MARTHA MINOW: Hello, everybody. How are you? AUDIENCE: Good. MARTHA MINOW: It is with
enormous pleasure and really distinct honor that I speak
on behalf of Harvard Law School in welcoming Governor
Romney back to campus, where he has not
been in a while. And I will ask some questions. And yes, photographs
can be taken. [LAUGHTER] There are seats in the front
for people who are coming in. And I will make sure to
have some time for you to ask questions. But I want to say, Governor,
I crowd sourced my questions. MITT ROMNEY: Ah, good. MARTHA MINOW: And the very first
one, I confess, is not mine. But it's a good one. So here it goes. Your NCAA bracket? [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] Now, I don't want to
have any partisanship here at the beginning
anyway, but how did you make your picks? MITT ROMNEY: Let's see. Well, there were the
teams I wanted to win. And I decided to put that aside
as I put my bracket together. I knew something about
which teams had the talent. But in my own calculation,
talent was part, maybe a third. A third was also what I thought
the energy and passion would be of the team. Would they be overconfident? Would they be energetic,
and then feeling like they had an
uphill climb, and they could climb any mountain? So I picked Michigan State to
go all the way to the Final Four because I thought they
had that kind of passion and were showing that upswing. And then finally, the
last third was coaching. And by that, was
the coach someone who'd been there before? And in the case of
Coach K from Duke, I thought he'd been
there time and time again and that he might be able to
make magic happen at the end. So with all of that,
10% was based on skill, and 90% was based of luck. As my sons point out, even a
blind pig can find a mushroom. And so, in this case,
I was purely lucky. But 99.9% on your bracket
suggests I will never fill out a bracket again. That's it. [LAUGHTER] MARTHA MINOW:
Well, I don't know. I think we've had a glimpse
into your analytics. And that's very impressive. And that actually leads
me to my next question, which is why and how have you
pursued both private sector and public sector
work, and what do they have to offer each other? MITT ROMNEY: I think
a lot of people who go into the public sector
as a career, which I think is an excellent career with
great upside for learning and for impact and
contribution to society. There are other
people who decide to go in the private sector
and make that their career. And likewise, I
happen to believe that people who are working
in the private sector are doing good things and
helping other people get good jobs, and paying
taxes, and those taxes allow us to do
things like caring for the poor and the elderly. So I think you do good whether
you go into the public sector or private sector. There are some who,
unexpectedly as in my case, find themselves
starting in one path and then having the
door open to the other. Now, for whatever reason,
my dad followed that path. My dad was a car executive. He did not graduate
from college, but he got a job
working for the senator from Massachusetts, a Democrat
senator from Massachusetts. He was his assistant on
trade and tariff policy. And he went on to go to
work in an association. This was the
Automobile Association. He worked there,
became ultimately the head of this association. And then, war broke
out, Second World War. And my dad was asked, as
the head of the association, to coordinate all of the wartime
production of the automobile factories. Because someone had to put
Ford and Packard and Chrysler and General Motors
and Nash-Kelvinator-- it was called at that point-- had to coordinate
all their production. And so he did that. And when the war was over,
a couple of the companies were so impressed, they asked
him to join their company. And that's what he did. So he was a car guy. And at age 54, he was watching
his state go down the drain. He thought that Michigan was
being controlled by the UAW, that it was acting on
its own behalf and not on the behalf of the state,
decided to run for governor, ran and won. So after that career
of his, he said to me, Mitt, don't get involved
in politics unless-- [LAUGHS] he had an unless-- unless your kids are
raised, and unless you're independent financially. Now, why was the logic of
that brought home to me? One was kids raised. He said, I'm concerned. If you have to win an
election to pay your mortgage, I'm concerned that that might
shape your views about what you're going to think
about a particular issue instead of thinking
from your heart. And then number two, with
regards to kids being raised, he said, I've seen
too many families where the mom or the dad
is elected to office, and the kids are growing up. And they think they're
somehow special because of what their mom
or their dad is known for, and the fame associated
with the family's position. And he said, so
don't run for office unless those things happen-- independent financially
and kids raised. Now, I knew someday, my
kids would be raised, even though I have five of them. But I never imagined I'd
become independent financially. I went to work in
a consulting firm. And I was well-paid. The firm did well. But after our expenses,
and after the taxes, and a little bit of savings,
there wasn't much left. And the idea that I'd become
independent financially just didn't seem like that
would ever be the case. And then, as you know, I
left the consulting business and started a venture capital
and private equity business. And the stock market went
from like 1,000 to 10,000. It's hard to lose money
in a setting like that. And I did far
better than expected and became independent
financially. And then, after my
Olympic experience, I was asked by some to come back
here and make a contribution as the governor of
the Commonwealth and decided that was
something to try. And I did. So you can move from
one to the other. I would, by the way, keep
your eyes open in doing that. It is not that hard to move
from the private sector to the public sector. It's probably harder
to go the other way. But in the private sector,
the experience you have, the interactions you have
with people, the leadership skills you develop,
the understanding of the economy or
the legal profession or any other aspect of the
private sector that you gain, that skill, that
knowledge can be translatable into the
governmental sector quite easily. And you can make a real
contribution coming in with perspective and skills
that many of the people there don't have
because they haven't been in the private sector. So I really would encourage you
to, in the back of your mind, to say, maybe someday
the opportunity might arise where
I would be needed to work in a state,
local, or even a national type of setting. And we need smart people that
have the right motivation who are there because they want
