re: #134 wrenchwench

I differ with your analysis. I think the who these men were as youngsters and teenagers and young adults determined what kind of work they went into. Obama grew up among very diverse kinds of people. (Hawaii is very diverse, and so is Indonesia, and so is LA, where Occidental College is.) Romney, not so much.

I don’t know what it takes to make a venture capitalist, or whatever you’d call Romney, but I do know what it takes to make a community organizer. It takes a ‘people person’. Obama has been one since way before the 80’s.

You’ve got a point, though I think my point still has validity as well. But I’m not sure its all diversity. Some of it, I think, is the expectations placed on both men when they were young. Both Obama and Romney were firstborn sons, but while Barak Obama the Elder did not directly play a large role in his son’s life, George Romney clearly did. This ended up meaning that Barack Obama was to a great extent able to choose his own course without being under external pressure to live up to his father’s example, whereas Mitt Romney has clearly from youth been seen (and sees himself) as his father’s heir, the man who would carry the family name to even greater heights. And in many ways, Mitt Romney has done that and done a lot of good along the way. But it has meant that his choices have been made with an eye towards his status as the heir, a status that influences Mitt Romney even unto this very day.