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All The Candidates' Kids: Cate Edwards & The Romney Boys
It’s 11am here and I have completed my interviews with Cate Edwards and the Romney boys. It’s been a hectic pace up until now with long days and much travel. The interviews not only afforded us the chance to speak with potential future first family members but also allowed for the opportunity to experience life on the campaign trail. We interviewed Cate back in South Carolina where she was speaking at an AIDS rally. My producer and I were quite impressed. We both remarked that if you didn’t know it, you might have thought Cate were a candidate herself. She was incredibly well-versed on her father’s policies and his track record. However, her own views, particularly on gay marriage, and the fact that she has her own set of beliefs while supporting her father so ardently, are what made her truly impressive. On the subject of gay marriage, we discussed her and her father’s differing views. Cate supports gay marriage and is continuing discussions with him in the hopes of altering his stance.
Cate said her father taught her and her siblings to be appreciative of everything they have. He continually stressed that they as a family, and as individuals, were blessed and extremely fortunate. As a result, he told them they should always give back to the community, and I believe Cate is and will continue to do so.
She studied politics and is a second year Harvard law student. Though she has no plans to ever run for office, she says she could never learn in the classroom what she has learned on the campaign trail. Campaigning since the year 2000, she may have the most experience on this level, second only to Chelsea Clinton.
This school year, Cate opted to take a lighter class load at Harvard in order to participate more in this election than she did in her father’s previous run. Campaigning for one election is grueling enough: a twenty four-seven schedule where sleep and food are luxuries and your every move is scrutinized. Now imagine doing this for years - as many of these children have. Yet, Cate seems to somehow handle it all with grace. She did mention that having such vast campaign experience has made this year’s effort more routine and therefore, easier in terms of execution and even much more fun.
Cate struck me as a highly intelligent and mature young woman. Still, I believe Cate must be admired even further for having to cope with her mother’s cancer, which has returned in a treatable yet, incurable form, as well as with the tragic loss of her brother to an automobile accident.
The Romney boys were tough to pin down as so many of them are traveling all over the country in support of their father. We managed to get three: Craig, Tagg and Ben. Our unified summit was brief and the only way we could get them all at once was to meet at 6:45am in the morning.
They brought me onto “the Mitt Mobile”: a mobile home that they bought on Ebay (brother Josh orchestrated the purchase). Prior to this interview-Craig had given me the tour and had me take it out for a test run. Apparently, Greta Van Susteren and I are the only reporters to have driven the vehicle that serves as mode of travel, lodging and mobile headquarters. As we were getting ready to start the interview, we briefly discussed Boston sports. When you’re a Bostonian, that’s a tough subject to avoid these days. They were trying to figure out how to watch Super Bowl Sunday and, incidentally, their father is a huge Boston sports fan.
Then it was on to business. We spoke at length about their campaigning experiences and about their father. Each of the boys have put their personal careers and lives on hold in support of their father’s quest. Each, along with their wives and Governor Romney’s grandchildren, will continue to work in said regard until Governor Mitt Romney wins the race or is defeated.
I asked them what they thought about Governor Mike Huckabee’s quote to Governor Romney: “If the country will elect me president, they’ll inherit a great country, and your boys will still get your money too.” It was a comment made in reference to the fact that Governor Romney is investing millions of his own money into the campaign. Tagg, senior advisor to the campaign, piped right in saying he was offended by the comment, claiming the boys don’t care how their father spends his own money and Craig said he’d rather inherit a greater America than his father’s fortune.
Contrary to reports, Tagg is denying any future political aspirations. When the other brothers are asked the same question, they deny as well. In the past, the brothers have jokingly redirected the heat to Tagg – jokingly saying he’s the one who will one day run for office. On the subject of Tagg, he apparently gets nervous before debates, as anyone in his position might. However, for him, it may be worse because his boss is also his dad. He also likes to watch the debates with staffers so he can yell at the TV - a fact they all laughed about.
Craig told us funny stories about his son Parker. Parker mimics his father, uncles and grandfather on the road. They caught him autographing the Governor’s stack of books, after watching his Grandpa do it. Parker even walks up to perfect strangers at events, shaking hands and saying, “Hi.” Perhaps it really is in the genes.
I asked them who the most valuable brother on team Romney was. Ben, still in medical school, concedes that his brothers are more valuable than him. Tagg joked that being the oldest made him most valuable. The truth is they feel as though they all bring something valuable to the table. Craig, for example, is fluent in Spanish and has been integral in catering to Spanish speaking voters, including being featured in a Spanish TV ad in Florida.
I visited Craig at a Romney rally the day before our interview. In his speech to Romney supporters, he said he was not there to discuss his father’s policies. Rather, he opted to talk about his father as a human being. He spoke about the occasion in which his father shut down his business to help a colleague find a missing child - and succeeded. It seemed as though the boys as a whole preferred to speak mostly about Governor Romney the human being/father. The boys refer to themselves as “character witnesses” for him. Tagg said that they, his sons, are able to talk about the “real Mitt Romney” and “how much family is the center of his life.” He told me, he (Tagg) may not be out there explaining how his economic plan will work but he can say why his father is a great person and why he thinks he’ll do a great job.
If you are the opposition competing against Romney, the boys make your task that much more daunting. They are five successful young men out there with wives and children as well, each giving every possible minute of their time to the campaign and at locations all over the country.
There is no doubt that everyone working on the campaign is tired – candidates included. But at the same time, the candidates’ children seem really energized. Each one believes his or her parent has what it takes to lead America into a better tomorrow. And none appear as though they’ll stop, either - unless “the Mitt Mobile” runs out of gas, of course.
is there video to this story?