 99.119.129.32 (talk) 00:55, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Your IP sock act is getting tired. Go away. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

To whom are you talking "Wasted Time R"? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would assume. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

See Anthropogenic. 99.181.145.108 (talk) 05:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Father's background

This was recently deleted regarding his father, George Romney: "a man of humble upbringing who by 1948 had become an automobile executive". The edit summary says: "his father's childhood was mixed, his family was influential, but fall on hard times". Here's what the cited source says:

George's father struggled to find his foothold in middle-class America, going broke several times, and George carried some of that baggage, laboring as a plasterer rather than earning a college degree. Still, George was determined to go far. He "married up," pairing off with his classy high school sweetheart, Lenore LaFount.

By the middle of the 20th century, the LDS Church had buried its pioneer past of beards and Mormon-centric businesses, pushing instead a clean-shaven embrace of the Chamber of Commerce and the American Dream. And George Romney, refined by his cultured wife, had finally arrived.

He briskly advanced in the business world, moving from salesman to lobbyist to executive, while taking on leadership roles with the church. In 1954, he became president and chairman of American Motors. It was a promotion loaded with peril, since the company was on the brink of bankruptcy.

So, I'll change the sentence to say that George Romney was "a man of middle-class upbringing who by 1948 had become an automobile executive".Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Your attempt to summarize George Romney's upbringing is the worst yet. But it is well-described at George W. Romney#Early life, so we'll let people read it there. I've cut out this clause. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Whatever. All I did was replace "humble" with "middle-class". You realize that, right? And you realize that the source says: "George's father struggled to find his foothold in middle-class America".Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Does this sound like a middle-class upbringing to you?

From here on, George Romney grew up under humble circumstances.[15] The family subsisted with other Mormon refugees on government relief in El Paso, Texas for a few months before moving to Los Angeles, California, where Gaskell Romney worked as a carpenter.[13][16] In kindergarten there, other children mocked Romney's national origin by calling him "Mex".[17][18] In 1913, the family moved to Oakley, Idaho, and bought a farm, where they grew and subsisted largely on Idaho potatoes.[19][20] The farm was not well located and failed when potato prices fell.[19] The family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1916, where Gaskell Romney resumed construction work but was generally poor.[19] In 1917, the family moved to Rexburg, Idaho and Gaskell became a successful home and commercial builder in an area growing because of high World War I commodities prices.[21] George Romney started working in wheat and sugar beet fields at the age of eleven and was the valedictorian at his grammar school graduation in 1921.[21] The Depression of 1920–21 brought a collapse in prices and local building was abandoned.[21] The family returned to Salt Lake in 1921, and while his father resumed construction, George became skilled at lath-and-plaster work.[22][23] The family was again prospering when the Great Depression hit in 1929 and ruined them.[16] George watched his parents fail financially in Idaho and Utah,[24] with their debts taking a dozen years to pay off;[25] seeing their struggles influenced his life and business career.[23]

I've read multiple book biographies of George Romney. Have you? Wasted Time R (talk) 03:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The sentence in question had one single footnote at the end of it. I went to that source. If you'd like to add further sources at the end of the sentence, please be my guest. I only did this because another editor sought to delete most of the sentence, which I rescued. You're welcome.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:33, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I added the footnote myself, all nicely formatted as you like.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:11, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Purported paucity

I see that there's some reverting going on regarding this sentence: "Like most Mormon missionaries everywhere, he failed to gain many converts, with the nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people proving especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol" (emphasis added). The question is whether "everywhere" should be changed to "in France".

The cited New Yorker article says the worldwide average is "fewer than five converts per missionary". The article does not label those missionaries as failures (as we do), nor does that article say that Mormon missionaries did worse than other missionaries. So, I tend to support "in France" instead of "everywhere".Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The "everywhere" was inserted to try to stop the reverting. I'm okay with just saying, "Like most Mormon missionaries, ...." which is how it read before. But by putting "in France" there, the "especially resistant" part becomes meaningless and it contradicts the sources, which say that being a Mormon missionary anywhere in the world was tough. And I'm fine with changing "he failed to gain" to "he did not gain" if the word "failed", like "politician", sends alarm bells off in your head. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. Please hurry and stop the bells.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Rewording

Sorry I'm not familiar with wikipedia discussion page format but I figured I should make a new section to put this at the bottom of the page since the page is mostly in chronological order.

