Transforming Debate for Inclusive and Impactful Participation
Objective: To empower thousands—or even millions—to contribute meaningfully to debates by leveraging structured organization and robust evaluation criteria. Together, we can ensure every voice is heard and every idea is thoughtfully considered.
I had the chance to talk live with Don and Roma last week on their WLS Radio program in Chicago last week. It's always a little nerve-wracking to do an interview live, especially for me as I don't have a lot of experience doing it. I can't help it: I think about the risk that I'll say something stupid, that I'll fumble badly over my words, that I'll forget to wear my pants, etc. But Don and Roma were nice to talk to so they put me at ease.
Here's a link where you can hear part of the interview:
And here are a couple of photos from the interview:
Posted at 2007-07-30 08:20:29 by Matt Romney
Comments
Sounds like you did a great job! I would've been so nervous. It seems that the more people are exposed your dad, around the country, the more they like him! I'm confident that national poll numbers will rise, the more states your dad is able to visit and get to meet people face-to-face.
Posted by Sara in AZ at 2007-07-30 10:14:57
I was born and raised in Chicago. I grew up listening to WLS, this post brought back fond memories for me. Your interview was great! They were friendly interviews and you stayed on target reinforcing your father's statements. You're a wonderful campaign asset! I'm looking forward to hearing more interviews from you.
Posted by tk at 2007-07-30 10:15:01
You did a great job in the interview. You've got great genes and come from good stock... And you become who you hang around. You absolutely have a great family and we appreciate all of your sacrifice in this season of primary elections. Hey, get your dad to comMITT to write a tad more often on your blog. :)
Last week I had the opportunity to go to Chicago and attend a "networking party" hosted by State Senator Dan Rutherford at Harry Caray's Restaurant in Chicago. Senator Rutherford was nice enough to introduce me and let me say a few words on behalf of my dad. There must have been over 300 of Senator Rutherford's closest friends there (they all said how much they admire him). It was a great chance to meet so many Republican activists in Chicago and get a chance to tell them about my dad's candidacy. On the way back to the hotel, I had a nice stroll down Michigan Avenue. Chicago is a beautiful city. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it.
Here's a picture of me and Senator Rutherford next to Harry Caray's bust:
Posted at 2007-07-30 10:10:05 by Matt Romney
Looks like fun! I could have gone, but I think it cost 50 or something...
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When Ann Coulter was at the CPAC convention earlier this year, she said that "if both major parties' nominees are pro-abortion, we can pretty much hang it up as a country." I think she was right. If we didn't have MR as the pro-life standard bearer, we would be in dire straights right about now.
The only (formerly) top tier candidate, John McCain, who is pro-life, fell on his sword for the Immigration bill. The remaining pro-life Republicans are mired at or below 2%.
One thing that I think is worth considering is that younger voters in the 18-30 age bracket are dramatically more supportive of politicians who propose policies that respect life in all it's stages. I really feel that those Americans who have labored long and hard to move this country away from the "culture of death" are starting to see the first fruits of their labors.
Mitt is right on this issue and as we get into the general election campaign mode, wait until you see the television ads that Team Romney will produce to drive home the stark choices before the electorate, when it becomes apparent that MR will be the ONLY viable pro-life candidate. I believe the pendulum is swinging back towards us and I see an exciting opportunity for us to begin the process of restoring the rights of the pre-born for the first time since Roe v. Wade.
I have news for you "<a href="http://youtube.com/user/EmergencyCheese ">EmergencyCheese</a>" people stopped doing the air quotes thing about 5 years ago. Also the people on a stick is kind of an example of the problem with you tube…
It's not that our presidential candidates are "too important" to talk to you, but everyone is too important to talk to you. I know you "YouTubers" have found a forum that makes you feel important, but you are not. You tube levels the playing field, so any narcissistic idiot with a camera (myself included) can think they are the center of the universe.
EmergencyCheese says that the snow man asking a question at the last debate is part of the reason that young people are connecting with politics…
That is the problem with YouTube. People just make crap up. Are "young people connecting with politics"? What evidence do we have that young people are connecting with politics? The real question is what has the YouTube done to improve the debates? Nothing. They are a freek show. Youtube, can improve politics, because it cost less to get your message out, but having CNN pick from YouTube videos, instead of the typical townhall where they have real people standing their in real life, within the townhall, does nothing but promote YouTube.
