The public image of Mitt Romney refers to how Americans view Mitt Romney. Following his 2008 presidential campaign, Romney's personal and political appearance increased. Romney's values and affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) are significant factors in his public image and "Faith in America" speech.
Images of persona
Throughout his career, Romney has attempted to apply the "Bain way" in addressing political issues. Romney has said, "There were two key things I learned at Bain. One was a series of concepts for approaching tough problems and a problem-solving methodology; the other was an enormous respect for data, analysis, and debate." He has written, "There are answers in numbers – gold in numbers. Pile the budgets on my desk and let me wallow."[1] Romney believes the Bain approach is not only effective in the business realm but also in running for office and, once there, in solving political problems such as proper Pentagon spending levels and the future of Social Security. Former Bain and Olympics colleague Fraser Bullock has said of Romney, "He's not an ideologue. He makes decisions based on research data more deeply than anyone I know." Romney has consequentially gained a reputation as an economic policy wonk.
Romney also has a reputation for somewhat stilted, technocratic public appearances; in his public appearances during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, he sometimes gave PowerPoint presentations rather than conventional speeches. Furthermore, Romney has frequently relied on statistics as background for political positions in debates. Upon taking office he became, in the words of The Boston Globe, "the state's first self-styled CEO governor". During his 2008 presidential campaign, he constantly asked for data, analysis, and opposing arguments, and has been described by Slate magazine as a potential "CEO president".
During 2011, The New York Times described Romney's persona as facts-driven, cautious, formal, socially stiff, and "spare with his emotions." In an interview with Parade in August 2012, Romney said: "There is a, I don't know, a societal norm that if you're running for office, you can't be emotional, and perhaps I bow to that too often."
Romney's choice of words and manner of speaking has also drawn attention. His use of words such as "guffaw," "brickbats," "dickens," "smitten," and "the big house," exclamations like "gosh," "golly," "darn," "heck," and the qualifier "if you will" led to The New York Times saying that he "can sometimes seem like an editor-in-chief, employing a language all his own. It is polite, formal, and at times anachronistic, linguistically setting apart a man who frequently struggles to sell himself to the American electorate." Friends and advisers have called his verbal quirks "Mittisms" and described his language as "old-timey", "1950s" and "the Gomer Pyle routine", while Democratic strategist David Axelrod once remarked that Romney "must watch Mad Men and think it's the evening news." Romney's Mormonism calls for abstinence from swearing, instead using phrases such as "good grief", "flippin'", "good heavens" and "for Pete's sake"; former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Thomas Finneran recalled that when annoyed, Romney would "let loose" with phrases like "go to H-E-double hockey sticks."
People magazine included Romney in its 50 Most Beautiful People list for 2002.
Some critics held Romney to be an out-of-touch multi-millionaire who cannot relate to middle-class America. For example, during the 2012 presidential election campaign, when Romney proposed a $10,000 wager with one of his opponents in a televised Republican primary debate, political rivals and others were quick to call the bet an example of what they argued was Romney's lack of understanding of the concerns of average Americans, who would never treat such a large sum of money so casually. Often in response to gaffes Romney had made on the campaign trail, political satirists based jokes on an image of Romney as a wealthy, pampered elitist. As comedian John Oliver on The Daily Show put it, "Everything about Romney tells the tale of a man who just fired your dad."
Images of political philosophy
For much of his business career, Romney did not take public political stances. His early philosophical influences were often non-political, as during his missionary days when he read Napoleon Hill's pioneering self-help tome Think and Grow Rich, and encouraged his colleagues to do the same. Until 1993, he was registered as an Independent who in the 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries had voted for the Democratic former senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas.