The Spring 1971 BYU Studies journal has an interesting article. Titled, “The 1968 Presidential Decline of George Romney: Mormonism or Politics?,” it’s an interesting look at the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney’s father. The elder Romney was as an attractive a candidate in 1967 as his son was 40 years later. They were both very handsome and about the same age when they ran. The elder Romney never ran for the presidency again. He served in President Richard Nixon’s cabinet for one term.
It’s popular today to assign Romney’s relatively early demise in the 1968 presidential derby to the bad publicity resulting from his claim that he was “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam War by U.S. military, but writer Dennis L. Lythgoe disagrees. Romney’s perfect persona was disconcerting to many voters, Lythgoe asserts. The American electorate may not have bought a used car from a man like Richard Nixon, but they were more apt to vote for Tricky Dick than for auto executive George Romney, who had revolutionized the auto industry by pushing compact cars onto the market.
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