Romney Campaign Press Release - Arizona Republic: "Romney Right for These Times"

"Mitt Romney is by far the best candidate to represent Republicans in the coming race against President Obama. He is best prepared to do what needs to be done, which is nothing less than restoring the American economy."

"Romney Right For These Times"

Arizona Republic

Editorial

February 24, 2012

http://www.azcentral.com

Republicans long ago identified the qualities required of a presidential candidate who could pose a legitimate challenge to President Barack Obama.

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Not only is the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, best prepared, according to those criteria, of all the remaining GOP presidential hopefuls. He is also among the most skilled job-creating candidates for chief executive we can imagine.

The Arizona Republic recommends that, in Tuesday's primary election, Republican voters support Mitt Romney for president.

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But there is eloquence in achievement. And, for the task at hand, as defined by Republicans themselves, the real-world achievements of Mitt Romney far surpass those of virtually all the lifelong politicians against whom he is competing.

He started early. A profile of a youthful Mitt Romney at Harvard Business School last December in the New York Times told a story of a driven, if still insecure, young man who graduated "an academic star and a hot recruit."

The son of the late George Romney, a former governor of Michigan and president of American Motors, has never suffered the "affluenza" that typically afflicts the children of the well-to-do. Indeed, in 1995, he donated his family inheritance to Brigham Young University.

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The office-supply supermarket chain Staples was born under Romney's guidance, growing from concept to more than 1,100 stores nationwide.

Romney applied those same skills when he salvaged the woeful organizing committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, which languished $379 million short of revenue benchmarks when he took it over in 1999. Despite enormous security costs prompted by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the '02 Winter Games finished $100 million in the black.

Romney's accomplishments as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to '07 provide the clearest evidence of his promise as a presidential candidate.

Coming into office, Romney inherited a $650 million shortfall and a projected $3 billion deficit for the coming year. Worse, he had to contend with a state Legislature long controlled by lawmakers for whom spending was a way of life. In his last two years, he ran surpluses. As the conservative Club for Growth notes in a biography of Gov. Romney, he "imposed some much-needed fiscal discipline on a very liberal Massachusetts Legislature."

Regarding the premier non-economic issue on the GOP agenda, we take Romney at his word that he would do everything in his power as president to repeal Obama's sweeping health-care reforms.

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Romney's link to the middle class is in the way he lives. With his one and only wife, Ann, and with his five sons. In a time of enormous social upheaval, he is remarkable for maintaining a wholly unsensational personal life.

The advantages Romney has brought to this primary race, including his superior organization and successful fundraising, are further evidence of his superiority over his competitors.

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Mitt Romney is by far the best candidate to represent Republicans in the coming race against President Obama. He is best prepared to do what needs to be done, which is nothing less than restoring the American economy.