Mitt

  As I have said many times, I am a political junkie.  I just like politics.  It was instilled in me at an early age by my Mother, ever since she almost fainted meeting Barry Goldwater outside an elevator in the U. S. Capitol.  So, there was an opportunity to see Mitt Romney in 2012 as he visited Columbia.  

 He was running for President, and as most of you know that I have seen every President in my lifetime, except for Kennedy, so I like to hedge my bets just in case a candidate might win.  Governor Nikki Haley was hosting an event for Romney, and I signed up to go.  She was endorsing him for President.  The event place was pretty small.  There was enough room for the media's TV cameras and around 100 people jammed together.  As a side note, I saw Peter Alexander of NBC News there.  He was following the Romney campaign.  Little did any of us know that he would go on to bigger things at NBC.  

 A guy next to me in the crowd asked me what I did for a living.  I told him that I sold some stuff on the internet, but that was all.  His face brightened up.  He told me he was from Sumter and had a bunch of old TV tubes in their original boxes, and they were in the trunk of his car.  He wanted to sell them to me.  I wasn't interested.  For one thing, very few televisions still had tubes.  I also had no idea what they would be worth.  I suggested he take them to a local TV repair shop.  They would probably love to get them.  He was disappointed.

 Another side note about Nikki Haley:  I first met her in 2009, when she was running for Governor.  No one took her seriously.  She ended up winning the race.  I had done a lot of opposition research on her.  She was not one of my favorite people.  I made a lot of comments on social media attacking her.  Many people loved her (and still do).  From what I learned about her, it was easy to not like her.  I can't write here about her, but if she runs for President in 2024, some of that stuff might come out.  No threats.  When she endorsed Mitt Romney, it was obvious that she didn't really like some of his positions.  She was just ambitious for better things than Governor.  That would show up four years later.  On a funny note, I was walking to church early one morning and ran into her husband jogging down Sumter Street.  I greeted him warmly and asked him if his wife had let him out of the Governor's Mansion to jog.  He laughed and said yes.  I like Michael. 

 So, back to the Mitt Romney event.  I was standing between the stage and the TV cameras, smackdab center, about 10 feet from the stage.  Nikki was all smiles.  The crowd cheered, when Mitt took the stage.  Nikki's eyes scanned the crowd, and then her eyes locked.  Her smile went to a frown in a heartbeat.  She just stared at me.  I smiled at her.  And, then she looked away from me and smiled again.  We had a moment.  Mitt went on to lose the election to Obama.  I saw the President a few years later, but that's another story for another time.  I admire Mitt Romney.  I wish more in the Republican party would do so, too.  He is a good man.  He is a principled man.  I think he would have made a good President, if the party would have let him be himself.