So this article is ridiculously, almost laughably, biased. I wanted to read about Romney starting from when he was an actual independent person, so I started reading in the college section. At the start of this section, the article writes: "He kept a well-groomed appearance and enjoyed traditional campus events", which is code for "he was an admirable fellow and he didn't do cocaine in college like Bush did". This information does not seem to be relevant to an encyclopedia article about him and only serves to try to make him likeable to the reader of the article. The sentence, in my opinion, should not be included at all. And of course it's not citeable. If you have to have something like it you could say instead "Romney was not mostly uninvolved with these events."

And "the nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people" sounds like something out of a biography written by a Romney fan. Not Wikipedia style neutral I think. It simultaneously marginalizes the French by pretty much saying: "oh those French people are so silly and love their drinking", while making it clear that it was not Romney's personal failing for being unable to convert many French people. This is clear bias, to anyone who is paying attention, and should not be in something supposedly impartial like Wikipedia.

And of course, "Romney was bruised defending two female missionaries against a horde of local rugby players". Seriously? I would say "Romney was injured while defending two female missionaries." The article makes it sound like he fought a horde of orcs who happen to play rugby while managing to sustain only minor bruises. If I go through and remove the ridiculous bias section by section and make it more neutral as a Wikipedia article should be, can I be assured, Wasted Time, that they won't all be undone? These specific instances of worshipful weasel wording were from just the first two paragraphs in the "Experiences from 1965 to 1975" section.

(Dan Guan (talk) 23:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC))

You're correct in putting these comments in a new section at the bottom. And thanks for being specific with your comments. But you seem to read into this section's text things that aren't there. The "He kept a well-groomed appearance and enjoyed traditional campus events" is to contrast him with long-haired types and student protesters of the day (no comparison to GWB was ever thought of, I assure you). And contrary to what you say, it is citeable, as the footnote given (part 1 of the Boston Globe series) indicates. Your suggested alternative, "Romney was not mostly uninvolved with these events", is to be honest hard to parse. As for Mormon missionaries, they are all largely unsuccessful anywhere in the world, France is even harder, but during Romney's time there they reached a high mark for baptisms in a decade. Whether any of this makes the reader like Romney more or less is immaterial (I personally think missionary work is generally foolish and sometimes offensive, and certain Christians may find it highly objectionable that Romney was trying to convert them away). As for the rugby incident, did you read the source? It's right at the beginning of this article. The text here is an accurate and descriptive summary of that incident, while your alternative lacks detail and interest. It happened, whether you like it or not, it helps describe Romney's character at the time, and whether it makes the reader like Romney more is immaterial. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I now see that you are likely the significant contributor here and will not waste any more time. The people in the original rewording section were too lazy to bring up specific examples of bias, but I now see that you will shoot down any suggestions of bias anyway. Have fun with the article. (Dan Guan (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC))

I and others have changed other parts of the article in response to suggestions they gave a biased portrayal. But your examples left me unconvinced. Take the Stanford passage for example: "Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and enjoyed traditional campus events.[3] In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in in the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests.[3][22]" Some readers may think more of Romney after reading this ("Ah, not one of those unpatriotic hippie protestors!"). Some readers may think less of Romney after reading this ("Yecch, what kind of hopeless square was he, not to be moved by the cultural currents of the times or the carnage of the war?") Either is okay, because this is what happened, and it's up to the reader to decide how to react to that. But I think a hundred people could read the passage and you would still be the only one who saw it as some kind of coded statement of comparison to George W. Bush. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a sentence in the second section that I think should be worded with a more neutral tone. (There may be other serious examples, but this one jumped out at me.) This is in the third paragraph: "It showed him the fragility of life and the need for a seriousness of purpose, and he gained a capacity for organization and a record of success that he had theretofore lacked." This sounds to me like part of a tribute to Romney. Here is a more neutral version: "It made him believe that life was fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose. He also gained organizational experience and achieved some success, which he had theretofore lacked." This version provides the same information but without so much implicit praise. --Samething (talk) 16:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I changed it to "It made him believe that life was fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose. He also gained organizational experience and a record of success that he had theretofore lacked." I prefer "record of success" to "achieved some success" because the latter is kind of nebulous (pretty much everybody achieves some success). Wasted Time R (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I slightly tweaked the phrasing: "It instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose." Saying that it "made him believe" sounds like he was forced at gunpoint (or otherwise compelled) to believe.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Section order

Anyone have any thoughts about whether we could/should move the "Political positions" up one section? I'm not sure what the trend is in Wikipedia political BLPs, but it seems like the "Image" section often comes after Political positions.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Done.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

This article needs a GAR

The whole thing reads like it was written by the Campaign to Elect Mitt Romney. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.111.132 (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Did the Campaign to Elect write any of these?

• "Romney's staff suffered from internal strife and the candidate himself was indecisive at times, constantly asking for more data before making a decision.[128][139]"
• "At a Saint Anselm College debate, Huckabee and McCain pounded away at Romney's image as a flip flopper.[141] Indeed, this label would stick to Romney through the campaign[128]"
• "Romney seemed to approach the campaign as a management consulting exercise, and showed a lack of personal warmth and political feel; journalist Evan Thomas wrote that Romney "came off as a phony, even when he was perfectly sincere."[130][144]"
• "In response, many skeptics, including a number of Republicans, charged Romney with opportunism and having a lack of core principles.[101][128][209][220]"
• "The fervor with which Romney adopted his new stances and attitudes contributed to the perception of inauthenticity which hampered that campaign.[40][192]"
• and so on.

Maybe the Campaign to Elect somebody else ... Wasted Time R (talk) 04:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This is perhaps not the place for Mormon jabs

In the "Experiences from 1965 to 1975" there exists a sentence: 'Like most Mormon missionaries, he did not gain many converts...'

I've changed this a number of times to 'Like most Mormon missionaries in France...' and 'He did not gain many..." but someone kept changing the first edit to 'Like all Mormon missionaries everywhere...' and the later back to it's original form.

1) Claiming that Mormon missionaries are unsuccessful is demonstrably untrue. They are the fastest growing Christian religion in the world.

2) This seems to be a jab at Mormons generally.

Call me crazy if I'm being crazy. Is there any way to regulate this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jandrewc (talk • contribs) 12:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The way I understand it, we say whatever the source says. So I'd check the sources and see it what they say. This issue has been brought up and refuted on that point. Spalds (talk) 14:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I doubt you're crazy, Jandrewc, although if you are that wouldn't make you unique among Wikipedia editors.  :-) Regarding the text that you're concerned about, there are footnotes attached to it, so you ought to look at what the footnoted sources say. If you want to bring additional sources to our attention, please feel free to do that. According to WP:RS, we're supposed to follow reliable sources, and therefore providing more sources would be the easiest way to change this article. According to the sources now cited, we have this info:

• "Like most missionaries, he did not win many converts."[7]
• "Two years ago, sixty thousand missionaries signed up two hundred and seventy-four thousand converts worldwide—an average of fewer than five converts per missionary."[8]

I've inserted the word "individual" to clarify.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

First of all, Jandrewc, claims to be the fastest-growing religion are inherently hard to prove. And even if the LDS Church is growing, a lot of that may be due to its internal population growth. And even if it is growing due to conversion as well, that can be due to the broad spectrum approach described in the New Yorker quote above. Yes, the church will get conversions, but for each individual missionary, it is still a very frustrating, trying experience featuring near-constant rejection, and that's true around the world, not just in France. The article is accurate. Anythingyouwant's change seems superfluous to me, but if it stops contrafactual edits, then I guess it's okay. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:53, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Web site in infobox

Shall we put a link to his website at the end of the infobox? This seems standard. See Ron Paul and Herman Cain, for example.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Spalds (talk) 13:55, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it's in.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Sentence regarding front runner status

This sentence here : Political observers and public opinion polls place him as a front-runner in the race.

This is pretty vague sounding, I'm not taking away the fact he was definitely the Front runner for SOME time but with the amount of news reports now noting Perry in his place or at least tied, could this sentence be disputed?

http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/24/rick-perry-frontrunner/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kasow187 (talk • contribs) 00:43, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

There's a significant grammatical difference between "a front runner" and "the front runner". When Perry entered the race, he quickly became "the front runner" – a description called into some question after the Florida debate – but at this point it's pretty much indisputable that Perry and Romney each remain "a front runner. Fat&Happy (talk) 00:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up, it is valid then in that case.Kasow187 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC).

