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George Romney

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George's official portrait.
God, guns, and freedom
U.S. Politics
Icon politics USA.svg
Starting arguments over Thanksgiving dinner
Persons of interest

George Wilcken Romney (1907–1995) was Governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973, and the father of Mitt Romney. Unlike his son, George was not batshit crazy.

Reasons to like him

  • George was very much in favor of civil rights, refusing to budge from this in the face of criticism from his fellow Mormons.[1] Martin Luther King himself actually considered endorsing him for president!
  • He shifted to an anti-war stance after actually visiting Vietnam.
  • He enacted legislation as Secretary that helped put an end to widespread housing discrimination, thus setting the stage for the first known lawsuit against Donald Trump in 1973.[2]
  • He was in favor of affirmative action.
  • One of the last "progressive conservative" Republicans who put up a fight toward the right-ward shift of his party in 1968, when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination.

Citizenship debate

Romney was subject of a citizenship debate long before Barack Obama. As he was born in Mexico to American parents, a case could have been made that he was not a citizen of the United States by birth. However, very few people actually attempted to use such an argument against him whenever he ran for the Republican presidential nomination.

His son

Unfortunately, his son is much farther to the right than George, and one wishes that this had not been the case.

References

  1. Mormons and the Civil Rights Act by Ed Brayton (January 26, 2012) Patheos.
  2. Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City by Morris Kaplan (October 16, 1973) The New York Times.