The book retraces ground familiar to anyone who has been following coverage of the Republican nomination race, but it pulls together lots of details into a narrative that's absorbing and fair-minded…Perhaps the most useful portions of The Real Romney deconstruct his management style as a Bain executive and governor of Massachusetts, providing clues as to how he might govern as president.
No number of candid shots of candidates in street clothes can convince modern American voters that they are being shown the authentic version of a person running for the most powerful public office in the world. In an effort to provide a truer view of one contender, Kranish (coauthor, John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography) and Helman, both journalists at The Boston Globe, delve into the personal, political, and occupational past of Mitt Romney, including his Massachusetts governorship and his family's involvement in the formation and growth of the Mormon Church. Based on interviews and years of reporting, the authors bring to life the Bain Capital businessman turned politician, who is at times disarmingly human (as when moonwalking to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" during a meeting with fellow Mormon congregational leaders), yet reliably patrician and removed from the majority of Americans. Accounts of Romney's aloofness and uncertainty on issues seem incidental rather than detrimental, while moments of success (e.g., reigning in the budget of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; restricting Massachusetts healthcare) hardly seem like persuasive grounds for election. In an attempt to forewarn him of his opponent's attacks, Romney's own media team once posited that he has "No story beyond cold business, Olympic turnaround, CEO governor." While the authors do an admirable job of rendering Romney's story in all its complexity, their book nevertheless functions better as biography than a game-changing political text. Photos. (Jan.)
The Real Romney pulls together lots of details into a narrative that’s absorbing and fair-minded.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Balanced and rigorous reporting on Romney’s life and career. . . . The authors are especially good on his close relationship with his father, a three-term Michigan governor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1968.” — USA Today
“The Real Romney lays out Romney’s story in full and clear detail, including fascinating in-depth stuff about his family’s history, showing us a Romney for whom family and faith remain unshakable pillars and who knows that his ‘power-ally is money.’” — The Los Angeles Times
“A timely, balanced new biography. . . . An impressively researched and thought-provoking portrait of a man many Americans may want to know more about in the coming weeks and months.” — The Boston Globe
“Kranish and Helman are veteran and well-regarded reporters. . . . They give a comprehensive account of the Bain years — the greatest contribution of their book.” — Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books
“The writers have thoroughly trawled through the would-be-president’s history. The book charts the various stages of Romney’s polymorphic life in impressive detail. . . . All this is well done. The analysis of Romney’s time at Bain is balanced and fair.” — The Economist
“Kranish and Helman have assembled a genuinely compelling story and a more thorough record of Romney’s life than has yet appeared.” — The Washington Post
“A fascinating story [that] sheds new light on an elusive subject. . . . It illustrates well how in his private life and in business, he has relied on a tight, protective circle all his life.” — The Financial Times
“A comprehensive and eminently fair-minded biography of the GOP’s fitful frontrunner.” — The New Republic
“An excellent biography.” — David Frum, The Daily Beast
“Balanced and informative. . . A well-written and useful resource for Romneyana great and small.” — Louis Menand, The New Yorker
“The great service of this new biography is that it humanizes Romney. The authors sniff over their subject with bloodhound thoroughness, dredging up old report cards, housing deeds, and family records and videos. They interview seemingly everyone who had contact with Romney in every phase of his life.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Who is the real Mitt Romney? This well-researched biography by two Boston Globe reporters offers useful clues.” — Katha Pollitt, The Guardian
Who is the real Mitt Romney? This well-researched biography by two Boston Globe reporters offers useful clues.
The great service of this new biography is that it humanizes Romney. The authors sniff over their subject with bloodhound thoroughness, dredging up old report cards, housing deeds, and family records and videos. They interview seemingly everyone who had contact with Romney in every phase of his life.
The New York Times Book Review
Balanced and informative. . . A well-written and useful resource for Romneyana great and small.
An excellent biography.
A comprehensive and eminently fair-minded biography of the GOP’s fitful frontrunner.
A fascinating story [that] sheds new light on an elusive subject. . . . It illustrates well how in his private life and in business, he has relied on a tight, protective circle all his life.
