Romney: I'm Not Too Rich to Relate
In an interview with ABC News Monday, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney disputed the notion that he was out of touch with average Americans.
"We asked for questions online at Yahoo!," Diane Sawyer told the former Massachusetts governor, "and a number of them came in basically asking, 'Are you too rich to relate?" She listed a representative sample of wealth-related Romney gaffes and missteps -- "the speaking fees, the Cadillacs, the story out now that there's an elevator for your cars in the new house you're planning in La Jolla" -- and asked, "Is this a relatability problem?"
Seeming to ignore the fact that the question had been posed by ordinary Americans, Romney explained that "we don't divide America based upon success, and wealth, and other dimensions of that nature. We're one nation under God. We come together." After expounding on the president's purported failure to turn the economy around, Romney chuckled and said, "But I know that there will be some who try to make it about anything else but that."
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According to Bloomberg, the former private-equity honcho "has estimated his wealth to be as much as $250 million in 2010, mostly from investments." If accurate, that figure would make Romney the second richest U.S. president -- after George Washington, whose net worth was as high as $525 million, adjusted for inflation -- were Romney to win November's election.
