It says something about the personal integrity of Governor Romney that his detractors have to scour back 3+ generations to literally dig up a skeleton in a closet... since his closet is pretty darn clean.

see here

But don't ever write an article about how a current member of the senate (Robert "Sheets" Byrd) was a former member of the KKK. Lets talk about someone's great-great grandparent, but lets not ever talk about the people that curently represent us. I mean someone's great great grand parent is obviously a better reflection of that person than an older version of one person...

it stuns me how stinging the hipocracy is when you look at the types of hit pieces the dems write... I think it would go a long way on their part to note their biases before hand instead of trying to pretend they have no biases. wait... it wouldn't go a long way on their part because thats the name of their game. add this to the reams of paper we have already compiled on these snakes that shows their utter bias on these matters.

Am I the only one who finds reading about Romney's family history interesting, and don't hold it against him?

It's kind of interesting that Romney's dad was born in Mexico and managed to become governor of Michigan. And, I'm not a Mormon, but hearing about the history of a religion that started in the U.S. is also interesting.

Maybe it is a hit piece. That part is a bad thing. The the history is interesting to me.

Wow, the Romney family is sexually hyperactive? Does that mean we will see a groundswell of support from swingers? Or maybe Muslims?

I wonder -- if you went back 4 generations with every member of Congress, how many FELON legacies would you find?

Perhaps this is a silly question -- but if George Romney were born in Mexico, he would never have been qualified to be President because he was not a natural born citizen of America.

Can anyone explain?

I agree. This is just dumb, pointless, lazy reporting. Romney had better get used to the "Ooohhhhh, Mormons are weird," reporting though. This isn't the last time everything his religion has done in the past 200 years is going to be dragged out.

My concern is how many Mormons have been OR currently are suicide bombers? And do the Mormons want me dead because I am not a Mormon?

I actually like seeing this sort of reporting.

Many conservatives do not like McCain because the media loves him so much. We have an automatic negative reaction to just about anyone the media likes and lauds and we tend to draw nearer to those that the media attempts to destroy.

If I were Romney trying to win the Republican primaries, i'd pay CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and CNN to run hit pieces on my grandparents, on my parents, on my sister, brother, uncle, cousin, etc. I think a majority of American's and an overwhelming majority of Republicans distrust the media. So if the media doesn't like you, you're the guy for us!

How would you feel if the New York times ran a puff piece on Rudy about what a great mayor of new york he was?

Governor Romney of Michigan, Mitt's father, was a great man and popular with both sides here. As a measure of his popularity, his protégé' Milliken served as Governor for twelve years after Romney stepped down to run for President in 1968.

He was a practical Governor and a very good executive and administrator having been president of American Motors during its resurrection and when it introduced America's first compact, the Nash Rambler.

In Republican circles he is well remembered and never do I recall did any problem occur due to the Mormon thing. It just was not an issue.

His only problem was that he found himself unable to tell the routine lies with which other politicians are so facile. Indeed, his Presidential run was derailed by the "We are being brainwashed" comment that later proved so accurate.

It is now known that the Johnson Administration was purposely misreporting casualties and body counts to make it look like their losses were higher and ours lower. Somewhat needless to say, Romney would have been a much better choice than Nixon in 1968.

Remember too that part of the reason Mitt was selected to clean up the Salt Lake Olympics was the reputation of the family.

Contrast this please with Kennedy Sr., father of JFK and Ted. He was a rumrunner who would otherwise be compared to Al Capone except that Capone never supported the Nazis.

Perhaps this is a silly question -- but if George Romney were born in Mexico, he would never have been qualified to be President because he was not a natural born citizen of America.

Can anyone explain?

No, Publicus, it isn't a silly question at all.

As I recall, it was discussed at the time that Governor Romney was inelibigle to serve as President, but that he was running to get his message out.

I have had discussions recently with people that claim otherwise, however.

Despite that, I do agree that he was ineligible and it was unlikely that would have changed to allow him to serve as president.

How many wives did Barack Obama's Great-Great-Grandfather have?

I would seriously like to know if his ancestor's had plural wives. The question is just as relevant.