to make a contribution, not there because they
just want to make a buck. So I encourage you
to think about that. MARTHA MINOW: Governor, what
took more physical and mental energy, running Bain Capital,
running Massachusetts, running the Olympics, running
for president? MITT ROMNEY: You know,
I kind of have one speed when I'm in high stress. In each position
I've been in, I've been scared to death I was
going to flunk, if you will. So when I came here, I came
from Brigham Young University. I looked around. I don't know how
many of you came from Harvard, and Yale, and
Duke, and all these Ivy League and top schools-- MARTHA MINOW: How many
from Brigham Young here? Raise your hands. All right. MITT ROMNEY: One, two, three? All right. And so I was convinced I was
going to flunk out, all right? So I worked like crazy. I spent most of
my life down at, I think it's the third floor below
grade at the international law library. I mean, I was down there
studying, studying. And much to my
surprise, I did fine. MARTHA MINOW: You
did really well. He did well. MITT ROMNEY: I came out of it-- MARTHA MINOW: Magna. [LAUGHTER] MITT ROMNEY: I went
to my first job. And it's like, wow, I know
nothing about business. I mean, how in the world can
I be a consultant to companies and convince them to
hire me to give them advice about their business
when they've been in it all their careers, and I know
nothing about their business? This is crazy! I remember going to
the Tamaqua Knitting Mills in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. And John Morgan was the CEO
of the Morgan Knitting Mills. And and I came into his office. His firm had hired me
to come in and suggest how they could improve
their operations in making long underwear, all right? And he was at his desk. He's reading a Wall
Street Journal. And I can't see his face. And then, he puts
the paper down. He looks at me,
and he's startled. And I'm here with the
other consultant, my age. And he stands up. And this guy is big. He's like 6' 6". He puts his hands in the air. And he says, boys, boys! They sent me boys! I need men! [LAUGHTER] So as you can imagine,
I worked hard to try to measure up and keep my job. And then, when we started
our venture capital firm, I went around asking
people for their money so I could invest it for them. Because at this
stage, I didn't have anything of any significance
in terms of savings. And so I would call on various
professional organizations to give me-- pension funds
and so forth to give me money that I could invest for them. And they said, have you
ever done this before? No. Is this your first fund? Yes. They said, well, come back
after your first fund. And I remember one fellow I
went to a very wealthy guy. He Said, how do you do
with your own investments? And I tend to be honest
in settings like that. I said, well actually, I've lost
money with my own investments. So he didn't give me any of his. [LAUGHTER] After a year of
hard work, we raised what we thought was a
whopping amount, $37 million, in our first fund. That was in 1984, '85. And I remember calling my
dad and saying, you know? I've got $37 million of
other people's money, they've entrusted with me. And I've got to find a way
to make money for them. And I've got to pay
myself, and our staff, and our space has
to be paid for. And I'm worried. So I worked hard. And then I went to the Olympics. And there was some irony in
my going to the Olympics. I was not a great athlete. I did not letter in
high school or college. I have five sons. We have a family
competition every summer. I come in sixth every year. And actually, when my
oldest son saw the paper, he said, Dad, I talked
to the brothers. We want you to know there's not
a circumstance we could have conceived of that would put you
on the front page of the sports section. [LAUGHTER] So in each setting, I have
worked at kind of 100%. MARTHA MINOW: How about
in contracts class with Professor Phillip Areeda? MITT ROMNEY: That was probably
my favorite class here. I had Professor Areeda,
and the faculty hall is named in his honor,
a brilliant guy who pushed very hard. And I learned a lot
from Professor Areeda. I did not have him
for anti-trust, even though he wrote the
textbook on anti-trust. I had Justice Breyer
for anti-trust. I think back. I used to argue
with him in class. Not a good idea. And this was a great experience. I loved it. MARTHA MINOW: OK. I can't resist. Have you drawn on
anything you learned at the Harvard Law School
in the rest of your life? MITT ROMNEY: Yes, argument. Professor Areeda, Professor
Jaffe, Professor Breyer and others would ask
for you to state a case or to express your
opinion on an item. And then, you would. And then inevitably,
they would say, why? And push you to
defend your position. I went to the joint program,
business law program. We used to say a little
saying we had was, you can tell the difference
between law students and business students. Business students had
bags under their eyes because of all the reading, the
massive reading they had to do. Law students had furrowed brows
because of all the thinking they had to do. And so I figured that
I gave a lot of thought to what was being said. I remember Professor Areeda one
day was just zeroing in on me. I don't know what I'd
done, but I gave an answer. And then, he came back
and pushed against me and said, yes, but
Mr. Romney, how about this and this and this? And I responded, he
said, yes, but this and-- and he kept
on going and going. And this went on
for quite a while. MARTHA MINOW: That meant
you were doing well. MITT ROMNEY: Exactly. I knew I must be doing well if
he keeps on coming back to me and pushing me and pushing me. I must be giving good answers. And so, when he was
finished with me, he moved on to someone else. And I went back to
start writing down some notes of the interchange. And then he came
back and asked me, what did I think about
what she had said? And I hadn't paid any attention. And he said, Mr. Romney, why
weren't you paying attention? I said, I was too busy writing
down what I'd just said. [LAUGHTER] And he chuckled and
moved on at that point. There's no question. The thinking process,
the delving deeper, the pushing deeper in your
analysis that is pursued here at the law school is critical to
a career in the private sector or in the public sector. I mean, a big part of
consulting, by the way, is going to a company that has
been doing something forever, and they don't
recognize that maybe some of the things they've been
doing don't make sense anymore. So you begin pushing like
Professor Areeda did, and asking questions, and
going deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until they
and you recognize, aha, maybe it's not
like we thought it was. And bringing those
kinds of insights were part of consulting. And by the way,
part of investing. You're not going to be a
successful investor in venture capital, or private
equity, or any other kind of investing if you simply
accept the conventional wisdom. Or you read the analyst reports
that everybody else gets. And on that basis, make your
stock picks or investment picks. The way you are
successful in investing is figuring something out
that other people don't see. And that is pushing
deeper and analyzing more fully than the others do. And that, of course, is one of
the skills that's taught here. I don't know that Harvard
Law School is the place to give you, if you
will, a textbook of law that you're going to then
follow through your career. But it is instead an
approach to finding answers to difficult issues,
whether legal or business in nature, that has helped
me most in my career. MARTHA MINOW:
Thank you for that. Your wonderful marriage
and your wonderful sons are just such an
example to so many. Can you explain, how have
you balanced work, family, public life, community life? MITT ROMNEY: Let's see. I do remember at
one point feeling-- well, this is a regular point
for me-- feeling inadequate. And in this case, it was
I wasn't doing as much at school as my colleagues. I wasn't doing as much at
home as I felt I needed to to be a good dad and spouse. And I wasn't doing
as much at my church as other people in
my church were doing. And at that point I
recognized, if you feel that you're
underperforming in all three, you must have life in balance. [LAUGHTER] And if any one is
doing swimmingly, you must be
shortchanging the others. And so as time went on,
I had a couple of rules. And everybody can
pursue their own rules. One for me was, when I came
home, I put away the workbooks. Now, when I was going
here, I studied at home. I studied-- as a matter
of fact, when I was here, I decided that I would
not study on Sunday. It was about, I don't know,
halfway through my second year. Because I just felt like there
was a black cloud over me all the time, that I should
be studying all the time. That everybody else was
studying all the time. And I just said, I
can't live like this. So I said, I'm going
to take Sunday, and I'm not going
to study on Sunday. And it was marvelous. Because then on Sunday,
I didn't feel guilty if I wasn't studying. It was just, that's
just the deal. I don't study on Sunday. It gave me a day to sort
of calm down, be with my-- at this time, I had two children
when I was going to law school and spend time with them. So that worked. As I got into my career,
when I'd come home, I put the briefcase down,
and I didn't open it. When I was home, I was home. I was there for my
kids and my family. Now, if there was a
big deal going on, or there was a major consulting
assignment I had to work on, of course, I made exceptions. But by and large, almost
every night when I came home-- and I didn't get home early. I didn't get home
until 7:30 or 8:00, but I'd shut the briefcase
and just not worry about it until I got back to work. MARTHA MINOW: This
is such a challenge in an era of
multitasking when you're checking your smart watch and-- MITT ROMNEY: Yeah. We didn't-- yeah. I still have a dumb watch. And I remember, well,
this is long ago, I remember at business
school, four of us got together and
bought a Bowmar Brain. That was the first
calculator, the Bowmar Brain. $119, I remember it well! And it had four functions. And this put us miles ahead
of anyone else in the class. It was fabulous. MARTHA MINOW: It could
add, subtract, and--? MITT ROMNEY: Add, subtract,
multiply, and divide. And at the finals, the
faculty got together and voted that we
were not allowed to bring that into the finals. It was like, oh, no! We've got to learn how
to use the slide rule. And so it was a very
different technology time. And obviously-- but even
then, throughout my life, I said, look, I'm going to
make sure and do what I have to with my work, spend the time
with my family in the evenings, and on the weekends. And then, in terms
of my involvement in the community
and my church, I said I'm going to
give 10% of my time to community service
and church service. And that, you sort
of make those rules. And if you make them early
enough and stand by them, they end up serving
you pretty well. MARTHA MINOW: Your
work for the church, your work for non-profits
really are the community sector that we often don't hear about. And I so commend you. But I also want
to ask, are there lessons for the nonprofit sector
to be offered from the business sector, from the public sector? MITT ROMNEY: Oh, no
question about that. The nonprofit sector
is extraordinarily inefficient and unproductive
and overhead burdened. As are many aspects
of the health care industry, very much
in that category. The education industry is
very much overburdened. And so there are many lessons
to be taught from one discipline to another. In the area of nonprofits,
I was happy to be part of a nonprofit here known as-- you probably know City Year. I was involved with that. MARTHA MINOW: Started by
Harvard Law School alums. MITT ROMNEY: Exactly. And those guys were
really, really good at finding a model
that was sustainable. Right now, I'm working with a
group of physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital on
neurological research-- this is something my wife has been
championing-- and finding ways to do that in
a way that does not have centers all
over America all doing exactly the same work. But instead, combining and
collaborating across centers. This is something which
I find very important. One of the fun things about
being involved in the community at the same time you're
involved in the private sector is that you can help provide
some sharing of experience and learning across
those sectors. MARTHA MINOW: Some say that this
is a time of massive distrust of established institutions. Whether it's
government, law, banks, do you think that's true? If it's true, is it something
that can be addressed? MITT ROMNEY: I think it is
something which we say quickly, and in some respects,
pretend that we believe it. But then, we have
accounts at those banks. And we borrow money to get
our mortgage from those banks and institutions. We follow those institutions. We may have distrust in the
big internet institutions, but we all use Google. And we're on Facebook,
and we're on Twitter. Even though we say
we distrust them, we tend to use them as
part of our daily lives. I think the most
important thing is, if we distrust, is to
understand why we distrust, and then take action to try
and adjust those enterprises, or to pass them by,
to ascend above them. One of the great things
about this millennial age and the technology we
have is that individuals are able to connect with
other individuals of like mind and to change the
world around us. And we're seeing that in really
marvelous ways, both positive, by the way, as well
as some negative ways. We look at the development of
something like ISIS and say, that might not have
been able to occur had there not been the kind of
technology that exists today. But that's the reality. And those of us who
have very firm beliefs in the power of
freedom will have to use technology and the
entrepreneurial spirit to be able to fight
back and to preserve freedom for our children
and their children. MARTHA MINOW: We'll have
to find something that's as distributed and
decentralized and somehow can be mobilized to counter hate
and troubling developments. Now, I can't resist but
ask about polarization in this country. It certainly is often
also described that we are extremely polarized. Is that the case? And are there areas of overlap
between the different political parties, different regions
that are under-examined, under-exploited where
people could work together? MITT ROMNEY: I think
the polarization is real and probably becoming worse. I think one of the reasons
for that is that we don't get the same information. 30, 40 years ago, there
were three networks, three news programs. And we all watched one
hour of evening news. And all three had
basically the same stories. Because they would look
at each other's stories and learn from one another. And so we got the same news. And then, we could respond
to it in different ways, but at least we got
the same initial data. We also get our news from a
certain number of newspapers. And whether you liked
the papers or not, we had the same foundation
in terms of information. Today, conservatives
tend to get their news from one series of sources
that they tend to agree with. And liberals tend
to get their news from another series of sources
they tend to agree with. And so we rarely have people
with the same set of facts. And that makes us, I think,
become more and more polarized. Because we look at others
and say, how in the world could you possibly think what
you do knowing what I know? How could you think what you do? But they don't
know what you know, and you don't know what they
know because you haven't looked at the same facts. And so I am hopeful
that people of capacity will take the time not
just to read and to watch what they agree with,
but to understand what they disagree with. I think that
critical to a society like ours is the kind
of leadership associated with a president, or governors,
or senators, or education leaders, or even CEOs,
despised as they may be, it's people in leadership who
help try and bridge the gap. We've had times of great
division in our country before. And at times of that
nature, a great leader is able to step forward
and bring people together. One of the surprises of my
career and my experience over a lifetime in business
and in government and in the not-for-profit sector
is the impact of one person-- in a religion, in an
institution of higher learning, in a charity, in a
business, in a country. I mean, Winston Churchill. Look at the impact of one
person and the character of that one person in
terms of, in some respects, saving the world. And so the more
polarized we become, the more I look for
the kind of person who can step forward and
bring people together. And there are people who say
they will do that, but don't. And our country
desperately needs leaders who will stand up and
bring us together and find ways to bridge the gaps of
understanding between people. And I think we've
been missing that. And I think we need it. MARTHA MINOW: When I think
about how campaigns have changed from the time that
your father was in the business to your
experience, some of the media that you're describing, some
of it just nastiness, frankly. I wonder what you
would say to people who are inclined to do
public service but say, I don't want to go
through any of that. MITT ROMNEY: Yeah, you've got
to have a bit of a tough skin. And you look back, I don't
know that it's gotten worse. I mean, I go back
and I read some of the tracts that were sent
around the country in the very earliest days with Adams
and Jefferson and so forth. And I'll tell you, there were
some pretty brutal things. And you know, family
wasn't off limits. Personal attacks
were not off limits. MARTHA MINOW:
Looks-- that's true. MITT ROMNEY: I mean,
it was tough back then. It's tough now. And when you get into
the public sector, particularly if you're going
to run for political office, you have to know that's
part of the story. I mean, it's bloodsport. And you know, politics
is sport for old guys. And so that goes
with the territory. And politicians who
spend their time complaining about the media
are really missing it. You have to know that's
part of the playing field. You know, if you go out,
if you're playing football, and you complain about
there being natural grass, it's like, hey,
the field is grass. Get used to it, fella. All right? And so if you get into
politics, you know, the field is going to be you're
going to have-- you know which are the sources
of media that are on your side and which ones aren't. And if you own a newspaper,
or a television station, you're allowed to say
what you want to say. And so if they don't like
you and they beat you up, that's fair. That's how the system works. So your job is to figure
out how to use that and how to take advantage of it. I remember when I ran
for governor, my advisor, a guy named Mike
Murphy, he said, I've got a number of rules
before I'll sign up with you. One is this. You can't read any
newspaper stories about you or your campaign. I said, you're kidding. He said, no, no, no. He said, you can watch TV. You can see what's
happening on TV because we'll run the airwaves. We will run our campaign so the
TV news gets our message out. But we can't count on the Boston
Globe, or the Boston Herald. And so you can't
read those stories. And I said, well, why? I got thick skin. I could read it. He said, because
inevitably, subconsciously, you're going to find yourself
responding to what you read in the paper that morning. Some 25-year-old writer is going
to write some snotty thing. And you're going to be
defending against it all day long in all your speeches. And I want you to
be on your message, not on his or her message. And it turned out
to be good advice. We didn't read all the
articles written about me during the
presidential campaign. It's a good thing, apparently. [LAUGHTER] And you know, so if you get
involved in political life, yeah, they're going to
look at your income tax and how you made your money. They're going to look at what
you looked at on the internet. They're going to look at
your things you wrote, what you wrote here in school. And that's just
part of the story. And most of that
won't make a hill of beans worth of difference
in the final analysis as to what people will do. And you just get used
to it and plow on. MARTHA MINOW: We talked about
polarization of the country. What about within
the Republican Party? What will it take to build a