Like Fat&Happy said. We used the same "a" instead of "the" locution back in 2008 with Obama and Hillary during their battle. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Writings

Where are his books?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 19:50, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

In a bookstore? Both Turnaround and No Apology are mentioned in the text and both have articles of their own. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It's useful for readers to have a table of contents heading such as Mitt Romney#Notable works (Sarah Palin#Bibliography, Goerge W. Bush#Notable works, Mike Huckabee#Books 2, Rick Perry#Publications, Ron Paul#Bibliography, Newt Gingrich#Works published) to click on to access this information. Hey, per the excellent example @ John McCain#Writings by McCain, perhaps Romney's op-eds could be collated within this section as well?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 17:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, his two books were in the "Bibliography" section, but it's fine with me to move them into a "Writings" section. And that title is simpler and better than your "Notable works", which is too grandiose. And the section should be nearer the bottom, along with the other reference-y sections and after all the prose sections. And I don't think "Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth" really qualifies for inclusion, since it's a campaign pamphlet. The McCain example of non-book works includes a long, very well-known magazine piece that's been reprinted by the Library of America; a couple of real academic papers and journal articles; and some forewords to books. If you can find anything like these that Romney has published, by all means include them. Anything that he published during his years at Harvard or during his business career would be especially of interest. But I don't think newspaper op-eds would qualify, for McCain or Romney or anyone else, as they are typically too short and usually too political to be of much real value. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll put the short (well, relatively--and, most importantly, free) publication written by Mr. Romney in the External Links section. This political essay/blueprint designed for persuasion is certainly a notable writing of his as measured by media mentions. (To give one example of scores and scores that can be Googled up, here is reference to it by Bloomberg's "The Ticker": "Mitt Romney's 160-page economic plan, released late this afternoon, touches on[...]opens with the assertion[...]. In the intervening pages, Romney vows[...]. Romney also says[...].") Ironically, Romney prides himself on being his own writer (as Obama often did for some important campaign events--prior the need as president to offer speeches daily; probably no one sits around each morning and polishes their own speeches these days the way Churchill did, however. Still, I'm shocked, to borrow a line from Mr. Bogart in Casablanca, that anyone would imply that politicians use material contributed by underlings. Shocked.)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 21:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, despite the proud (overly prideful?) boast by Mr. Romney that he'd "actually" written No Apologies, the plan published Sept. 1 that we are discussing is written in the third person. ...IAC, I'll contribute it as an EL in the campaign article.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, an external link in the campaign article is the right place for it. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

A 13-page booklet co-authored by Romney remains notable: Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center; Romney, Mitt (2005), Changing course: a review of governor Romney's tax loophole legislation {{citation}}: |author1= has generic name (help)

1. Oct 1, 2011 NYT: "Seeking Taxes, Romney Went After Business"
2. "We'll plug corporate tax loopholes so companies will pay their fair share."---W. MITT ROMNEY, 2003 State of the State [of Mass.] Address
3. C-Span video (@ 15:30), transcript: "As governor of Massachusetts I closed loopholes on big banks that were abusing our tax system and would I do the same as president. Let me tell you, let’s describe what is a loophole and what’s raising taxes. In my opinion, a loophole is when someone takes advantage of a tax law in a way that wasn’t intended by the legislation. And we had in my state, for instance, we had a special provision for real estate enterprises that owned a lot of real estate. And it provided lower tax rates in certain circumstances and some banks had figured out that by calling themselves real estate companies, they could get a special tax break. And we said, ‘No more of that, you’re not gonna game with the system.’ And so if there are taxpayers who find ways to distort the tax law and take advantage of what I’ll call loopholes in a way that are not intended by Congress or intended by the people, absolutely I’d close those loopholes. But there are a lot of people who use the loophole to say, ‘Let’s just raise taxes on people.’ And that I will not do. I will not raise taxes."---MITT ROMNEY, Aug. 11, 2011

--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 10:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

4.  Comedy Central clip: "Romney's not a moderate[...]corporate loophole closing politician, he's a tea party[...]outsider.<sarcasm>"----JON STEWART, Oct. 4, 2011--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 11:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that one, it was clearly written by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, what part did Romney write? You'd have to actually look at it to be sure, as I've seen many botched 'Author' lines in Google Books. However, along the lines of the McCain entries, Romney did for sure write a five-page foreword for the 2003 book The Integrity Advantage: How Taking the High Road Creates a Competitive Advantage in Business, you can read it at this Amazon page for instance. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)