RE: George Romney running for President when he was born in Mexico.

The law recognizes children born to American citizens abroad as natural born citizens. In practical terms for most people, it means there is no need for any "Naturalization" process for their new child when they return. Since George Romney was born to American citizens, he never needed "Naturalization", so he was held to be "a natural born Citizen". Hence he was eligible to run as President.

Let's see, if you include immediate family back to great-great grand parents that expands out to 30 individuals (2+4+8+16), assuming all of them were only children and there are no uncles, aunts, or cousins of any sort. I would find it surprising if anyone in the world did not have some sort of potentially embarrassing relative when the net is cast that large.

This is also yet another example of the hypocrisy and dual-standards of the left. Romney is guilty by association with a relative 4 generations back he never even met while living. Moreover, the guilt is for the crime of having multiple partners. Meanwhile, Clinton himself (not his long dead relatives) can sex it up with any number of women who aren't his wife and that's perfectly alright. The enlightened, open-minded left becomes positively primitive and bigoted when it comes to enumerating the "faults" of its political enemies.

Romney is damned lucky he doesn't have a gay child, a black inlaw, or Muslim friends, the left would eat him alive.

Imhotep, you don't need to go back to Obama's great grandfather. His father was a polygamist. Also a drunk and a bigot.

Obama has several half-siblings living in squalid villages in Africa.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=431908&in_page_id=1770

That's one heck of a link, W. Then again, it is The Mail.

Kim: "Why else would the AP publish this article that says Mitt Romney's great-great-grandfather had twelve wives?"

1) because it's news, and 2) to see how Mitt responds to the publication of this news.

Imagine how poorly someone like John Kerry would react, and you get an idea of what the press was "fishing for."

Since I have a bit of knowledge regarding journalists being one who works with them on a regular basis, I did a bit of background checking on these two.

Jennifer actually works out of their Salt Lake City office -- obviously not happy by her LDS surroundings. If you look at her story history, she reports on polygamy all the time. If anyone wants to contact her and call her out on this shameful story, email her at jdobner@ap.org; or call her at (801) 322-3405.

Glen Johnson on the other hand reported from Boston, where they are looking for every possible way to smear their former governor.

The editors and publisher of the Associated Press should be ashamed.

Sorry, epador (and Kim). I thought the HTML tag would be done automatically.

I find it amazing to see the AP come out on a Presidential Candidate because of his family heritage. Incidentally, according to the LDS Family History surveys "Everyone on earth is at least a 22nd Cousin." At a recent BYU family history class which was attended by people from all over the world 98% of the class were at least 5th Cousins. How many skeletons are in our grandparents' closets? That is a tough question that I am certain has little or no baring on any of us today.

what a load of crap. Whoever said you cant write or talk about Byrd's ancient history with the KKK? Hannity and scores of bloggers like you drag it up every day. The hypocracy is yours.

And if there is any question who Johnson is personally supporting -- http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/news/231641,3_1_EL27_A7OBAMA_S1.article

mrk ....

I don't disagree with your take on the law that you quoted. The issue in that particular case was more complex because of the polygomy angle.

Quite probably the end result was the same - as you indicated - but the question was raised at the time nonetheless.

Thank you mrk --

Hickflak you can't be serious. Byrd's history is HIS OWN -- HE HIMSELF WORE THE WHITE HOOD -- he himself was a grand dragon.

This article goes back FOUR GENERATIONS -- over 100 years!

You can't possibly compare the two.

Everyone seems to be missing the MSM laziness factor here. Mitt's ancestry is in play because, well... it's all been well documented already. Genealogical research is integral to the practice of LDS faith. All they had to do was look it up.

As far as any of the other chandidates, I bet that ancestry more than a generation or two would be harder to obtain in most cases. You know, they'd have to actually do some work to find it.

Since a lot of the MSM foot soldiers seem to have problems even figuring out how to use Google when researching a piece, this is about par for the course. Low hanging fruit, that fits the agenda. I bet if the one correspondent wasn't based out of Salt Lake she never would have even discovered the whole genealogy database thing. That in itself would have taken some work. If you live in Salt Lake, you can't help but know about this.