common message, common mission? MITT ROMNEY: We do have very
different voices in our party. That's in part a function of
not having the White House. When you have the White House,
the president, of course, speaks for his party
and disciplines anybody in his party who's
a real pain in the rear. And if somebody is saying crazy
stuff that he or she really disagrees with, they can
punish them by saying, hey, I'm going to come
into your district and get someone to
run against you. I'm going to put money behind
them, raise money for them, and get you out of office. That tends to
concentrate the mind. [LAUGHTER] And so presidents are able to
corral, to a certain degree, members of their own party. And so there's more
discipline in terms of message that comes by having
particularly a new president and having the White House. When you don't have
the White House, you have several hundred members
of Congress, and governors, and state houses, who
think their message should be the message of the party. And so they're out
expressing their views, and they're going
to be different. And we have now
not had the White House for a number of years. And so we have all those
messages being sent. And at some point,
the people of my party will decide whose
message is the one that represents their thinking. And we will select that person
as our nominee for 2016. And that will become
the message of my party. If we win, that'll
be the message for four to eight years. If we lose, we'll continue to
have these different voices saying, well, the reason we
lost is because your message is wrong and my message is right. And so we'll have that battle
going on, what we have now. We have Rand Paul, who
represents a real libertarian strain in the Republican Party. And I think he's bringing some
very interesting perspectives and viewpoints to
the Republican Party. And I think helping attract
new voters to our party. People say, gosh, I
agree with that guy. I'm not a Republican,
but I agree with that Republican Rand Paul. I like that. And even though he and I
don't agree on every issue, I like what he's talking about,
and the impact he's having. Ted Cruz takes a very different
approach to governance. [LAUGHTER] Oh, you've heard
of him, have you? Yeah. MARTHA MINOW: Another
Harvard Law School grad. MITT ROMNEY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] And Ted's tactical approach
is very different than that of other members of my party. And then, you have Jeb Bush,
Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham. MARTHA MINOW: Bobby Jindal. MITT ROMNEY: Bobby Jindal. More graduates in here if
I don't know about them. Carly Fiorina, others
who are a little more towards the center of my party,
at least as I calculate it. And we'll hear what
their views are on everything from taxation to
social policies, and policies to alleviate poverty,
foreign policy. So we're going to have
those different messages. And there'll be battles
within our party. And if Hillary
Clinton were to have a strong challenger
from the left and the right of her party,
she'd have the same thing. I don't think that's
likely to happen. I don't know. Lincoln Chafee, I guess, did
you see is thinking of running? Former governor of Rhode
Island, once a Republican, now a Democrat. And he will run to her left. That's quite a movement
from the Republican. And he's been there. He's been there quite a while. And I think it's healthy to
have that kind of debate. In some respects, that
recalibrates a party. And I think once
we have a nominee, our footing and grounding
will be more secure. By the way, I didn't
mention Chris Christie. I mean, there are a lot of
really good people in my party that will express their views
and will come to settle, I think. MARTHA MINOW: So
in a minute, I'm going to invite you
to ask questions. But first, I have one more. You have these wonderful sons. I wonder what advice
do you give them. What do you think are
the greatest challenges and opportunities for
the generation that's represented by your sons
and by these students? MITT ROMNEY: You
know, I have not tried to guide my sons
in their own careers. And they have chosen
very different paths. Your generation is more
entrepreneurial than mine. Mine tended to think about
going to work in a corporation and working your way up. When I was at business school,
actually after my first year here at Harvard Law School, I
went to Chrysler Corporation on an internship, thinking I
wanted to become an automobile executive like my dad had been. And so I was there one summer. And I hated it. It was so bureaucratic. And layer upon layer
of bureaucracy. I mean, at 5 o'clock,
there was a jam at the parking lot, everybody
going home exactly at 5:00. So I didn't appreciate that and
looked for a different path. And my path became
more entrepreneurial than I'd expected, getting
into private equity and venture capital. And so my sons have tended to
be more entrepreneurial than I was in their first steps. I have three sons who are in
real estate but not together, meaning they work in
different enterprises, each their own enterprises. But they're buying multifamily
buildings, and so forth. They have investors whose money
they invest buying apartment buildings and so forth. Three are doing that. One is a doctor
and a radiologist. And the last works in
private equity and venture capital, again, his own firm. So none are working in
a major corporation. Four in business,
one in medicine. The guy in medicine,
I used to joke that he's the first Romney smart
enough to go to medical school. And he loves
research, and that's a good part of what he does. So for them, I happen to
believe that you really want to get as much out of
living as you possibly can. You will not be here forever. You want to live life in full. You want to have every
experience in life you possibly can. You're only here for a
short period of time. I encouraged my kids, I said,
look, if you find someone you fall in love with and you
want to be with that person, marry them. Have kids. It's a huge part
of life experience. And so my boys have married. And now, I have 23 grandkids. And I encourage them
also to be involved in their communities,
politics as well as their religious community
and other social dimensions of their community. And you know, I wish them well. I can't imagine what
the world is going to be like over the next 100 years. I just wish I could
stay and watch. MARTHA MINOW: That's fantastic. So questions? I'm going to ask you to
identify yourself and make your questions brief. Who has one? There's one over here. ALEX: Hi, my name is Alex. I'm actually an interloper
from across the river. I'm in Section I, which you
were in Section I, right? MITT ROMNEY: Exactly, yeah. ALEX: And I'm joint
at the Kennedy School, and I also had the
pleasure of being able to work while I
was in school a bit on your presidential campaign. MITT ROMNEY: Thank you. ALEX: My question is you
