Mitt Romney’s Best Stump Speech — Examples of Servant Leadership (a guest post)

To be completely candid, I am really tired of people in the media constantly spinning and pushing narratives about Mitt Romney that are false, misleading, or just blatant lies. Any person who will take more than 3.5 minutes and “look under the hood” to study the man’s character, background, history, record, etc. will find that he is both ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary as we perceive the best in a husband, father, grandfather, servant. Extraordinary as we perceive the very best in a leader: Unselfish, principled, statesmanlike, driven to excellence.

Far be it of me to define Governor Romney’s leadership style, but from my study of the man and the executive, he exhibits what I consider to be the very best form of leader – that of a servant leader.

Some of you have no doubt heard of the time in the Summer of 1996 when Mitt Romney closed down Bain Capital for a search and rescue mission and to organize as many people as he could to find a friend’s daughter that was missing in Metro New York City. Mitt Romney’s determination was only surpassed by his faith that they would succeed. This is only one example of his leadership abilities, but an important one. Romney shut down the business to do this work; how much money did he lose in the business and from the expense of flying everyone to NYC? For complete details (and fact check) of this extraordinary story, along with a short video ——-> CLICK

Just below is another first hand account of Mitt Romney’s hard work to assist another person in need. Maybe not as dramatic, but still impressive for what it says about the man we are all trying to discover. There was no press at this project. There were no professional photographs. Just men working hard.

The following account is provided by Greg Davis:

I noticed an earlier blog entry surrounding the 2007 fires. Below is my recollection of that period and my morning “stumping” with Mitt Romney.

I will never forget the fires of October 2007. That year unusually hot, dry, Santa Ana winds wreaked havoc in Southern California. Gusts touching 85 mph carried ash and cinders for miles seemingly touching off a new fire every day. Entire cities became ghost towns with an estimated 1,000,000 people being forced to evacuate (myself included).

Romney on The Stump

When all was said and done, over a thousand homes had burned to the ground and billions in damage had been done. While my house had been spared, the homes of many friends and neighbors had been burned or damaged and the entire region embarked on a massive clean-up effort.

About this time, the national GOP nominating contest was heating up and Mitt Romney was among the front runners. Mitt was coming to San Diego for some political events and wanted to get a better sense of the damage. His son, Matt Romney, invited Mitt to participate in an early morning service project at the house of a friend. Our friend had lost a giant pine tree to the fires (thanks to firefighters his home had miraculously been spared). The tree had been cut and hauled away but a giant stump dominated a pocket of earth in his front yard. Our friend needed help digging it out.

Mitt arrived bright and early in sneakers, jeans, and an old cotton shirt. He surveyed the stump and a wry smile crept across his face. I sensed this was not the first foray in stump removal and he knew (far better than I did) the scope of what we were trying to accomplish that morning. The tree had matured and closer inspection revealed a complicated labyrinth of large roots compacted by the surrounding cement sidewalks.

Armed with chainsaws and axes we went to work. Our progress was difficult to measure. The moist sappy wood and surrounding earth quickly dulled our chainsaws. I found myself questioning our effort and wondering if we were making any progress at all. After burning out three chainsaws my resolve was weakening and I was ready to hang it up, but not Mitt. It was time for the ax. After several hours it was time for me to go to work and time for him to return to the campaign trail. The stump remained but, surprisingly, we had made tremendous progress. Thanks a timely visit from a neighboring backhoe the stump was out by lunchtime (much to the joy of our friend who figured it would take days to remove).

There are several things I remember about this day. I remember Mitt’s focus and work ethic. Our friend bought us breakfast burritos, but Mitt politely declined citing his desire to, “..make some progress first.” I remember moments of ingenuity (Mitt used a crowbar to pry apart cuts in the wood helping our dull chainsaws be more effective). I remember the look on a neighbors face as they passed by walking their dog. Was that really Governor Mitt Romney chopping at his neighbors stump?

Photos by Greg Davis

For me the morning was a microcosm of what I envision a Mitt Romney presidency would be like. Every morning showing up early and ready to work, quickly assessing the challenges of the day, tackling them head on with a heavy dose of hard work and ingenuity, and leavings things in much better shape than he found them.

It has been said that our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. Notably, on this morning there were no bright lights or press corp. And as the prolific sweat on his cotton shirt would attest to, this was no token visit to merely score political points. Mitt had come to work and to serve. If America decides to offer Mitt Romney the privilege of being president, I know we’ll be getting a man character; one that not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.

Background on 2007 Wild Fires —–> CLICK

Greg Davis is 37 years old and lives with his wife and 3 children in San Diego

On January 29th, we published a brief post on this topic that included a video ——> CLICK
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About Victor Lundquist:

Victor is a businessman working in the healthcare industry. He and his wife of 33 years have five children and four grandchildren. Vic has been blogging for Mitt Romney since 2007.
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