EmergencyCheese says the CNN YouTube debate was the highest rated presidential debate among 18 to 35 year olds. Yes. It was promoted as something new and different. But is the next YouTube debate going to be higher rated after the gimmicky way that CNN promoted it?
EmergencyCheese asks, "would you rather have the debates be boring, Governor Romney?" HELL YES! Politics are not here to entertain. If people don't care about issues enough to watch unless a snow man ask the questions, THAN WE DON"T WANT THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE PARTICPATING IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS!
He goes on to call the professional journalist "vanilla" and says that we have to choose between them (turning off young people) and engaging them with youtube.
EmergencyCheese says, "tell me republican candidates, are you also too important to answer questions from parents with children serving in Iraq."
Again, I restate my thesis. We are all too important to listen to what these idiots on YouTube have to say. Do not waste your time! Mitt Romney has been having these forums called, "Ask Mitt Anything". Let me give you the gist of them. You can "Ask Mitt Anything". So no, Mitt Romney is not afraid of taking questions from anyone. He has been doing it with actual people in the same room as him, not with a TV screen where someone is able to put together some artificial "production".
Perhaps Mitt Romney is strategic enough to not walk into a trap where CNN gets to ask republicans the questions they have always wanted to, while hiding behind the public.
So you think EmergencyCheese is pretty stupid, for asking the question about being afraid to take questions from real people, when Romney, McCain, and Rudy have been doing that for months in townhalls across the country. So you think he must be pretty embarrassed, right? There is not much more that he could do to embarrass himself right? Well…
EmergencyChees asks the stupid question, how can you take on terrorist, when you are too afraid to go to the YouTube debate? Lets think about this for ½ a second… Do you notice any problems with his logic? Maybe any hypocracy? No? Perhaps you see a problem that he didn't have a problem with the Democrats not wanting to go to a Fox debate? If EmergencyChees had any logic to use, he could see that the democrats didn't want to go on the fox debate for the same reason that the republicans didn't want to go on the YouTube debate… they didn't see it being in their best interest…
Now that we are talking about interest, EmergencyCheese spends all his life on YouTube, do you think he is an impartial witness? Perhaps he has a dog in the race? Perhaps he is insulted that Mitt Romney thinks is "is not important" that he is a "nut" that he "wastes his time" that he "should get a real job" or "get a degree" or "make something of himself" instead of "wasting all his time on the computer posting videos to his friends, when he should just go over to their house".
So EmergencyCheese and all his budies that spend 5 hours a day on YouTube and Myspace all want validation that they are not losers. Well, he isn't going to get it from me, and I hope Mitt Romney doesn't give it to him.
John Le Carre quotes said, "A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world." I computer doubly so.
EmergencyCheese says "the internet is making regular people more powerful every day". Lets just put aside weather or not EmergencyChees is "regular" or not, and go straight to the heart of the problem…
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance says the only thing in life that matters in art, and science is quality. EmergencyChees warns politicians if they don't embrace "the new" format (YouTube) they and their politics will become "irrelevant". I have a hard time imagining a world where someone who gave the valedictorian speech, with a degree in English, who graduated with honors (Cum Laud) from Harvard Law school, and as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business school, who went on to run one of the most successful businesses of the 90s will ever become irrelevant in a world that has anyone that still values quality. Mitt Romney is not on trial, in my mind. The question for me is if our horse and pony show of a political process, can still pick a person like Mitt Romney, or if the people who Google "Paris Hilton" will pick our next president.
On Thursday Governor Mitt Romney joined his wife Ann, daughter-in-law Mary and grandson Parker in Spartanburg, South Carolina where they met with voters at The Beacon Drive-In and later traveled to West Columbia for a barbeque picnic with local residents.
ADEL, Iowa (AP) - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Friday that the country is angry over the lack of progress in the Iraq war, a stinging assessment of the Bush administration's handling of the conflict from a Republican candidate.
Campaigning in Iowa, the former Massachusetts governor also argued that despite the nation's frustration over the war, voters aren't ready to replace President Bush with a Democrat.
"I know the Democrats are getting all ready, they are measuring the drapes and getting the carpet all ready for how they are going to take over the White House, and I think they are going to get a big surprise," Romney told a crowd gathered at a golf course. "America is not happy with how the war in Iraq is going, and is angry. But America is not about to take a sharp left turn and put somebody in the White House who would turn America into a European-type state."
While Romney supported the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and backs Bush's current troop increase, he has repeatedly said the post- invasion period was "mismanaged" with a lack of preparation for the insurgency and adequate planning for a government handover.