were the governor here in Massachusetts. Now, again I would
say thankfully, we have a Republican governor. But Republicans have struggled
a bit in the Northeast recently when it was, at
one point, actually in fact the base of the party. What are your
thoughts going forward on how Republicans can be
competitive in the Northeast again? MITT ROMNEY: I think we have
a real problem in my party. And I am part of
that problem in terms of communicating what
we stand for and why what we stand for
is designed and is most effective in helping people
of modest incomes, the poor and the middle class. Our opposition party has done
a great job characterizing us as the party of the rich. The rich will do fine whether
Republicans or Democrats are presidents or governors. The rich do fine
anywhere in the world. The rich take care of
themselves very well, find a way to take
care of themselves. The question is,
who's going to do the best job for the
middle class and the poor? And the reason I ran
for office, the reason I ran for governor, the reason
I ran for president is because I believed my policies
and my leadership would be most likely to help
people come out of poverty and most likely to
help the middle class, see better incomes
and better outcomes. And I'm absolutely
convinced of that. I'm convinced that
conservative principles create more enterprises and
more good jobs, which causes competition
to hire people, which causes wages to go up. And that's why I'm a Republican. And we have difficulty as
a party breaking through and getting that message out. The opposition party
says, oh, but you're rich! You're, therefore, a bad guy. You're rich! And it becomes, well, ah, I'm
trying to help other people. Yeah, but you're rich! And so we spent our
time talking about-- [LAUGHTER] You know? Talking about, well, how
much did you pay in taxes? What was your tax rate? Well, it was as
low as I possibly could make it, all right? [APPLAUSE] Anybody who pays more
taxes than they're legally required to pay
probably should be disqualified. [LAUGHTER] Now, maybe you want to
change the tax code. And that's fine, too. We can have that
discussion as to how to get a more fair
share as we would describe it, think about it. But I think the key is this. You spend your time talking
about all the periphery. But what I failed
at being able to do was to communicate
nationally that I was here to really help the people of
the middle class and the poor. And that's why I was running. And my policies would do that. I believe that with
regards to education. I believe Republicans improve
education and Democrats don't. You think, well, that can't be. I think the problem is
the teacher's union, and its extraordinary financial
grip on the Democratic Party. In terms of poverty,
I believe our policies get people out of poverty,
and the Democratic policies keep them in poverty. We've had a war on
poverty since 1964 under Lyndon Baines Johnson. His heart was in the right
place but the policies weren't. We now have more poor people in
America than ever in history. MARTHA MINOW: One out of five. MITT ROMNEY:
Generational poverty. I believe our
policies are better designed to help incomes
go up and have more jobs. So that's why I'm a Republican. And our problem
in the Northeast, and our problem nationally,
is our candidates have not been as
effective communicating that as we should have been. And I was not as effective
as I wish I would have been. I got elected here because I
communicated it well in my race for governor, but
didn't do as well in my race for the White House. Thank YOU. MARTHA MINOW: Next question. There's one down here. SHERYL DICKEY: Hi,
Governor Romney. I know when you-- MARTHA MINOW: Say
who you are, please? SHERYL DICKEY: Oh. My name is Sheryl Dickey, and
I work here at the law school. I know when you were
governor, you actively blocked the same-sex marriage
decision here by the SJC. And now, here we
are 10 years later, over 25,000 couples have
gotten married in Massachusetts and gone on to raise children
and are productive members of our community. I'm sure you know several
gay couples in your life. Now that we're on the
verge of perhaps a Supreme Court legalizing
same sex marriage, I wonder if you have any regrets
or reflections or changes of thinking since that first
decision here in Massachusetts. MITT ROMNEY: Well,
my opposition made a great deal of saying
that I flip flopped, and I'm happy to announce
that I have the same position now that I had 10 years ago. And that is, I
believe marriage is a relationship between
a man and a woman, that the ideal setting
for raising a child is where there's a man
and a woman in marriage. That's my view. But you know what? The Supreme Court
may make a decision which is different
than that, and we abide by the law of the land. We're entitled to have
different perspectives. I just happen to think
that's the perspective that's both historic and appropriate. But I certainly respect people
who have different viewpoints. And obviously believe that
discrimination against people based upon their sexual
orientation is wrong and should be prohibited. And I've seen some
states, by the way, recently passed
legislation providing anti-discrimination provisions. I think that makes sense. MARTHA MINOW: Next question? Right here. MITT ROMNEY: Hi. MICHAEL: Hi. Thank you so much for coming. My name Michael [? Dwyer. ?] I'm
a student graduating next year. Last week, the ACLU
sponsored some events here at Harvard Law,
and they shed light on some of the shortcomings
of the war on drugs. I was just curious if you had
any thoughts about the war on drugs and any ideas of
addressing that in the future. MITT ROMNEY: Yeah. I think obviously it's been an
extraordinarily unsuccessful battle to date. And we look to see, are there
places where the battle is being waged more successfully? And look to see if there
are some positive examples. We're seeing some tests of
that in our own country, as well as other countries. In my own view, we should
devote more of our resources to helping, from a
marketing standpoint, to convince people
not to use drugs, in the same way we
did with tobacco. And I think that's
a more effective way to try and pull back the
extraordinary expansion of the drug culture and the
peril of drugs in our society. So I don't know that
I would legalize all drugs in the country. I don't think that's the
right course to take. But I do think that using our
resources to help convince young people not to get started
in drugs, not to use drugs, and to use the
marketing approach will be a more effective way for
us to put a dent in this peril. But time will tell, and we'll
learn from the experiences of one another. MARTHA MINOW: Next question? Right here in the front row. AUDIENCE: Hi, Governor Romney. Thank you for being
with us today. My name is [? Damie ?]
