[19] In 1953, the family moved from Detroit to the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills and his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors the following year and helped the company avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability.

[87] Starting in February 1999, Romney took a paid leave of absence from Bain Capital in order to serve as the president and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee.

[51] After experiencing two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found – while living in Park City, Utah, where the couple had built a vacation home – a combination of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that enabled her to lead a lifestyle mostly without limitations.

[139] When her husband received a job offer to take over the troubled organization responsible for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, to be held in Salt Lake City in Utah, she urged him to accept it; eager for a new challenge, as well as another chance to prove himself in public life, he did.

[141] Olympics critic Steve Pace, who led Utahns for Responsible Public Spending, thought Romney exaggerated the initial fiscal state to lay the groundwork for a well-publicized rescue.

[172] In an attempt to overcome the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people – the campaign staged a series of "work days", in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.

[171][173][174] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[173] received a poor public response and were a factor in his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, leading in the polls as late as mid-October.

[183][184] Through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes,[183] the state achieved surpluses of around $600–700 million during Romney's last two full fiscal years in office, although it began running deficits again after that.

[194] Another factor was that the federal government, owing to the rules of Medicaid funding, threatened to cut $385 million in those payments to Massachusetts if the state did not reduce the number of uninsured recipients of health care services.

[194] Determined that a new Massachusetts health insurance measure not raise taxes or resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal at the federal level, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds to apply those principles.

[25] Past rival Ted Kennedy, who had made universal health coverage his life's work and who, over time, had developed a warm relationship with Romney,[196] gave the plan a positive reception, which encouraged Democratic legislators to cooperate.

[nb 13] Romney used a bully pulpit approach towards promoting his agenda, staging well-organized media events to appeal directly to the public rather than pushing his proposals in behind-doors sessions with the state legislature.

[232] Media stories called the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) Romney handsome;[233][234][235][236] a number of commentators noted that with his square jaw and ample hair graying at the temples, he matched a common image of what a president should look like.

[245] But persistent questions about the role of religion in his life, as well as Southern Baptist minister and former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls based on an explicitly Christian-themed campaign, led to Romney's December 6, 2007, "Faith in America" speech.

"[16] He added that he should be neither elected nor rejected because of his religion,[247] and echoed Senator 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.

[273][nb 17] In 2009, the Romneys sold their primary residence in Belmont and their ski chalet in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had bought the year before.

[253][276][277] The La Jolla home proved beneficial in location and climate for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis of mammary ductal carcinoma in situ and subsequent lumpectomy.

[289] The antipathy Republicans felt for it created a potential problem for Romney, since the new federal law was in many ways similar to the Massachusetts health care reform passed during his gubernatorial tenure; as one Associated Press article stated, "Obamacare ... looks a lot like Romneycare.

"[315][316][317] In the month before voting began, Newt Gingrich experienced a significant surge – taking a solid lead in national polls and most of the early caucus and primary states[318] – before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC.

[328] Combined with the delayed loss in Iowa, Romney's poor week represented a lost chance to end the race early, and he quickly decided to release two years of his tax returns.

[333] Several caucuses and primaries took place during February, and Santorum won three in a single night early in the month, propelling him into the lead in national and some state polls and positioning him as Romney's chief rival.

[344] Negative ads from both sides dominated the campaign, with Obama's proclaiming that Romney shipped jobs overseas while at Bain Capital and kept money in offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts.

[366][367] John Kerry, then a senator, called Romney's comments "breathtakingly off target"[368] and reiterated that position at the Democratic National Convention, saying, "He's even blurted out the preposterous notion that Russia is our number one political geopolitical foe.

[377] He and his senior campaign staff had disbelieved public polls showing Obama narrowly ahead and had thought they were going to win until the vote tallies began to be reported on election night.

[407][408] In doing so he was positioning himself in the invisible primary – the preliminary jockeying for the backing of party leaders, donors, and political operatives – against former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who had already set a likely campaign in motion and would be a rival to Romney for establishment Republican support.

[414] In a March 3, 2016 speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics, Romney made a scathing attack on Trump's personal behavior, business performance, and domestic and foreign policy stances.

"[427] In September, he called for Johnson to be included in the presidential debates[427] and in October it emerged that Independent candidate Evan McMullin was using an email list of 2.5 million Romney supporters to raise money.

[447] Ronna McDaniel, Romney's niece and the chair of the Republican National Committee, called his comments "disappointing and unproductive", while Trump wrote that he "[w]ould much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful".

[493]Source:[494] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other In addition to calling for cuts in federal government spending to help reduce the national debt, Romney proposed measures intended to limit the growth of entitlement programs, such as introducing means testing and gradually raising the eligibility ages for receipt of Social Security and Medicare.

[498][499] Romney pledged to lead an effort to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and replace it with a system that gives states more control over Medicaid and makes health insurance premiums tax-advantaged for individuals in the same way they are for businesses.