Looking Back from 35,000 feet

 

Mitt Update: Looking Back From 35,000 Feet

What a whirlwind journey! Since last Friday, my friend Paul Johnson and I boarded a flight in San Diego bound for New Hampshire. Paul is a business attorney and internationally acclaimed blogger at MittRomneyCentral.com (go there to see his work). I like to introduce him that way, and he says it must be true since people from at least 2 countries have read his posts.

We first flew to Salt Lake City where we met my brother and sister in-law, Rod and Cindy Davies. From there it was on to Boston where we rented a van, and drove to our hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire. We registered, dropped off our luggage and headed to Romney campaign headquarters in Manchester and became part of a volunteer army of 3,000! That's a formidable force!

Over the next days we joined these good folks who together made 520,000 get out the vote calls, knocked on 65,000 doors and placed 25,000 yard signs in the frozen ground of the Granite state (a.k.a. The "Live Free or Die" state). This was a remarkably well orchestrated and efficient campaign, and all done with only 9 paid staffers in New Hampshire. Mitt knows a thing or two about running organizations.

In addition to the wonderful opportunity to team up with so many great volunteers (all there at their own expense), and not to mention, of course, the formidable victory won, a personal highlight was getting to know some remarkable public servants. Between campaign events, I was able to spend considerable time with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte and her husband Joe ( a retired Air Force A-10 'Warthog' pilot and Iraq War vet) and former governors Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and John Sununu of New Hampshire. (Governor Sununu also served as President George H.W. Bush's chief of staff for 3 1/2 years).

One consistent feature noted with each of these individuals was that they were so kind, genuine, and caring. These are, by their own description, ordinary folks. Yet it was clear to see that they were people of great commitment and capacity who truly love our country.

I particularly enjoyed the time spent with Governor Sununu, a mechanical engineer and college professor who told me "I was surprised one morning when I woke up and found I'd been elected governor). He had, through a series of events, been thrown into the fray to be the token sacrificial lamb, but much to his surprise, won the election.

We swapped war stories a bit as he and his wife have  eight children, compared to our paltry sum total of seven. He joked that he "had to have enough kids that I could be sure there would always be someone to wipe my chin."

From here the campaign moves on to the crucial battlegrounds of South Carolina and Florida. If Mitt wins there, the nomination will be his, according to the political class. He enjoys leads in the polls in both states. I believe he will win both of those contests, and many more to follow, possibly "sweeping the table" all the way to the nomination.

I also believe that he is by far the candidate best prepared to take on and defeat Barack Obama in November, and that no one holds a candle to him in being able to turn around a country that is headed in the wrong direction.

At least that's how it appears to me from 35,000 feet