Before various New Hampshire audiences on Wednesday, Romney said he would wait until a mid-September report from U.S. generals in Iraq before deciding the next course of action that he would support. He said if the surge succeeds, he believes it will allow U.S. troop withdrawals. He had refused to detail alternate scenarios should insurgent violence continue unabated.
On immigration, Romney adopted a hardline stance.
"I ... don't think it makes sense to have an immigration policy that says that if an illegal couple—a couple that comes across the border illegally—has a child here, that child becomes a U.S. citizen, that then the whole family gets to come in, if you will, through 'chain migration,'" he said.
Gov. Romney Stresses The Importance Of Winning In Iraq And Defeating Radical Islam Globally. "The congressional debate in Washington has largely, and myopically, focused on whether troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan, as if these were isolated issues. Yet the jihad is much broader than any one nation, or even several nations. ... The jihadist threat is the defining challenge of our generation and is symptomatic of a range of new global realities." (Gov. Mitt Romney, "Rising To A New Generation Of Global Challenges," Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007)
ABC'S GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "National security, you're a management consultant again. You've come into the United States looking at the commander-in-chief. Do you keep him or let him go?"
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Well, you have to look at Iraq and Iraq was superbly executed in terms of taking down Saddam Hussein's government. But I think everybody recognizes, from the president to Tony Blair to Secretary Rumsfeld that post the period of major conflict, we had major problems in the way we've managed the war in Iraq, and that has contributed to much of the difficulty we have today. It was under-planned, under-prepared, under-staffed, too low a level of troops, under-managed."
STEPHANOPOULOS: "But how do you explain why all that planning wasn't done? President Bush is a Harvard MBA, too."
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Well, everybody has their own management style and their own approach and I respect enormously the approach other people. Mine is just different. And if you read "Cobra II" and "Assassins' Gate" and "Looming Tower" and some of the reports of the events leading up not only to 9/11, but to the conflict itself, there's a sense that we really weren't ready for the post major conflict period. And that has resulted in a blossoming of the sectarian violence, of insurgents within the country and from without, and a setting which is a very troubled, difficult position."
STEPHANOPOULOS: "Yet, you support the president's decision to send more troops right now."
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Yeah."
STEPHANOPOULOS: "How much time do you give it to work?"
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Well, it's not years. I think you're going to know within months."
STEPHANOPOULOS: "Mayor Giuliani said the other night he's not confident it's going to work. Are you?"
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: "Well, you know, I think it's hard to predict whether this troop surge will work, but I'm absolutely confident it's the right thing to do."
"She can do what she likes – but I take exception to her conclusions. I don't think we should run our foreign policy based upon elections, election schedules or anything of that nature. We should look at the interests of America and our friends and our citizens and our solders and do what it's our collective best interests. This president has taken action which he believes is calculated to make America a safer land. We should not make decisions based on an election schedule...I would not move to those choices unless we were convinced there was no prospect of success with the current strategy...A number of mistakes have been made and those mistakes have contributed to some of the challenges we now face...I'm glad we're seeing a change in strategy. I'm glad we're adding to the mission of our military the protection of the safety of citizens in and around Baghdad., I don't know how you could rebuild a country and an economy if you have your capital city is literally all covered by what we call a red zone. You know you've failed if you have a red zone. The conduct of our policy in Iraq has been fraught with a number of mistakes."
Governor Mitt Romney, Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, January 29th, 2007
In Responce to Hillary Clinton, who said that President Bush needed to resolve the war he started before he left office and not hand it off to his successor
2006
"I wouldn't presume to present a plan different from that of the President. But I believe he was right to take on the war on terror on an aggressive front rather than a defensive front. We toppled the government ... walking away would mean a humanitarian disaster. We're there and we have a responsibility to finish the job." Response to Bill O'Reilly Sept, 27 2006
"I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change. Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.
"In consultation with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq, I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.
"This effort should be combined with clear objectives and milestones for U.S. and Iraqi leaders.
"The road ahead will be difficult but success is still possible in Iraq. I believe it is in America's national security interest to achieve it."
I had the chance to talk live with Don and Roma last week on their WLS Radio program in Chicago last week. It's always a little nerve-wracking to do an interview live, especially for me as I don't have a lot of experience doing it. I can't help it: I think about the risk that I'll say something stupid, that I'll fumble badly over my words, that I'll forget to wear my pants, etc. But Don and Roma were nice to talk to so they put me at ease.
Here's a link where you can hear part of the interview: