Presidential Candidate: Mitt Romney

Note:  Per a request from Lon, I'm going to skip over Ron Paul for now.  I also may come back to do Buddy Roemer (it will depend on if he's dropped out or not)

Synopsis:  A robot has decided to take his personality chip for a spin and see if his study of the human race has paid off enough to win the presidential nomination

Current Job: None - he pretty much goes around stumping for other republicans at this point in time.  He is the ex-governor of Massachusetts, which while he was governor, managed to essentially obtain universal healthcare for the state.

Spouse: Ann, who is a breast cancer survivor and suffers from MS

Kids:  5 - all boys. 

Stance on:

• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:  Repeal and replace
  
• Roe V Wade: Would like to overturn Roe v Wade; but feels that anti-abortion legislation should be on a state level, not national.
• Funding Planned Parenthood: Against. 
• Embryonic Stem Cell Research:  Against (because it is creating life in order to destroy it)
• Afghanistan: The decisions about Afghanistan should be made by our military's top brass.
• Iran:   We must create stronger sanctions against Iran to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons
  
• Budget: Cut spending, limit amount allowed to be spent.
• Taxes:  Lower Corporate taxes, set new limits on personal tax rates
  
• Mexico/US border: Build a high-tech fence and provide the manpower to back it up.
• Education: Education should not be confined to Teacher's Unions.  Admits there is a problem and recommends providing incentives to students (such as top performing students get full scholarships to state schools)
• Energy:  We need to rely more on America's oil sources.
  
• LGBT issues: Against marriages and even civil unions (as of 2008), but of course we all know how much he waffles.

Miscellaneous:


Chances of Winning:  If the media is to be believed, it is now a two man race between Gingrich and Romney.

Who would vote for him:  Older slightly liberal leaning folks.  Those that are scared by Gingrich.

Clips from the fake news (since that's all I need):
-Colbert Report: Clinching the Nomination
-The Daily Show: Earning more in a day than the median American
-Fox News:  State of the Union Reaction




Campaign Talking Points (from his website): 

Tax Reform

• Keep personal income tax at the same rates; however eliminate taxes on Dividends, Interest and Capital Gains for those with an adjusted gross income of less than $200,000.
• Eliminate the death tax
• Overhaul the system to provide lower, flatter rates over a wide base.
• Reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%
• Switch to a Territorial tax system (instead of Worldwide) for corporations.

Regulatory Reform

• Repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
• Repeal Dodd-Frank
• Streamline the FDA approval process
• Enact comprehensive patent reform (it takes too long to get a patent)
• Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley

Labor Reform

• Allow businesses to reallocate their capital as they see fit
• Support states in pursuing "Right to work" laws
• Prohibit the use for political purposes of funds automatically deducted from worker paychecks
• Eliminate redundancy in federal retraining programs by consolidating programs and funding streams, centering as much activity as possible in a single agency
• Give states authority to manage retraining programs by block granting federal funds
• Facilitate the creation of Personal Reemployment Accounts
• Encourage greater private sector involvement in retraining programs
• Raise visa caps for highly skilled workers
• Grant permanent residency to eligible graduates with advanced degrees in math, science, and engineering

Financial Reform

• Immediately cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent
• Reform and restructure Medicaid as block grant to states
• Align wages and benefits of government workers with market rates
• Reduce federal workforce by 10 percent via attrition
• Undertake fundamental restructuring of government programs and services
• Cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP
• Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment

Energy Reform

• Create a One-Stop-Shop to streamline the permitting process for common activities
• Amend the Clean Air Act to remove carbon dioxide from its purview.
• More nuclear power plant approvals
• Open America's reserves (I take this to mean drill in ANWR)
• Regulations to make it easier to produce oil from oil shale
• Support pipelines to get oil from Canada into the US.
• Concentrate alternative energy research funding on basic research

Healthcare Reform

• Repeal and replace Obamacare
• Give states the responsibility, flexibility, and resources to act
• Empower citizens to buy their own insurance
• Focus federal regulation of health care on making markets work
• Reform the medical liability system
• Make health care more like a market and less like a government program

Trade

• The US needs to pursue new free trade agreements across the pacific.
• Support World Trade Organization Negotiations
• Complete the the Trans-Pacific Partnership
• Put China on notice about needing to play by the rules and honor the agreements already signed.