Missing a Few Details

Last Updated on August 22, 2017

Sometimes, as many of you know, it’s what a political ad doesn’t come right out and say that is worth thinking about.

I’ve been thinking about a campaign commercial called, “Searched” from the Mitt Romney crowd. It’s a testimonial by one of his business associates, a father whose daughter went missing in the Big Apple. Oh, yes…you’ve seen it, right?

I’ve seen the spot often enough now that when I do, I start asking lots of questions, starting with whether I’d run the same spot if I were going for your vote. And the answer I keep coming up with is no.

It seems innocent enough. There’s a father, Robert Gay, who obviously loves his daughter, at times struggling to avoid breaking down as he recounts the terrifying story of her disappearance. It’s one of those “parent’s worst nightmare” moments that we promo people like to mention when we’ve hit writer’s block in a script.

Mitt Romney, he says, brought the company both men were partners in, (Bain Capital), to a halt so that all of the employees could travel to New York City to search for his daughter.

Nowhere does the ad claim that the 14-year-old girl was “abducted” or “kidnapped.” But it also doesn’t report that police said that she voluntarily went to a rave — one of those underground concerts where drugs are, unfortunately, often served — and took some Ecstasy, after which she “wandered the city” and met a young man who took her to his parents’ home in New Jersey.

This additional information came from the same source that tells the story in the emotional political commercial: her father. That’s according to this article in the New York Times from 13 July 1996.

It is interesting to note that this article also reports that police said at the time no charges would be filed, which certainly would be strange if she had actually been kidnapped.

It also explains that police responded to the house after receiving several phone calls but makes no mention of the much-heralded search itself being responsible for her discovery.

And there’s more: the same article says this about how the search began:

“Mr. Gay, a partner in the private investment firm Bain Capital, launched a huge search with the help of business partners Thursday to help locate his daughter, whom the family had not heard from since last Saturday.”

It was Gay, the article says, who launched the search. Not Romney.

A second Times article adds this:

“Bain Capital’s partners closed down the firm and drew on friendships and connections to find volunteers for the search.”

Neither article mentions the selfless act of friendship by Romney. Neither article mentions Romney by name at all. And both articles, including the one written after an interview with Gay himself, make it clear that the decision involved several people: “with the help of his business partners,” for example.

Now, eleven years later, unnamed “business partners” becomes Mitt Romney alone.

Maybe Romney, like Mike Huckabee, forgot that this is the Information Age, in which such information is readily available to anyone who can type a few keywords into Google. Maybe, the father was so overwhelmed at the time with fear and worry about his child, that he just didn’t think about praising the “one man” who saved his daughter.

Or maybe time has changed the perception of who did what.

But beyond the selfless gesture itself, what is one really supposed to get out of this spot?

That Romney knows that nothing — especially money — is more important than family? That Romney is the kind of guy who wouldn’t mind letting a business he’s run lose millions of dollars during a humanitarian crisis?

Or maybe that Romney, given a cause he’s passionate enough about, wouldn’t be above bringing everything — possibly even the government? — to a standstill just so he gets the outcome he wants?