Kranish and Helman have assembled a genuinely compelling story and a more thorough record of Romney’s life than has yet appeared.
The writers have thoroughly trawled through the would-be-president’s history. The book charts the various stages of Romney’s polymorphic life in impressive detail. . . . All this is well done. The analysis of Romney’s time at Bain is balanced and fair.
Kranish and Helman are veteran and well-regarded reporters. . . . They give a comprehensive account of the Bain years — the greatest contribution of their book.
A timely, balanced new biography. . . . An impressively researched and thought-provoking portrait of a man many Americans may want to know more about in the coming weeks and months.
The Real Romney lays out Romney’s story in full and clear detail, including fascinating in-depth stuff about his family’s history, showing us a Romney for whom family and faith remain unshakable pillars and who knows that his ‘power-ally is money.’
Balanced and rigorous reporting on Romney’s life and career. . . . The authors are especially good on his close relationship with his father, a three-term Michigan governor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1968.
Written by two Boston Globe investigative reporters who have followed Mitt Romney for years, this study plumbs Romney's success as a 2002 Olympics organizer, investment CEO, and Republican governor of typically Democratic Massachusetts while also considering his reputation for shift-with-the-winds calculation. Our first 2012 campaign book; out-of-the-gate fresh and boasting a 50,000-copy first printing.
This insightful and thoroughly researched book explores the background and personal side of Mitt Romney seldom seen in public. It explores his family history, which is inextricably linked to the history of the Mormon Church, and the authors show how this deep religious attachment shapes much of Romney’s life, whether he admits to it in public or not. They also clearly show how Mitt Romney, unlike his father, never does anything, in business or politics, without careful calculation of what’s best for him. Dan Woren’s solid, straightforward reading reflects the book’s journalistic style. Like the authors, he eschews bombast and lets the facts speak for themselves. For directly quoted material, he uses a deliberate pause almost as aural quotation marks before he reads the quote. His only weaknesses are a poor French accent for one speaker and mispronunciation of Nauvoo, Illinois, the Mormon center before the move to Utah. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile
This insightful and thoroughly researched book explores the background and personal side of Mitt Romney seldom seen in public. It explores his family history, which is inextricably linked to the history of the Mormon Church, and the authors show how this deep religious attachment shapes much of Romney’s life, whether he admits to it in public or not. They also clearly show how Mitt Romney, unlike his father, never does anything, in business or politics, without careful calculation of what’s best for him. Dan Woren’s solid, straightforward reading reflects the book’s journalistic style. Like the authors, he eschews bombast and lets the facts speak for themselves. For directly quoted material, he uses a deliberate pause almost as aural quotation marks before he reads the quote. His only weaknesses are a poor French accent for one speaker and mispronunciation of Nauvoo, Illinois, the Mormon center before the move to Utah. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile
Boston Globe scribes Kranish (Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War , 2010, etc.) and Helman attempt to animate the famously wooden presidential candidate. The authors retrace the Romney lineage to the earliest days of the nascent Mormon Church, a time when the practice of polygamy forced his great-grandfather Miles Park Romney to flee to Mexico ahead of pursuing U.S. marshals. Such sharply drawn historical forays provide keen context to Mitt Romney's personal trajectory. As a result, two things about him become readily apparent: He is a man profoundly enmeshed in his family's religion, and, like his father George Romney, he really wants to be president of the United States. Beyond that, however, there is little here to explain what might be lurking behind the candidate's photogenic good looks. The fault almost certainly does not belong to Kranish and Helman, who provide plenty of evidence of careful research. The simple fact may be that the real Romney is as shallow and inscrutable as he is depicted here. Revelations are few and far between--the most damning being a report that a disapproving Romney once pressured an unmarried member of his church to give up her baby for adoption. The authors dutifully chronicle Romney's many career accomplishments as a venture capitalist, but most of these can be summarized in one sentence: He made a lot of money for people who already had a lot of money. In the end, the authors should be congratulated for making the TV-ready Romney more human; however, that alone does not make the "Mitt-bot" more fathomable or presidential. A good-faith effort to profile a notoriously hard-to-define candidate.
