There appears to be a very different definition of “small” in the Romney clan.
In an appearance at a Mitt Romney campaign office in Iowa, one of the candidate’s sons, Josh Romney, recalled a cozy Thanksgiving with the family at his parents’ “two-bedroom house, pretty small.” Democratic trackers American Bridge provided TPM with video of the event:
“They finally gave my dad a couple days off, so we were together with my dad,” he says in the clip. “We got to stay in the house because we were there first. I had a couple other brothers that were out there that had to stay at my brother’s house. But we got to stay at my parent’s place; they have a two-bedroom house, uh, pretty small.
According to an interview with Mitt Romney and Hugh Hewitt, the family spent Thanksgiving in San Diego, where he owns a two-bedroom house that’s reportedly 3,000 square feet and valued at $12 million. The property made headlines earlier this year when news broke that Romney planned to tear it down and replace it with an even larger compound.
The Romneys’ wealth has led to some awkward moments on the trail. Earlier this year, American Bridge captured video of Romney’s wife, Ann, telling a New Hampshire crowd about their “little place in Wolfeboro,” a reported 5,400 square foot, six bedroom mansion that also has a large boathouse and separate guest house.
Clearly aware of the vulnerabilities created by a fortune pegged as high as $250 million, Romney has been playing up his blue collar style in 2012: flying Southwest, wearing jeans and flannel, etc. A recent e-book by Politico included this anecdote:
“The candidate himself is a notorious cheapskate. He puts duct tape around the fingers of torn ski gloves and likes to fly JetBlue. When it’s necessary to reroute Romney, he sometimes balks; he doesn’t like the fees imposed by airlines for changed reservations.”
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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