Sanchez, and I'm a 3L from Miami, Florida. And my question is, what
was the biggest challenge that you encountered
running for president, and what advice do you
give the candidates that are running in 2016? MITT ROMNEY: I'm having some
fun in talking to the people who are running in 2016. A number of them
have been kind enough to either come by and see
me, or give me a call, and ask me that question. And I talk to them
about policies. One of the things I
have mentioned to them, and I don't know that it
is falling on open ears, but I say be very careful
in the policies you adopt so that they can not
be demagogued into saying, we're the party of the rich. All right? We know that's what they're
going to hit us with, whoever our nominee is. We know that they'll
say our policies are to make the rich richer. And so I say, be
very careful not to adopt tax policies that
will be able to be demagogued as being about helping the rich. So that's one small example. Number two, I tell them
that we have a special need to reach out to minority
voters, and to do so early. Now, that's something which
is kind of hard for someone who's running-- let's say there are 15 people
running in our primary, one of them is going to get
the nod to become our nominee. And that person knows that,
by and large, minority voters don't vote in
Republican primaries. And so for the next
almost two years, they will be inclined to
spend all their time not with minority voters,
because they're not going to be selecting
them as the nominee, but instead with the majority
voters, the white population. That's where they'll go. That's who they'll
be speaking to. When we finally get a
nominee in, let's say June, they will now run to minority
voters, asking for their vote. And the minority voters
will appropriately say, where have you been? And the answer
is, oh, well, I've been out trying to become the
nominee among the people who typically select our nominees. And that's a mistake. A mistake I made
well, which is we need to work with
minority communities well before we
become the nominee and encourage them to
watch our campaigns, to know of our concern, to
hear how it is our policies will be most designed to
help them and their families. Likewise, once you
become the nominee, we've got to watch
the Hispanic media and see what's being
said on Hispanic media, and respond to those
things that aren't right, and make sure we have an
equal voice in minority media. So that again, our message
is getting through. Hardest thing for me, I mean,
it's physically draining. I mean, I probably
spent 330 nights in a hotel room, almost never
the same hotel room twice. I made it a practice. Our staff had to get my wife
and me together at least one day out of every seven. We got together. We took most Sundays off. So there are a few things that
help on the physical side. The hardest part about
the campaign was losing. [LAUGHTER] It's much more fun
to win than to lose. But you know, that
being said, it's an exhilarating experience. Running for president
brings you into homes of people across the country. These are not the people
who made the nightly news. These are not the
people who did bad stuff to make the nightly news. These are average
American citizens who are raising families,
building businesses, starting internet companies,
going to work in a factory, and they're good people-- patriotic, hardworking,
caring about things bigger than themselves. And so I came away
exhilarated for the campaign, more optimistic about America,
more confident in our future. The heart of the
country is good. And if you get the chance
to run for president, do it. It's great. [LAUGHTER] So I have to tell you, there
were challenging things. But it was a
wonderful experience. The biggest surprise,
by the way, for me was I shook so many
hands, and I didn't realize that as you
shake all these hands, that it can make your back
get a little sore, muscles in your back. So one night, I was
in San Francisco, and this muscle in my
back was killing me. And it was kind of
early in the campaign. And I asked the guy who travels
with me, Garrett Jackson, I said, could you get
someone to massage my back? And he found a massage center. And they sent a lovely
Hispanic woman over to give me a back massage. She came to my room. He was there with us. And she gave me the massage. And after it was almost
over, she turned to him. And she said, Mr.
Romney, is he a dancer? [LAUGHTER] And I was like,
these legs have never been considered dancing legs. It was the highlight
of my campaign. MARTHA MINOW: Is there a
question in this-- over here? In the back there, yes. CHARLES: Hi, Governor Romney. Excuse me. My name is Charles [? Guyra. ?]
I'm a 2L originally from New Orleans. And as you know,
not every Olympics is an absolute
disaster, but cities like Barcelona and Athens
and even Atlanta arguably serve as reminders that a city
puts itself at a huge risk of taking a huge financial hit. Shouldn't Boston be begging
to not get the Olympics? Because it doesn't seem like
there's an enormous upside and there's a huge risk? MITT ROMNEY: I don't look
at the Olympic decision as a financial decision. I know there are many who do. They say, how much money will
come in from the visitors? How much federal money
will we get for highways and infrastructure? How many buildings will
we build, for instance, either for the media or for the
athletes that will stay behind? And will there be
an endowment left? In our case, in Salt Lake
City, we left $100 million in profit behind as an endowment
to maintain facilities. So there are some that
look at the dollars and cents of the Olympics. And I think, on that basis,
it's an uncertain call for most cities. I think an American city
would spend a lot more time, as we did, looking at the
dollars and cents of the things they're going to build,
what the cost will be, what their sources
of revenue are to make sure they will
be balanced and not require a government bailout. But the city, the host
city is on the hook. The host city, and
potentially the state or the federal government,
depending on the country, is responsible to make
sure the games go on. And so there is a financial
risk associated with that. So for me, if I don't look
at it as a dollar and cent proposition, why do
I consider it at all? And why do I like the
Olympics for a host city? And the answer is because
it brings the city together. The Olympics is about an
opportunity to serve the world. It is about saying, we're
going to welcome you to our community. And we're going to have
tens of thousands of us give you 30 days of
volunteer service. We're going to come
together, and eat together, sleep together, work
our hearts together. And we're going to welcome
the athletes of the world. First, the Olympians,
then the paralympians. 17 days each. And we're going to
welcome the world here. And show them America,
show them our city, show them our culture,
show them our passion. And it's about service. So for me, the Olympics
is a service opportunity. If a city sees it as
a service opportunity, and gets behind
it in that way, I think they'll find it
extraordinarily rewarding. I know in Salt Lake
City, for instance, I think that the poll after
the Olympics, like 80% said, let's do it again. Sydney, I think the same thing. If they see it instead
as a money thing, who gets excited
about a money thing? A few people, perhaps. But it's really about-- it's really about showcasing
the great qualities of the human spirit through
these young athletes for the whole world to see. The Olympic audience is
several billion people a night. Billion! And they see your country. They see your volunteers. They see the athletes. They see courage,
determination, teamwork, faith, patriotism, passion. They see all these things. I'd like my kids and the kids of
the world to see those things. I've sat in these Olympic
events, as you can imagine, when I got the job. I go to these events with
people from other countries. What astonished me is we
would cheer for one another. It's not just Americans
cheering for Americans, although we did that, too. But if you saw a
great performance, you'd cheer the
great performance. The Olympics brings
people together. So for me, if Boston
wants to welcome the world and serve the world
and say, you know what, we're going to do what it
takes to welcome people here, and to let them see our city
and the history of America as it's expressed in this
city, and our values, and we're going to make that
contribution to the world, then it'll be successful. If Boston says, you know,
what's in it for me, then it won't work. MARTHA MINOW:
Question over here? REBECCA LIPMAN: Hi,
Governor Romney. I'm Rebecca Lipman. I'm a 3L. I saw the really excellent
documentary, Mitt, that was on Netflix. And I think a lot
of people thought it was a really warm, engaging
portrait of you that maybe wasn't always
reflected it the news media of the campaign trail. And actually, a lot of
people are commenting this with Hillary Clinton right now. They say, she is incredibly
engaging and likable in person. But when she's on
the campaign trail, the same impression isn't drawn. I just wondered what you
thought was sort of the biggest challenge or why it
was so incredibly challenging to get across
an authentic picture of a candidate? MITT ROMNEY: Yes. It's one of the real challenges
we have in our country. And I'm sure it's been the
case from the beginning of our country. And that is, how do you
communicate who you really are, particularly when the opposition
team has, as its objective, in some respects, defining you
in a less than flattering way? And there's an advantage
to being a known commodity. I think in the case
of Secretary Clinton, we know her pretty well. She's been around
a long enough time that it would be
difficult for Republicans to try and define her
in a way that's totally at odds with who she is. It's easier if someone-- let's
say Chris Christie becomes the nominee, or Jeb Bush. We don't know Jeb Bush
terribly well or Scott Walker. We don't know him well. So it will be easier
for the opposition party to define him in ways that
may be less than flattering. What are your options as a
candidate to define yourself and to do so in
a way that's more flattering and more authentic
than the opposition is going to do? You don't have a lot
of opportunities. You have 30 second ads. And you know, by and large,
you want to talk about policy and hit back at your
opponent in those few 30 second ads you get. You have the debates. And they're pretty artificial. You're standing behind a
podium, wearing a suit, and being asked questions. And those are probably
your only opportunities. The media will do a profile
piece here and there. But people have looked at this
documentary that was done. Those that haven't
seen it, Netflix ran a documentary called Mitt. We had a documentary
filmmaker who followed us both in 2008 and 2012-- and
I mean, followed us everywhere-- and then, put a film together. I told him, by the way. People said, did you edit this? The answer is no. I told him if I won, I was
going to edit it, all right? Because this would be a story
of the President of the United States. And it couldn't
just be anything. But if I lost,
hey, do your best. [LAUGHTER] So I lost. So he put it together. And it's running. People said, why didn't you
show that during the campaign? It would have shown a very
different side of you. Well, the truth is, had we
shown it during the campaign, I would have
wanted, and my staff would have wanted,
to edit it to make sure I wasn't saying something
that would be contradictory or inflammatory or whatever. And people would
assume, of course, that it was a puff piece. And no one would watch it. I mean, you'd have
almost no audience. Who's going to sit down and
watch a one and a half hour puff piece by the candidate? So I don't know that we've
got a great way of doing that. I look back and say, I wish
I had done more Tonight Show, and David Letterman, and SNL,
and some of those things, just a chance for people to
see me in a different context. We did some of that. I was with David Letterman
and on the Tonight Show as well a couple of times. But I guess doing more
of that is probably the right way to go. I think Bill Clinton did
that well, got out there with his saxophone. And I think that probably helps. But you know what? I did that here. When I was running for governor
here, and was not well-defined, I decided one of the
things I was going to do is that every week, spend one
day doing someone else's job. And so I was a
garbage man one day. I made franks at
Fenway Park one day. I worked at a
nursing home one day. I worked in a daycare
center one day. I worked on a
paving crew one day. And by the way, it was
really educational. I found, for
instance, on the back on the garbage
truck, the guy that stands on the back
of the garbage truck, just hangs on there-- I stood on there, and they
drove the garbage truck through the city of Boston. And we'd pull up to a corner. There'd be people waiting
to cross the street. And I am not more than two
feet from these people. And they don't see you. You are invisible. You're in a garbage truck. You're an invisible person. It was amazing to me that we
see people who are like us, and dressed like us, and
doing the same things. And I thought, wow. We don't see each other
as we ought to in society. The hardest job, by the way-- well, I have to tell you one. On that garbage truck, the
levers in the back of it that cause this
big thing to come down and crush the
garbage, and so I filled up the whole back bin. And then, I pulled the lever. And it went the wrong way. It went out, and pushed all
the garbage onto the street. And there were these-- let me tell you. No one came to my aid. All right? [LAUGHTER] They'd walk around
the garbage men. But there were some guys
working in a building, you know, contractors
swinging the hammer. They came down. They all came down laughing. They came down, picked
up all the stuff with me. It's interesting how we can
connect with one another. But the hardest job by
far was the lowest paid-- working in the day care center. And I have to admit, I did
not stay the whole day. It's like I've got
to get out of here. I can't handle this. It is hard work. MARTHA MINOW: I have one
last question for you, which is, when are you coming back? Please join me in
thanking Governor Romney. MITT ROMNEY: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks so much. You're very kind. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Good to be with you. Thanks. [? Roger? ?] [APPLAUSE]
