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SALT LAKE CITY — Following the reelection of President Barack Obama in November, many Republicans tried to pinpoint the exact reason for Mitt Romney's defeat. While many theories have been given about the Republican Party's inability to attract voters, Romney's son Tagg is giving a different take on the election.
Speaking to the Boston Globe, Tagg said the 2008 defeat to Sen. John McCain hurt his father's desire to run again in the 2012 election.
He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire to … run. If he could have found someone else to take his place … he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn't love the attention.
–Tagg Romney
Earlier in presidential election, Mitt Romney spoke about his decision to run a second time. He said he had a discussion with his wife Ann and the family, who eventually persuading Romney to run again. However, many close to Romney's campaign said he was all in from the day he lost to McCain — he was laying the framework to a second presidential run for more than three years.
According to a report in the New York Times in August, Romney never gave up the presidency.
"Not long after Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race in early 2008, a titan of New York finance, Julian H. Robertson, flew to Utah to deliver an eye-popping offer.
"But Mr. Romney was uninterested. His mind — and his heart — were elsewhere, still trained in the raw days after his political defeat not on Wall Street but on the White House and an urgent quest: to be understood by an electorate that had eluded him."
Obama administration deports 1.5 million
New data released by the Department of Homeland Security says the Obama administration has deported an unprecedented 409,849 people for fiscal year 2012, which brings the total to 1.5 million in his first term as president.
This is nothing to be proud of. In the 409,849 deportations are hardened criminals for whom I have no sympathy, but we must also realize that among these ... are parents and breadwinners ... that are assets to American communities and have committed no crimes.
–Rep. Luis Gutierrez
Of those deported, 225,390 were convicted of crimes such as drug offenses, which made up the bulk of those deported. The remaining deportees were immigration fugitives (10,423), repeat immigration violators (86,405), border removals (69,597) and other removable aliens (17,674).
"This is nothing to be proud of," Rep. Luis Gutierrez said in a statement. "In the 409,849 deportations are hardened criminals for whom I have no sympathy, but we must also realize that among these ... are parents and breadwinners ... that are assets to American communities and have committed no crimes."
Earlier in the year, Pres. Obama made a policy change to reduce the deportation of law-abiding illegal immigrants; however, the overall number of people deported increased.
Related news:
In an opinion piece by the Washington Post, writer Norman Ornstein says the U.S. House of Representatives should not re-elect Rep. John Boehner on Jan. 3, but should elect former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
"By any reasonable standard, he is a conservative Republican: As governor of Utah, he supported smaller government, lower taxes and balanced budgets, and he opted consistently for market-based solutions," Ornstein writes, "As a presidential candidate, he supported positions that were in the wheelhouse of Ronald Reagan. But a Speaker Huntsman would look beyond party and provide a different kind of leadership. He would drive a hard bargain with the president but would aim for a broad majority from the center out, not from the right fringe in. He could not force legislation onto the floor, but he would have immense moral suasion."
While the speaker of the House generally comes from one of the members of the House, the Constitution is silent about who should be selected. Article I, Section 2 says the speaker can be anybody the majority wants to fill the speakership.
